reef meltdown

jessie

jessie

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Mar 3, 2004
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about a week ago my wife and i took a vacation to florida. i put my sister in charge of my 55 reef, she has taken care of my tanks several times with no problems. i was gone for 2 days when she called me and said the water in the tank was getting really hot, about 92 degrees, i have never had problems with my tank temperature before but the AC wasnt on when we were gone and air temps got into the high 90s for about 3 days. needless to say every bit of coral in the tank( except 9 green mushrooms ) has melted. i had a 7 inch tridacna derosa clam, some pulsing xenia, about 40 mushrooms, some orange ricordia, some athelia, pink and green star polyps, and a couple devils hands. the tank is now covered with cyno, the only thing left alive are 9 green mushrooms, snails, hermits, yellow watchman and my 2 clowns. is there a chance that any of the coral might regrow from small particles left on the rock? if not i am looking at tearing down the tank and starting a breeding tank for clowns. any help would be appreciated.
 
There is a small chance of reviving some of the surviving bits of coral. I had a similar softy meltdown when I was out of town a few years back, and managed to save a few things.

One thing I found was that juices from dying anthelia will hurt other softies. It's important to get the dead tissue out, run carbon, and a water change will probably be a good idea.

If coral tissue looks dead, it probably is. Go through the tank and look for bit of tissue that are still firm and appear healthy, and separate it from the dead stuff. Even a few polyps can turn into a colony again.

To give you a little hope, my favorite Tubipora went from a nice colony of several hundred polyps to about 5 during the "event.". Even those polyps were not opening for a few weeks. It is now looking like a colony again, albeit smaller than its former self.

With the loss of cover from the corals and the increased nutrients, you might brace yourself for some hair algae soon.

Sorry for the loss.
 
well my protein skimmer sure is working overtime and im doing a water change tonight, i figure that i will wait about 4 days then do another one. my mushrooms/ xenia/ricordia are completely gone, no tissue anywhere on the rock. my star polyps just look like they are closed up. the clam was the biggest loss for me because it had grown so much and was looking really nice, i got it pretty cheap and it had 5 purple mushrooms attached to the side of it. well its off to do a little( or quite a bit ) of cleaning. thanks for the help.
 
Man, I am sorry to hear about your loss, I think we all can relate to a story like this at one point or another in our history with this hobby. I have a similar story, but with a FOWLR tank thank god! I was on vacation for 10 days in Hawaii, my brother-in-law was "supposedly" watching my tank. Not sure of the exact timeline, but my mag pump died, it must have been somewhere about half-way through my trip, because when I got back, the entire tank was green, stagnant water, and everything was dead except two hermit crabs, a damsel, and a perc clown. I lost about 200-275 dollars worth of fish that day, I can only imagine what your costs are up to by now.

Needless to say, he has never watched my tank again since. Good luck, if you need to vent on this post, feel free. God knows I would have if I had known about this site 18 months ago!

Please keep us posted on the recovery process! and good luck again.
 
well still need to do more water changes, all the microstars and pods are gone, they are not even out at night. there is no surviving coral, even the mushrooms that were there when i got hme have shrunk down to nothing. cyno is covering everything except the clowns pot. total loss except for 2 clowns, yellow watchman gobie, hermits and snails. here are some pictures i took about 3 days before i left for florida.

http://aquaticphotos.com/details.php?image_id=1165

http://aquaticphotos.com/details.php?image_id=1164

http://aquaticphotos.com/details.php?image_id=1168

http://aquaticphotos.com/details.php?image_id=1166
 
well ifigured out another problem with the tank today. i took my turkey baster and started pulling out some cyno and the water was really warm this mourning. i took out the heater, put it into another container and it was heating it up over the thermastat on the heater. that may have been the problem the whole time. with everything dead i think im just going to boil the rock and start over. i have always wanted to try to focus on breeding clowns, maybe ill divide the 55 up and try that.
 
so sorry about what happened jessie, everytime i got out of town i worry so much about my tanks. i feel like im the only one who can properly take care of them. anyway, good luck with the clownfish if you decide to breed them!
 
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