And then there were none...

[cromag27 Verified Sponsor]

You could acid bathe your rocks then pressure wash them. I'm going to assume there's tons of dead matter in there. maybe replace the sand too. these steps aren't required, but could speed up the process a bit. then invest in a high quality titanium heater with a built-in digital controller and possibly an apex. I'm sure you could use the apex for other things as well.

 

[nex64]

Stories like this are the reason I don't have a heater hooked up in my tank. My chiller is all that I need.

However I am very sorry for your loss. Your fish are probably in heaven now

 

[Leeroy32080]

@Valkyrie, Sorry for your loss. I have read about these potential issues and decide to go with this device.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B011296704/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
It is a Digital Temperature Controller Outlet Thermostat, 2-stage. I have both my heater and my chiller hooked to it. in addition to a digital thermostat, this device switches power on or off for hot and cold. So this way even if my heater thermos fail or chiller for that matter this will shut them down once my tank gets to the target temp. well worth the 40$ to save the heart aches that you have now had to endure.

 

[Myka]

Sorry for your loss. I've also been victim to this same problem. I found a cure by using two heaters in that either of them are too weak to cook the tank on their own, but combined they can maintain the temperature.

 

[BluewaterLa]

Sorry for your loss of reef mates.
Things like this are unfortunately going to happen from time to time. We all must learn from success and failures wether it be mechanical or our own mistake.
I can't thank you enough for sharing this with the community, as it is horrible to experience first hand, your experience will help others look for ways to prevent something like this with their tank.
You will have a nice tank again shortly, I wish you luck and success
BluewaterLa / mike

 

[Lowell Lemon]

We use live rock for a reason and it is to introduce all the micro fauna that make the "reef tank" work. Killing the micro fauna including the worms is not to your advantage unless you want a sterile tank like the 1960's with bleached coral and fake plants. The micro fauna will recover with water changes and waiting for the ammonia to cycle again. Not fun but alot cheaper than starting over.

 

[Sabellafella]

Oh no!! So sorry, it can get real upsetting. Every heater that ive owned in my whole life of fishtanking broke/failed on me. Hope everything turns out ok =/

 

[RudyB]

Sorry for your loss. Heaters will fail it is just a matter of when. So if you have to use them then get some kind of controller. Even if it fails and turns your heater off, your tank can recover from cold faster than from heat. I have controllers to keep my tanks cool. The issue here in Florida is that heat. I say if you did not have any pests in your tank you don't have to cook your rocks. Just do a water change (or several) to get your levels down and add some sort of bacteria like if you where cycling your tank. Monitor the ammonia and go from there. Good Luck and enjoy the restart. It is tough but things like this happen.

 

[Reefer Jon]

My husband texted me a msg to call home when I got the chance. I was at work and since he has never, in our 17 years together, ever asked me to call home I called him right away. Without preamble he said, "all the fish are dead in the saltwater tank." (I have freshwater, too.) I was stunned. What? There wasn't much I could say, he knows little to nothing about fish tanks at all, so I didn't ask any questions except, "are you sure?" I had 2 hours of my shift yet and surgeries to tend to so I had no way of leaving early.

The only thing he reported was that it was kinda cloudy in the tank. I was beside myself! I have been so careful to watch my water parameters, kept my feeding to just what they'll eat. I had added a blue devil, a teeny tiny red scooter blenny and 1 1/4 inch diameter orange starfish, just in the last month. Everyone was getting on well, the clowns welcomed them with open fins. I was continuing my water changes and watching everything closely.

When I got home, the first thing I did was put my hand in the water. HOLY CRAAAAAAAP!!!! Seems I have a malfunctioning heater, the water was nearly 100 degrees Fahrenheit!!!! My babies cooked!! Of course, ya'all know what happens when the heat goes up in a tank...the algae & bacteria growth increases exponentially. So the ammonia and nitrites did their damage, too.

I'm devastated. On the one hand I'm relieved that *I* personally didn't screw up, on the other hand I'm so angry ...at no one and nothing in particular. This kind of crap can happen and even if I had an alarm or remote access to the temperature, I was at work, I couldn't have done anything to stop the escalation. So, after I talked myself down off of the "I QUIT!!!" cliff I decided I'll finish my sump, buy a new heater of MY choosing and start over. Do I need to buy new live sand, is this stuff ruined now? I had such a beautiful buffet for my little dragonet, too. It'll be another friggin' 10 months before I get another scooter. :mad:

So this hot water also made these disgusting white worms come out of my live rock. Long skinny suckers. One of them was still alive and wiggling. That's it. I'm done. I didn't buy this live rock, I have been very disappointed in it since I got the tank and I don't want it, as is, in my tank anymore. So, I'm going to kill and dry the rock. Can I? I think I read somewhere that I can soak in bleach, rinse well and leave in the sun for a few weeks. Something like that, I'll read up on it. But if ya'll think I should put it back into the tank, I guess I can but I keep wondering if these worms in my rocks is why I was fighting the nitrites for a while. Maybe a life cycle of them was happening? Being a vet tech, things with worms are bad and I keep telling myself these might be some good guys, but it's hard to overcome my prejudice.

Think I'll go cry for a while.

That's frustrating. I had a hydor heater malfunction on me before but thankfully I run a chiller so that saved my tank. The current chiller I'm using has a plug in for the heater to control when it's active.

