Tank issue advice.

[Ruben's Reef]

Hi everyone,

I almost have my whole tank to crash. A week ago while at work I had a Red Sea app notification that my ATO/ Reefmat was disconnected. I went and look at the app and it was, also cheked my Apex and also was disconnected. Then I look at my HomiQ camera and also disconnected but the weird part was that I have no notification from Spectrum or Teco of a power outage. So look at my home cameras and those has power so mean that probably the system brake went off. Wait for my wife to get home, 4 hours later and she call me that the aquarioum light was off. Then I told her to check the braker panel and the braker for the tank was off. I told her to put it back in. Then the whole thing start working, I checked the tank camera and everything was just fine. Then came off again and I told her to put it back in so look like someting is tripping my braker, something that never happens. She called me and tolds me that the was something making a pop noise. By that time I got home, the water on the sump smell strong and I heard the ticking but can't find where it come from until I touched the UV sterilizer ( icecap in-sump UV sterilizer) and smoked came off the water. Looks like it was short circuit in the UV pump.
Now, little by little my corals atarted closing and a couple of acros started getting brown so I make a 20g water change giving a cleanup to the sump. Even a montipora went bleached. Correct if Im wrong but I think that my whole micro fauna in the sump went dead either for the current of the faulty UV or for the time that was without movement and when she turn the braker back-on all that bad water when to the diaplay and mess up everything. The display tank has two MP40 conected to the backup battery that was working good. MY ORP went from 380 to 140.
Now, im dealing with some dying corals and a thick diatoms on rocks and sand. Some of my CC die. All fishes are good. My parameters now are 8.4 dkh alk, 0.05 phosphate and 4.4 nitrates. ORP are back to 400.

If something like that happens in the future for a over 2 hours I will turn off the return pump so nothing goes back to the DT and make a mess.

What would be your suggestion. Add more bacteria and wish one or let it go back to normal on its own?

Thanks in advance

Ruben

 

[Gumbies R Us]

#reefsquad

 

[Rocks reef]

Since the UV was short circuiting. My thought would be the stray current wreaking havoc on the tank. The lack of water movement wouldn't cause it especially since your MP-40s are on battery back up, so you still had water movement.

 

[Ruben's Reef]

Since the UV was short circuiting. My thought would be the stray current wreaking havoc on the tank. The lack of water movement wouldn't cause it especially since your MP-40s are on battery back up, so you still had water movement.

Thanks for your reply. I think that the main problem apart of the short circuit was the sump without any movement for almost 4 hours and all that water (30g) getting into the display tank.

 

[EnterName]

Water changes & activated charcoal to deal with the sudden die-off and potentially released toxins is the only thing I can think of right now.

Of course you will need to check if other devices (such as heaters or controllers) are broken, or if the salinity is off due to the failing ATO, but I think you can't do much more than that.

The diatoms (or maybe dinos?) are probably just taking the opportunity to break down the suddenly released organics. In a way they are actually "helping" to bring the water back to where it was before. Let's hope it's not a toxic dino species on top and it should get better soon. Sometimes even very bleached corals can recover, so maybe there is a chance to bounce back.

 

[Ruben's Reef]

Water changes & activated charcoal to deal with the sudden die-off and potentially released toxins is the only thing I can think of right now.

Of course you will need to check if other devices (such as heaters or controllers) are broken, or if the salinity is off due to the failing ATO, but I think you can't do much more than that.

The diatoms (or maybe dinos?) are probably just taking the opportunity to break down the suddenly released organics. In a way they are actually "helping" to bring the water back to where it was before. Let's hope it's not a toxic dino species on top and it should get better soon. Sometimes even very bleached corals can recover, so maybe there is a chance to bounce back.

Yes, I did two water changes of 20g in two days and add a bag of carbon on the bottom of the reefmat. Thing are getting better but I have that brown thing on the sand and rocks.

 

[EnterName]

Water changes & activated charcoal to deal with the sudden die-off and potentially released toxins is the only thing I can think of right now.

Of course you will need to check if other devices (such as heaters or controllers) are broken, or if the salinity is off due to the failing ATO, but I think you can't do much more than that.

The diatoms (or maybe dinos?) are probably just taking the opportunity to break down the suddenly released organics. In a way they are actually "helping" to bring the water back to where it was before. Let's hope it's not a toxic dino species on top and it should get better soon. Sometimes even very bleached corals can recover, so maybe there is a chance to bounce back.

Yes, I did two water changes of 20g in two days and add a bag of carbon on the bottom of the reefmat. Thing are getting better but I have that brown thing on the sand and rocks.

If it's covering rocks I assume it's dinos. If you can get your hands on a microscope this would help A LOT with the diagnosis. However, I think it will sort itself out once all the suddenly released organics are processed. Manual removal will help to effectively remove the bioload as well.

 

[Ruben's Reef]

If it's covering rocks I assume it's dinos. If you can get your hands on a microscope this would help A LOT with the diagnosis. However, I think it will sort itself out once all the suddenly released organics are processed. Manual removal will help to effectively remove the bioload as well.

Ok, will work on that. Thanks a lot for the advice.