Help please. Tank Temperature hit 88

[rallendorph]

Hi folks,

I just came back in from out of town.

And I'm in the middle of a potential disaster. My Neptune controller fell off the wall (Mounted via Velcro), and the Temperature cord was yanked out. Apparently the power cord was also yanked out, but not before the temperature dropped below the Heater ON metrics. On top of that apparently the battery failed during the last week. So, all my heaters, and lights were on, and all of my fans, and the chiller were off.

Since yesterday 2:00pmCST 400Gal (225Tank +150Gal Sump +100Gal Fuge) has been slowly heating up. When I came home today, the corals and fish looked 'off' so I checked the tank params, and found the temperature not registering. When I went down to the sump room I found the water temp at 88.3 Deg. (redundant temp gauge).

For the past Hour, I've been placing bags of ice in the main tank, and frozen bottles of water in the sump. The Temp at 5:20pm is down to 85.2 Deg.

Questions: I assume I will suffer major loss. I guess I'm looking for ideas about how to minimize it. Should I start separating out corals, or wait until I see them crash.?

My Fuge has a DSB and about 4 cubic Feet of Chaet, do you think I should detach the Fuge due to the likelihood that the DSB will crash ?

Any thoughts at all are appreciated.

Thanks Rob A.

[rallendorph]

I"m dropping the water Temp as fast as possible. Does anyone know if this is the right thing to do ?

I.E. should I drop it slowly to keep from shocking the inhabitants, or am I way past caring about that ?

Rob A.

[Entropy]

I would slow it way down now Rob. 85 is a safe range temporarily IMO. I would try to take it down as slow as you can. Maybe 1 degree every 6-12 hours if possible. My tank has been up to 84 before without any problems. As long as you go really slow I think you will not lose anything (unless something is already crashing). I would be prepared to remove anything that crashes and have a good size water change ready (80-100 gallons maybe).

[Chris Lakies]

What do you usually keep your tank temp at? I keep my tank temp around 82 deg and before I added my clip on fan I had it get up to around 88. I had no losses.

[rallendorph]

Chris Lakies - I normally keep my tank at 78.5 to 79 Deg. so temp went up about 10Deg.

Entropy - I was thinking the same thing. I'm going to stop adding ice bags, and let it come up slower. I may cycle my Chiller off for a while. It will lower the water temp about 1/2 to 3/4Deg an hour by itself.

On the good side, The fish appear much more active now.

I cant tell if some of the corals are crashing or not. Many are withdrawn, but their shape seems regular.

Rob A.

[rallendorph]

Well I removed the various bottles of ice, and stopped adding bags of ice. By the time I completed cleaning up, the temperature had continued to fall to 83 Degrees at 6:00pm. So, I'm shut down the Chiller to slow down the change. For now, I have the Actinics on, but I'm going to leave the MH lights off, and the Fans on. This should keep the temp dropping but quite a bit slower.

I've accounted for 1/2 of the fish. Still absent are 1 Green Chromis, 1x Mandarin Goby, 2x Sailfin Blennies, 1x Dragon Goby, 1x Sea Bass, 1x Cleaner Shrimp, 2x Fire Shrimp.

I am worried about the bottom dwelling critters, I have not seen many of the Hermits moving around. Nor have I located the tiger cukes. I do see the Mithrax crabs poking around, and the Star Fish are still moving.

All of the Tridacna are closed up. Their mantels do not appear to be withdrawn though. So, I hope they are ok.

The tank is a little cloudy, so I think I may make up some replacement water for a water change.

The polyps on the Alveapora, Galaxea, Toadstools, and Zoanthus are starting to come out. As are the polyps on the Acroporas and Montiporas. So "fingers crossed" I guess I caught it before a complete meltdown.

Rob A.

[Jimbo]

Going forward, you might want to consider keeping your tank a bit warmer. That way if you have a spike to 88 degrees agian, it's not such a big spike. I keep my tanks at 83 degrees all the time. I don't even pay attention to an 88 degree spike.
The reefs are usually at these temps anyway, and by keeping your temps lower you're not accomplishing anything but risking a dangerous spike.


Jim

[reverai]

Wow....what will you change so this doesn't happen again?

Steve

[Entropy]

I think your setup is fine Rob, you just simply had bad luck. I suggest you mount your controller with screws this time do it doesn't move. Velco is not the most reliable holding material IMO, especially in that situation.

[saltjunkie]

wow, i keep my tank at 84-86 degrees.. have for years.. atleast 5.. so i wouldnt worry too much about the way the temp rose slowly.. i think you will have done more damage by slamming the temp down.........

[rallendorph]

Hi folks,

I appreciate the feedback, ideas, and critiques. I thought I would give a brief update.

Fortunately my tank did not crash. For those of you that admonished slow adjustment. Thank you. The old adage "Only bad things happen fast in an aquarium" finally popped into my mind.

This is the 1st issue that I've had with my tank over the past year. Given I've built in many levels of redundancy, I was taken down "not by gravity" but by the machinations of my diabolic 3 year old. Yep, during clean-up it was apparent that someone had been messing around in the sump room, and on investigation, it appears that my 3 yr. old had "Accidently" pulled the controller off the wall.

On reviewing the tank today, it appears that I took minimal fatalities. Of the fish, only the sailfin blennies are still incognito. One Cleaner & both Fire Shrimp are still missing as well.

All of the corals appear to have survived, although none of them have full polyp extension. (Most are at least showing some polyps.) Likewise, the Tridacna are all partially opened, and none appear to be gaping.

As to my warranted / un-warranted panic, ring it up to lack of experience. The many horror stories I've read on aquarium soup, and the 10 Deg jump in temp had me convinced that something was going to die, and start a chain-reaction resulting in a crash.

As to what I will do to prevent this going foreword.

1. Strap the controller to the wall. While this won't protect me from baby-zilla. I'll take the hint.

2. While I'm tempted to say "Duct tape my children to the wall..." Truth is, part of my reason in maintaining a tank is to teach them. So, we all learned something yesterday.

2. I have an alarm function on the controller, I'm going to tie it to a light that will flash, and maybe beep when an alarm condition is tripped. If my wife had known something was going on, none of this would have become an issue.

3. Keep the 2 liter frozen water bottles. I was surprised that I was able to drop the temperature of 400Gals so quickly. 3 Bags of ice, and 5x 2 liter frozen water bottles dropped the temp 3 degrees in about 90 minutes. While I was happy to effect the temp, the resulting swing lead to a whole new level of panic. that said, it's good to know that I was able to manually change the temp.

4. On my automated salt water 'add' tank, I'm going to turn off the heater during the summer, and keep it on during the winter. This will provide me a large quantity of make-up / replacement water that I can use to change the temperature as well. Normally I add salt-water and fresh-water via LiterMeter pumps so the cooler / warmer 'add' water should not be an issue when normally added to the tank in small quantities (like it currently is.).

Again, I appreciate all of your replies.

Thanks,
Rob A.

[SpicyBalls]

Originally posted by saltjunkie
wow, i keep my tank at 84-86 degrees.. have for years.. atleast 5.. so i wouldnt worry too much about the way the temp rose slowly.. i think you will have done more damage by slamming the temp down.........

yep, some of the more successful reefs are around 86.. of course, at this temp, they grow fast and require a steady stream of additives, calcium etc...