A mess. With followup.

MnFish1 · Mar 6, 2023

OK - so here is the scenario - Last week - cleaned tank, glass, etc - Accidentally - turned heater off (yes - I have a 'xxx' controller. No I did not get an alert) - left town. It's always that way right - when you leave town. Today - Temp in tank 64. 5. (F). coral closed, fish - ALL still fine - Purple tang, 2 yellow tangs, a harlequin tusk small percula, Frowned at house sitter. Turned the heater to 75. Updates to follow.

Idech · Mar 6, 2023

Oh no, I hope everyone and everything makes it. What a bummer !

o2manyfish · Mar 7, 2023

Better too cold then too hot. Colder temp slows down metabolism of fish and corals.

Whatever is alive when you got home you have a good chance will be alive in a week.

Some corals will not immediately show issues after massive temp swings. So while the temp may come back up and the corals look healthy for a few days, in a week you might suffer some losses. Wait a week till you take a deep sigh of relief.

Dave B

MnFish1 · Mar 7, 2023

So far everything looks fine - except the pH is low.

Dburr1014 · Mar 7, 2023

Temp up this morning?

brandon429 · Mar 7, 2023

MN Fish re ramp your lighting/saves bleaching possibilities

this heating off happened to me twice/helpful heads up I used to stop any bleaching. full power lights on the reset temps is a very strong bleaching risk/ I have pics of a 80% white coral bowl to show for it too. I believe they'll all be ok most likely.

exnisstech · Mar 7, 2023

A worker at the LFS just did something similar when he moved his tank. His got down to 69 and all of his sps died.

MnFish1 · Mar 7, 2023

Dburr1014 said:
Temp up this morning?

Yes.

MnFish1 · Mar 7, 2023

brandon429 said:
MN Fish re ramp your lighting/saves bleaching possibilities

this heating off happened to me twice/helpful heads up I used to stop any bleaching. full power lights on the reset temps is a very strong bleaching risk/ I have pics of a 80% white coral bowl to show for it too. I believe they'll all be ok most likely.

Luckily (unluckily) - I don't have any SPS in my tank - due to a similar issue with my controller fully at fault at that time (the entire tank just 'shut off' despite power to the tank - and I didn't replace the SPS yet.

MnFish1 · Mar 7, 2023

I wanted to put this up - to show (so far 24 hours later) - that fish and soft corals (can be) pretty resistant. The tank was at about 64 degrees for a week. All of the fish are fine. The corals (as of this minute) - have not opened. I'm double-checking the pH - because I think thats an error - but will see.

Sebastiancrab · Mar 7, 2023

I believe in redundancy particularly when traveling. Suggest you purchase a second heater with an Inkbird controller and mount it where you can read the temp. I have a Wyze camera pointed at my tank and sump. No controller but two heaters w/ controllers and 2 automatic feeders.

dwest · Mar 7, 2023

I’m glad it looks like things are well.

I had a 4 or 5 day power failure many years ago. Luckily I had a couple air bubblers that I put in my 90 gallon tank. Even more lucky was that the outage occurred when the house stayed in the 60’s almost the entire time. No losses. I didn’t have acros at the time.

Forward many years later when my Apex temperature probe was off by 5 degrees. So my tank was 72-73 instead of 78 for about a week. I had several acros die.

Good luck.

MnFish1 · Mar 7, 2023

Sebastiancrab said:
I believe in redundancy particularly when traveling. Suggest you purchase a second heater with an Inkbird controller and mount it where you can read the temp. I have a Wyze camera pointed at my tank and sump. No controller but two heaters w/ controllers and 2 automatic feeders

Yep - I know. It was my thought - that paying $50/day - for a house sitter - and $800 for a controller that should alert me was enough

. it wasn't. This was literally my mistake - entirely - 1. No fussing with the tank when you're not going to be around (the day before). 2. Relying too much on the controller. it was my own stupidity - so I was also advertising that as well

MnFish1 · Mar 7, 2023

dwest said:
I’m glad it looks like things are well.

I had a 4 or 5 day power failure many years ago. Luckily I had a couple air bubblers that I put in my 90 gallon tank. Even more lucky was that the outage occurred when the house stayed in the 60’s almost the entire time. No losses. I didn’t have acros at the time.

Forward many years later when my Apex temperature probe was off by 5 degrees. So my tank was 72-73 instead of 78 for about a week. I had several acros die.

Good luck.

Thanks!

MnFish1 · Mar 7, 2023

I have to recalibrate my pH meter (I think) - I do not believe the pH of 7.4. However - possible - if some things died. I wanted to wait until the Temp was back up to where it should be - give it a day then measure complete parameters

vlangel · Mar 7, 2023

MnFish1, I had a thermostat go bad on a chiller in the middle of the night and my husband noticed condensation on the aquarium. I got up and the temp was 49° F. The 7 fish were swirling lifeless on the sand and I didn't know if anything could survive it. I slowly raised the temp into the higher 60s over about 5 hours and 4 of the fish revived and I did not lose a single coral, not even the Crocea clam. Some of the leathers shed a mucous but they were fine. The 3 fish that perished were chromis and damsels, which surprised me. I thought they were pretty sturdy fish.

MnFish1 · Mar 7, 2023

dwest said:
I’m glad it looks like things are well.

I had a 4 or 5 day power failure many years ago. Luckily I had a couple air bubblers that I put in my 90 gallon tank. Even more lucky was that the outage occurred when the house stayed in the 60’s almost the entire time. No losses. I didn’t have acros at the time.

Forward many years later when my Apex temperature probe was off by 5 degrees. So my tank was 72-73 instead of 78 for about a week. I had several acros die.

Good luck.

Agreed - if I had those corals - I agree with you - there would have been an issue (a big issue). I will measure params tomorrow and post

MnFish1 · Mar 7, 2023

vlangel said:
MnFish1, I had a thermostat go bad on a chiller in the middle of the night and my husband noticed condensation on the aquarium. I got up and the temp was 49° F. The 7 fish were swirling lifeless on the sand and I didn't know if anything could survive it. I slowly raised the temp into the higher 60s over about 5 hours and 4 of the fish revived and I did not lose a single coral, not even the Crocea clam. Some of the leathers shed a mucous but they were fine. The 3 fish that perished were chromis and damsels, which surprised me. I thought they were pretty sturdy fish.

Awesome