Overheated tank

[uwscotch]

Well, It is a rough morning. I woke up and my corals looked pretty bad. It got me wondering what was going on. The first thing I check is temp. My tank is normally 81 F. It is currently 89 and got as high as 91 last night. That is pretty warm. I'm unsure of what the fallout is going to be. I did not want to drop the temp too quick. So I shut off the lights, turned a fan on the sump and added all the frozen meat and ice packs I could find. It's been about 5 minutes, the temp has dropped about 0.2 F. Have other people had similar problems and what was the final outcome. I want to take comfort in the fact that ocean water can have warm currents come thru, but this is a little extreme. Is a gradual drop in temp the best plan, or do I do a water change with cool water? I have a temp alarm, but of course I did not set it since I've never had this problem in 7 years.

Thanks

Aaron

 

[Elmo18]

Hi Aaron. I'm sorry about the high temp I would also lower the temp slowly. Couple years ago I had an 80 gal and I had the temp go about 86. What I did was I took some ice cubes and put it in ziploc bags and floated it in the sump.

Are you running any fans now? Also, what type of heater was it?

- Elmo

 

[uwscotch]

I have a pretty big fan going on the sump. 18" The heater was a 200W ebo jager. I've never had a problem with these before. Fish seem OK. My disk coral looks pretty upset. My brains look fried including my own. Blastos are pretty upset and softies. Frogspawn are pretty upset as well. Anenomoes look fine. Wife is pretty upset as well. I hope nothing dies for her sake.

Aaron

 

[uwscotch]

I do have some good news. Elmo and I caught some of his Gold Band Premnas (gold striped Maroons) and they are now 2 days old and approx. 20-30 of them have fat little tummies from eating rotifers. We may have some success with maybe a dozen of them. But I did not save a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico.

 

[uwscotch]

The temp dropped quicker than I expected 6 degrees F in 1.0 hrs. Hope is not too fast.

 

[uwscotch]

Well, I may be in the market for a hammer. Anyone want to sell back the ones I gave them?? Just kidding. I may also be in the market for a pink tipped frogspawn. I guess we will see.

 

[Elmo18]

But I did not save a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico.

LOL! :lol:

Well at least ya still have your humor. Crossin fingers for those clownfish fry.

- Elmo

 

[dnjan]

Glad you were able to catch the overheating so quickly!

Watch your skimmer - it may go a little crazy due to sliming and/or die-off. You don't want the carpet mess from an overflowed skimmer to compound the overheating trama (for your wife).

 

[uwscotch]

Thanks. I just checked, It is definetely working overtime. Plenty of slime being released, especially from my fungia/disks. Do people recommend siphoning this off? Can it be detrimental if it lands on other corals??

 

[bradreef]

I have had that happen and that is why I have a chiller now. I did lose almost all of my LPS such as frogspawn and hammers. some sps bleached and slowly came back. The tank will need to rebound so be prepared to do water changes and take out the dying corals fast. Good luck..

 

[coralseas]

i got a pink tip frog swan i could give u in trade for some info

 

[uwscotch]

I'll keep you in mind. Thank You. I will let things stabilize for a week and see how things look. The worst looking one is a fungia sp. I've had for about a 8 months. It was healthy aggressive growing coral. Big eater. I'ts mouth is now gaping wide. I hope it is not some sort of tissue recession. The same is occurring with the frogspawn and hammers.

Thanks again

Aaron

 

[dnjan]

Aaron - any update on how things are going?

 

[uwscotch]

So it has been a few days. I lost 1/2 of my torch coral. LPS seemed the hardest hit. Both of my Fungia sp. did something that was very interesting. They took 2 days to close their mouths back up. However, both of them have had problems with internal bubbles. Big bubbles bulging up under the tissue. It took about 2 days from the time they appeared for them to slowly work them out. It was incredible, the tissue was pulled up about an inch higher than the rest of the tissue. I actually thought it would irritate the coral and rupture. I haven't seen that happen yet. My anemones moved a few inches and then rapidly returned to their previous home. Frogspawn and hammers are still questionable. Only partially inflated and a couple of the mouths are gaping open.

SET YOUR TEMP ALARM. I'm such an idiot.

Aaron

 

[dnjan]

I've had caulastrea develop what looked like bubbles under the flesh - kind of bloated on only one side of the polyp, and looking like it was pulled away from the skeleton. No real long-term problems from that.

Concerning temperature alarms - do you (or does anybody else for that matter) have a recommendation for an inexpensive temperature monitor that would turn on an external device (fan, etc) at a preset temperature?

 

[uwscotch]

Can't answer that one. I've heard of people taking an old heater, set the temperature high on the thermostat. Once the temp got high enough, the little arm in the heater would flip open causing an open circuit. This would then cut power to their main heater. This would mean that you would have to wire your main heater thru the temperature probe heater and only use it turn an item off. I'm sure there is something safer but necessarily cheaper out there. I use the cheap digital temp thermometers, but never turn on their alarm. That has since changed. That doesn't help however if I am not home. If you are really serious and money is not an issue, a pager for some of the systems they have would be pretty cool. No pun intended.

aaron

 

[reedman]

You're always welcome to swing by my place and pick what you like. If it's big enough to frag I'd be happy to help you out.

 

[uwscotch]

Thank you Reed. I may just take you up on that offer one of these days. Give me a couple of weeks. Need to wait and see how things go.

Thanks again


Aaron

 

[jlehigh]

Gosh Aaron I just caught this thread... That's terrible!!! If you have a means to frag a branch of that hammer I got form ya I'd be happy to oblige..

 

[gehidore]

When I had my temp spike it was a 36C high, to cool I used a coil of tubing ~50' running from a bucket of ice and saltwater to loop back to the bucket. Don't remember what kind of a powerhead I used but...
I also floated icecubes with salt on the top of the water.