i was gone overnight at my parents house and i come back to a crashed tank :angryfire:. i don't have a auto top off system so i made sure i topped of the tank good so it will be only a liitle evaporated when i come back. well when i arrived home the tank was a lot evaorated. so my salinity was sky high. i should have tested it to see how high it was but i was more worried about adding fresh water to the tank to get the salinity back up to where it is suppose to be. but i think it was probably up at 1.030. and my temeperature was also at 50 degress :uhoh:. which that is very cold as you may all know. i always keep my tank temperature at 79-80. i immediately turned on the heat up at my house. and the tank got back to 79 degress in a matter of a couple of hours. the next day i found my ammonia to be at .50. i was looking to find the resolution why and i seen that there was nothing to my acans left. so i immediately took the acans out of the tank. i also seen that a lot of mucus was coming out of the corals. so i did a 30% water change to get the ammonia down. so after i did the water change i tested the tank for ammonia and it was at 0. day 3 after the crash and the all my corals are still shriveled up :angryfire:. i checked all my parameters and everything is fine. do i just have to give the corals time to get back to being healthy? now i know a tank is like a baby you can't leave it alone for long unattended
tank has gone through a crash need help
- Thread starter jenniferroman
- Start date
I'm guessing your tank is on the small side for it to have changed that drastically overnight. Did the heater in your tank fail? I imagine the temp in your house had to get quite low for your tank to go from 80F to 50F overnight.
While the temp dropping so much and the SpG climbing to 1.030 aren't so good, rapidly adjusting either of those can be just as / more stressful than those parameters being outside the normal range. If such a big swing happens again in the future, I'd suggest correcting them a little more slowly.
I would give any of your corals that have any visible signs of being alive some time to see if they recover. If they haven't melted away, there's a chance a few might survive and recover. Depending on what corals you have, you might be surprised by how hardy some of them can be.
Depending on your tank's size and your budget, a more reliable temperature controller to plug your heater in and/or an auto top-off could be really good investments and save you from losing a few hundred dollars (or more) worth of corals.
I've left my reef tanks for 3 - 7 days several times and never had issues.
While the temp dropping so much and the SpG climbing to 1.030 aren't so good, rapidly adjusting either of those can be just as / more stressful than those parameters being outside the normal range. If such a big swing happens again in the future, I'd suggest correcting them a little more slowly.
I would give any of your corals that have any visible signs of being alive some time to see if they recover. If they haven't melted away, there's a chance a few might survive and recover. Depending on what corals you have, you might be surprised by how hardy some of them can be.
Depending on your tank's size and your budget, a more reliable temperature controller to plug your heater in and/or an auto top-off could be really good investments and save you from losing a few hundred dollars (or more) worth of corals.
I've left my reef tanks for 3 - 7 days several times and never had issues.
Wow that must blow. Im glad I only do FW because that would cost alot of money and time to get it back to how you had it.
yea i should defenitely save up money to buy a auto top off system. and my heater was working correctly it was just the temperature in the house was too cold. i accidently left the heater off at my house overnight and i forgot it wan't summer anymore and the temperature were i live is 20-25 degress day time and 4 degress at night. i had a feeling that i did bad when i changed the tank temperature too fast to 79 degress when it was 50. i knew i should have done the correction of tank temperature slowly. but i was just worried and i wanted to get it back to 79 degress. but me doing the change fast i probably stressed out the corals more. now i know if this sittuation happens again which i hope it never does i will make the corrections to the tank slowly. the corals have not melted away some of the corals are just shriveled up. right now my clam, zoas, mushrooms and candy canes are doing very good. is just my torch, hammer and xenias are doing horrible. because i don't have the high tech equipment yet i can't afford to leave my tank unattended not even for a day
Actually, getting up from 50 is top priority, so you weren't wrong there. After you got it above the low 70s, you probably should have gone slower, though.
yes it does suck it took me a whole day to get the tank back to how it was. and some of my corals are still not doing good. but i have done everything i could do. and it is just up to the corals to get happy again. fw tanks are defenitely easier to take care of but i love the reward i get from having a reef tank
ohhhh so i did good getting the tank temperature above 50 quick. but i should have slowed down after i got my tank temperature to low 70s. now i know what to do if this happens again. which like i said i hope this never happens again. this was a very horrible experience and definitely something for me to learn from
i am scared i am going to loose my torch, xenia and hammer coral. the lights are about to turn off in a couple of hours and they are still very shriveled up. how long do you guys think it will take for them to get back to normal?
Just give everything time and try to make sure water quality stays as high as possible. I recommend you monitor this and do water changes--just make sure the water is the same temp.