cooked my tank

[wchill]

I was out of town for several days and the day before I returned my thermostat stuck "on" and when I returned my water temp was at 90%. all my leathers were cooked as well as a few crustaseans. The tank smelled of dead fish. Several fish are surviving and I have changed a lot of water (50%) and added additional carbon and ammonia reducers. Ammonia levels are dropping slowly. My question is can I keep my rock or is it all contaminated. There appears to be a few other polyp type (don't know the names) softs that have made it as well. Any suggestions?

 

[returnofsid]

Your rock is reusable, but will need to be recycled. I'd just leave it in the tank, remove as much dead stuff as possible, and let the tank recycle.

 

[user 26995]

Oh wow, so sorry about that. I dont ever want to leave for even a day....
You can keep the rock. If you can get it out and rinse as much of the dead matter off as possible, it would be better. Otherwise I would keep very high flow on it, blow it off real good and do water changes to get rid of the dead matter. There is going to be a lot of die off inside the rock too. It will take time but it will re-cycle.
When things are back to normal, let me know. I can get you some pieces of leathers. I have quite a few.

 

[DonW]

Just clean things up the best you can manually and keep changing water. The tank will level out, in the mean time you need to come up with a way to better control your heating system. Aquarium heaters suck always have and always will you need redundancy in your heating system. Unfortunately you had to learn this the hard way but now is the time to make sure it doesnt happen again.

Don

 

[TJL]

Sorry to hear this and unfortunate to learn the hard way on heaters (Good Ol' Murphy's Law...disaster when not at home. Like Don mentioned now is the time to implement a redundancy in your heating system, any of the aquarium-controllers on the market as well as specifics like Ranco Controllers will be well worth the $'s spent. I too have plenty of corals that would be happy to gift you once recycled.

Cheers, Todd

 

[wchill]

Thanks for all your suggestions. Sounds like I'm not going to have to start over entirely, but let the tank recycle a bit. I must have a pretty healthy goby, blue damsel and "Nemo" and a few other softs that have survived. Should I continue with daily water changes (25%)?

 

[user 26995]

I would. It will help keep the ammonia levels from getting real high too while the bacteria builds up and can control it.

 

[wchill]

Thanks,
I think I have things cleaned out pretty well now. I have continued daily water changes. The remaining fish and softs appear to be doing well. The ammonia is dropping a little each day. Since the tank has to "Cycle" again, should I be doing water changes during the cycling or leave it alone for a while? Will frequent water changes slow the process of ammonia converting to nitrite converting to nitrtate?

 

[DonW]

Thanks,
I think I have things cleaned out pretty well now. I have continued daily water changes. The remaining fish and softs appear to be doing well. The ammonia is dropping a little each day. Since the tank has to "Cycle" again, should I be doing water changes during the cycling or leave it alone for a while? Will frequent water changes slow the process of ammonia converting to nitrite converting to nitrtate?

Keep changing water. You still have fish so they will keep making ammonia enough to feed the bacteria.

Don

 

[BReefed]

I'm sorry to hear that. Something very similar happened to me about a month ago while I was gone for a weekend and I came home to find my tank temp at 98 degrees.

I got off a little easier than you though and I only lost around a fourth of my frags and a Potter's angel that I had yet to see eat anything other than my LPS corals. However, only a little more than a month later all my levels are back to normal, and the tank actually looks better than it did before the heatwave. Although its a frustrating and awful feeling to come home to that, it will get better.

 

[wchill]

Well, I think my tank is recovering now. It has appeared to complete it's nitrogen cycle. The ammonia levels are almost "0" and the Nitrates have climbed a little. Once I get my nitrates down some I would very much like to get a few of your leathers. Thanks

 

[user 26995]

Well, I think my tank is recovering now. It has appeared to complete it's nitrogen cycle. The ammonia levels are almost "0" and the Nitrates have climbed a little. Once I get my nitrates down some I would very much like to get a few of your leathers. Thanks

Absolutely. Just let me know when your ready for them. I have 3 different ones ready to go.

 

[wchill]

Maybe next week sometime. I live in Lynnwood