Disaster?? Will they be OK???

[SJS]

Came home about 9 p.m. tonight and the tank (and system) was 87+ degrees - the temp probe had come out of the tank so the heater just kept heating - lights were off already, turned heater off - aded as much made up water as I had and even dumped in 4 liter bottles of water I had in the fridge, made a little difference, but I didn't want to drop it too fast either. Turned lights on to see where the critters were, no one to be seen, put some food in and 2 of the 3 chromis came out of their caves - sort of, 1 came out into the water column, 1 hung out at the entrance of his cave, last one just poked his head out of his cave but wouldn't come out. Benny the blenny was hopping around happy as could be.
Received 2 new Vortechs today so added those to the tank hoping to get some water movement at the top, turned on the fans and opened the window... Temp down to 85.5 now...

Both chromis show discoloration, kind of reddish tint to the back part of their bodies, whitish discoloration (spots) on their heads, can't see the 3rd chromis so I'm not sure his condition.

Are they doomed? Can they survive this disaster? How long till I know the final outcome?

 

[reefer4200]

i believe you should be okay maybe put some shock treatment in?? not sure never had that happen but i dont think that your sol you should be okay and everything should be okay in a day or two i would say?

 

[SJS]

Hope so - its a BIG system - about 450 gallons total and that's a lot to try to cool down, trying to let it cool slowly - it's killing me!! I don't want to wake up to dead fish!

 

[lcstorc]

I had the reverse happen with my chiller twice. It brought the temp from 81-66. Both times I just turned off the chiller and let the system come back to normal at it's own speed. I only lost one coral from both instances. Obviously the chiller is now offline until I get a controller.
For your case I would take out those new pumps. Pumps produce heat so they may be doing more harm than good. I would set up a lot of fans and leave the lights off until the temp is back to normal. The thing you don't want to do is change the temp too quickly in either direction so I wouldn't do anything too drastic.

 

[tbittner]

I know it's a bit late but in the early days, my tank got up to 86 and I put ice in a bag and floated it in the water. I only had 180g in my system at that point but it brought the temp down to 80 in about 2 hours. I didn't lose any corals or fish from it.

How is your temp probe attached to the tank? If it's attached using suction cups, run a very small bead of silicon around the inside of the cup and then reattach it. Warning though, you will NOT be able to get the cups off of the tank easily. You'll need a razor blade.

 

[SJS]

UPDATE: ALL FINE - phewwww. Thank you all for the replies - tank back to 79, everybody swimming happily.
The problem was: temp probe, which is in the sump, was suctioned on the wall, water level in the sump is really low as I am waiting for new filters for the ro/di, when I added a bag of carbon the other day I bumped the probe up too high... Probe is now at the bottom of the sump...

 

[lcstorc]

Glad to hear everything is ok.

 

[shale]

Glad to hear it all worked out well. I had the same thing happen with the temp probe. Lost the cleaner shrimp, but the fish made it through okay. Nice work in getting things back under control!