just lost our seahorses

[madmikey]

My girlfriend checked her seahorse tank today to find her twom favorite animals had perished the night before. Apparently the heater malfunctioned as te tank reached close to 100 degrees F. The cleaner shrimp also died.
Will this heat have killed off all the bacteria that have cycled the tank? The tank was up for well over a year before the seahorses were put in 3 months ago. These were the coolest animals ever and I hate to see this happen, especially to someone I'm trying to make enjoy this hobby. Because It was equipment failure I can only blame myself. So if anyone out there decides to go cheap on equipment, It will cost you in the long run!!!!!!!!

So long Trigger and Butter Cup.


Very MADMIKE

[rickb]

Sorry dude, FWIW I heard you can use a controller and x10 and hook it up to the heater so as soon as the heater gets to desired temp the controller shuts it off from the power and if the controller failed the heater would normally shut itself anyways.

sorry

rickb

[johnny]

Mike,

That sucks man. What type of heater were you using? I've had nothing but good luck with visitherm. Also, there's the potential to use a thermostat from home depot (like $20) that will shut off your heater if the tank temp gets too hot... I'm going to try hooking one up to my air conditioner sooner or later here.

Nick

[madmikey]

The heater was an older one i had from my FW days. Stupid stupid! Well i guess we learn the hard way.


What about the bacteria? Do I need to cycle again or not?

[johnny]

the bact should be ok... you can expect a small nitrate rise from the death though... maybe a day or two though, so nothing big.

nick

[JimReef]

Sorry to here about about that.

I use digital tank probe thermometers with high and low audible alarm settings.

Off the top I don't know the brand... I purchased them a couple of years ago from petwarehouse. I have one in every tank. If your not home obviously it won't help but on a few occasions they have alerted me to potential problems before the could get out of hand.

The more safegaurds the better.

[Laura D]

Sorry to hear that, I lost my Rainfords goby that had survived ick and other calamities only to be cooked by a faulty heater that I knew was a piece of junk. That is the worst, knowing that i should have done something and changed the heater.