Evaporation stress?

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Tasty Burger

AC Members
Mar 24, 2010
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Theresa, NY
I was wondering if I could get some suggestions..

My auto top off system crapped out a few days ago, and I've been reduced to manual top off after two years. (Bummer; I know!)

Here's my dilemma.. The tank temp is sitting at 89 degrees, which shouldn't be an issue, but I think the return to a higher evaporation rate has shocked the tank. I have a 90 gallon tank, but I'm losing almost a gallon between morning and when I get back from work. I think it's stressed out my corals.
Three days later, my bubble coral is finally reinflating, my mushrooms are starting to open back up properly, but my leathers look absolutely sad. I have 4 normally very healthy leathers, but right now they are practically lying down, and they are shedding a bit as well. I'm getting a new auto topper, but I'm worried I may not get it in time. Do you think I'm jumping the gun on being worried?
 

Ace25

www.centralcoastreefclub. com
Oct 3, 2005
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If your tank is "sitting at 89 degrees" like you state, that is a huge issue and I would expect all the corals to die in that temp. Also leathers release toxins in the water when they are stressed.
 

Tasty Burger

AC Members
Mar 24, 2010
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Theresa, NY
I shut off the lights and unplugged two heaters to give the tank some cooling time.. I assumed the temp spiked because of the heat we've been having.

Maybe the auto top off is just a coincidence?
 

Ace25

www.centralcoastreefclub. com
Oct 3, 2005
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Ya, auto top off is not your issue. If you don't have a chiller the next best route, and one I did for years when I didn't have a chiller and lived in a place that got to 110f regularly, is I would freeze water bottles and toss them in my sump to cool the water down. On hot days I would go though at least 20 frozen bottles. 4 at a time, usually lasted 15minutes in a sump before they thawed and dropped the temp about 1degree, but temp would rise quickly if I didn't keep adding more frozen bottles. My freezer used to be 1/2 filled just with water bottles at one point. I never let my tank get above 82 though. In my early days of reefkeeping before I realized how much ambient room temps played on a tank I let the temp get up to 90f once on a 29G and it wiped out every coral in the tank in a day. Only took 1 time to learn that lesson the hard way and never repeat it. A strong fan blowing across the top of the tank also drops the temp quite a bit, but that route also leads to massive evaporation and you can easily lose 2-5G a day going that route on hot days.
 

Tasty Burger

AC Members
Mar 24, 2010
77
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Theresa, NY
I think I found the culprit..
One of my heaters is stuck in the "on" position. I have the tank temp down to 86.6, and the heater still turns on when plugged in.

I hope my leathers recover. They look pretty rough..
 

Ace25

www.centralcoastreefclub. com
Oct 3, 2005
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Ugh, seen that happen all to often.. even happened to me a few months ago, one of my jager heaters stuck on. Luckily I have a chiller. All night long the heater was on and so was the chiller fighting it, in the morning when I woke up I knew the chiller shouldn't have been running and quickly found the stuck heater before anything bad happened. I use 2 smaller heaters instead of one large, so 1 of them getting stuck on wasn't an issue other than electricity because the chiller was able to compensate and keep the temps under 80.
 

Tasty Burger

AC Members
Mar 24, 2010
77
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Theresa, NY
Yeah, I was running two smaller and one large heater to help during winter.. Northern NY gets cold when you're 15 minutes from Canada..
My luck being what it is, the largest heater stuck... The two were off, but the one has been slowly raising the temp over the last two days. Actually, if my auto topper hadn't died, I might not have stuck my hand in the tank for anything. I guess it's good it happened.. somehow...

Well, just dropped 100 bucks for my replacement ATO.. Oh well.
Hope the leathers live. They were doing so well. They started as a single stalk about two years ago..
 

Tasty Burger

AC Members
Mar 24, 2010
77
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Theresa, NY
I lost the first stalk today...
I think the rest will be following soon. The bases are still somewhat attached on the remaining corals, so I'll give them today to start looking better, then I'll be yanking them all.

Ugh.. So depressing! :cry::cry::cry::cry::cry:
 

doneCaretaker

Registered Member
Jul 24, 2012
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Feel sad, Quite a bit if a tragedy, It happened to me once but not to this extent. The Heater went off luckily I noticed and fixed it. Hope you don’t lose the rest!
 
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