My tank has crashed.. I'm devastated..

[rhogeo]

Came in this morning and the temp was 97 degrees... An attorney down the hall called me yesterday afternoon and said the tank was making a bad noise and the "tube" in back was overflowing badly. It was the skimmer.. I've had it do this before, but caught it early the next morning. Not sure what caused it to go crazy, but there was salt spray all over the tank and carpet. Enough had come out to cause the water level to drop, and when I walked in I could here teh circulation pumps whining. Tank was full of bubbles and smelled awful, not to mention hot!

I've changed out about 10 gallons of water and gotten the temp down to 83 and dropping. The clowns are alive and the emerald crab looks to be alive and feasting well.

All my frogspawn have melted and the stalks are now a pretty white. Not sure if they will come back or not. My Ricordia looks all to be gone, and I really liked those. Some of the Zoa are probably going to make it.

Going out at lunch to get more water and will keep doing water changes for the next few days.

The thing is, I had been thinking about ordering a controller so I could watch the temp and have some scripts to shut things down in case of high temp. I was mostly thinking about how it warms up in here in the summer on weekends, didn't imagine this would happen.

I can see how some quit when this thing happens... I am going to make another run at it.

[Nowellsy SNR]

Im really sorry to hear that seems like a living nightmare glad your going to give it a second shot would be so easy to pack it in now! Bet it has really give you second thoughts on Reefing.

Keep us updated and hope what has survived pull through ok

[rhogeo]

I feel awful, since I feel like it was my fault. I was just thinking on Friday how easy it has been keeping the tank... Famous last words..

[BigAl07]

AWw man this stinks! I hate to hear about your losses. Keep doing water changes and testing the water for signs of wavering water parameters.

[Nowellsy SNR]

I was saying the same thing mate then i had an outbreak off Ich im not taking anything for granted in this hobby.

I really hope you get back on track and can start enjoying your tank.

[bhazard]

What heater were you using? Get rid of the RSM one ASAP.

I'm surprised anything is still alive at 97 degrees. That really stinks.

This is also why I'm hesitant about turning my 120 gallon tank into a saltwater one. Imagine if this happened or a power outage? It would be like taking thousands of dollars and lighting it on fire.

[pocketreef]

Be strong and try to understand the root cause. These tanks wouldnt normaly reach such temp even on summer.

The anomaly is still there.

[redsea reefer]

That really sucks, hopefully you have some survivors.

[Reefmack]

Wow - I just saw this thread and I'm so sorry for you rhogeo! If you figure out what caused it please let us know. I could see a heater sticking on would cause the tank rise, but I'm not sure about the water level dropping. Maybe that 97 degrees and some die-off in the tank caused the skimmer to foam so much that the cup overflowed over the back and onto the floor? What a sad situation.

If it is heater related it's a word of warning to others that they should look into getting a separate heater controller to shut off power to the heater if it sticks on. The cost of a heater controller is insignificant compared to the loss of a whole tank. I went for over 2 years before getting my heater on a controller, even though I once lost a whole FW tank to a heater sticking on. I feel a lot safer now.

[Oakhouse]

rhogeo, sorry to hear of the crash, been looking at chillers and separate heater controls today!! I only put in an electronic thermometer a few days ago, and have been shocked by the temp swing (around 3 degrees Celsius!).

So glad you decided not to throw the metaphorical towel in on this one!

[radar]

I feel your pain. I had the same thing happen to me in Sep when ac went out. The tank was over 95 and i lost most of the coral. Kenya and mushrooms seemed fine through it, zoos and toadstool beat back but recovered, and a goniopora that's still recovering. All the fish survived and from what i can tell most of the inverts. Good luck in the recovery.

[rhogeo]

Thanks all. Temp is down to 81 now. the 2 Clownfish survived, but lost my six line, chromis, YWG, cleaner shrimp, peppermint shrimps and some hermit crabs and snails. As for Corals, the Zoas look like they may come back, the frogspawn are just bright white stalks with some slimy stuff on the tips, the GSP is fine I think (I don't think you can actually kill GSP..) and the Rics and Muchrooms may all be gone... Got a little in-tank filter running in it to help clean things up.

Doing water changes and waiting. All I can do I guess.

I think I'm going to get a controller for my heater and lights, plus I'm going to start running the skimmer only when I'm here. It works well enough and my bioload is so low that ther's really no reason to run it 24x7. It's really pumping out some nasty stuff now, though!

- geoff

[dankent]

I hope you pull through ..... I hope you find out what caused it and hold them accountable.

[Reefmack]

If you're looking for a heater controller check out the Reef Keeper Lite. You could use the basic $99.99 unit to plug the heater into, and control your lights as well (depending on how many lights you need to control). The basic unit comes with a 4 outlet controlled strip and a temperature probe that's used to control the heater. I got the RKL SL2 unit to track my pH, and other things, but the basic unit may be all you need, and isn't much price difference vs. those that control a heater only. You could also control the amount of time that the skimmer runs and have it shut off at night (not sure about a weekend shut off).

[rhogeo]

Thanks Terry. Looking at the Digital Aquatics stuff and also the Neptune Systems stuff. I'd really like to setup some type of email notification or web server to be able to get warnings or monitor from a remote location.

As to what I think happened, I think now it was probably the heater. I turned the heater on a while ago and the temp went up a full 1.5 degrees in about 20 minutes. I'm going to remove it and test in a bucket tomorrow. for now, it's staying off, since it stays 75 degrees in my office anyway.

I definitely learned some things from this, mainly to get my heater on a controller, and to have a controller that can monitor temp and shut things down if necessary.