Sorry about your loss and it's good to hear that you've decided to stick with it. This hobby definitely has it's ups and downs.

 

[Valkyrie]

We use live rock for a reason and it is to introduce all the micro fauna that make the "reef tank" work. Killing the micro fauna including the worms is not to your advantage unless you want a sterile tank like the 1960's with bleached coral and fake plants.

I get that, at the time I was in a state of shock and devastated. My job is to help save lives, not kill them and my lovelies were cooked to death. I needed to regain the control that was ripped away. I did finally calm down and thought about this as logically as I am able. This is what I came up with.

I love to garden, in order to have a healthy garden, I need a lot of helpers to maintain my garden's health. I'm tending a garden, an underwater garden. I need to have the helpers to maintain the health of my garden. Yea, the worms freaked me out, but they're helpers and I'm starting to accept that. They're still gross but so are the critters in soil.

The rock has been outside on the porch since that horrible night, so much of the good stuff is probably dehydrated and/or dead. So I'll clean my rock, I'll vacuum my sand, I'll clear all the dead algae and coralline off the back glass. Maybe I'll pick up a few new chunks of live rock, to help things along. But I'm over it. I loved my fish and I miss my clowns terribly. It's in their memory that I rebuild, I know that sounds cheesy, but hey...sometimes ya need a little cheese on the cracker of life.

 

[Valkyrie]

Oh no!! So sorry, it can get real upsetting. Every heater that ive owned in my whole life of fishtanking broke/failed on me. Hope everything turns out ok =/

Thanks. I'll get my tanks through this, now I have 3 tanks and 2 sumps to start from scratch with and I think I maybe in reefer heaven for a bit, although not until after I clean up the mess tonight and tomorrow and cry a little more. Yea, I'm a sensitive old lady.

 

[new2mac]

I had once close to yours experience so I do not rely anymore solely on heater control but rather on heater/controller combo. No need to go expensive, get STC 1000 temp controller, set the controller at desired temp for your tank and the heater itself at 1,5-2 degree C (you can convert to F) above controller's setting. The idea is if controller fails there is still very good chance that heater will cut off the power at its preset temp (which is a bit high but way bellow the critical T). I use trouble free for more than 5Y this controller on 2 tanks:
https://www.amazon.com/All-purpose-Temperature-Controller-STC-1000-Cooling/dp/B0084Y8HJK

 

[Valkyrie]

UPDATE: Yesterday I ordered the Apex controller, I went to my lfs guy and talked to him about what had happened. He too recommended the Apex. I was bouncing between the Apex and the Reefkeeper until I talked to him, for that I ordered it from him since he could offer it to me for the same price. He's a small local business and the only one on this side of the puget sound, so it's important to me that he stay in business. I also went with the heater that has the lifetime warranty. I'm regretting that a bit as I'm not sure if I can use it with my Apex. Does it matter, nothing on the Apex website said so? The only items the mentioned that I'd want to make sure was "Apex ready" was lights, pumps, and powerheads. If so I'll send it back when it comes and get a different one. It was pretty cool when the lfs guy showed me one of his display tanks that had the Apex and he shut down his skimmer & restarted it for me with his cellphone. That was awesome. So yea, I'll be adding modules(?) to control even more. Likely I'll be moving it to the 55g when it's up, as that will have my predators in it until I get an even larger set up (yup!).

I cleaned up my rock, but I didn't go wild and kill it. I was very sorry I had set it on the porch for 3 nights, but figured I'll take my lumps. I put it all in some salt water, scrubbed it up as much as I was able and put it in my tank. I did well over a 75% water change after I thoroughly scrubbed all the dead algae and coralline off the pumps and the glass. I watched my ammonia badge change color even more and sighed. Yes, I expected it, totally, but it was like getting a sharp stick in the eye, reminding me how horrifying it was Wednesday night and how thoroughly my heart & spirit were crushed.
The 3 fishes that I plan on getting when the tank is ready is two clowns and another red scooter dragonet.

The silver-lining? My husband is now willing to learn and help me. I had to agree to letting him add a "decoration" from the petstore first, lol. Seriously, what is it with some people. It's a big ol' roman type ruin, but he found that it'll have to go into the 55g with the predators. About an hour after that he asked if he could get his own tank. Sounds like he'd like a nano, so I gave him some direction and we'll see what he comes up with. In the meantime, I've been waiting for him to watch some videos on glass cutting so that I can finish my sump. Since my hand surgery I've not been able to apply myself to the task without a lot of pain, so he's going to cut the remaining 3 pieces for me. It's really the only roadblock to get through before I can complete it.

Thank you everyone for your support, kind words of encouragement, and advice. You all have really held me up during this time and I'm eternally grateful.
I intend on doing whatever I can in return for R2R and to help anyone else here.
Peace.

 

[Sabellafella]

UPDATE: Yesterday I ordered the Apex controller, I went to my lfs guy and talked to him about what had happened. He too recommended the Apex. I was bouncing between the Apex and the Reefkeeper until I talked to him, for that I ordered it from him since he could offer it to me for the same price. He's a small local business and the only one on this side of the puget sound, so it's important to me that he stay in business. I also went with the heater that has the lifetime warranty. I'm regretting that a bit as I'm not sure if I can use it with my Apex. Does it matter, nothing on the Apex website said so? The only items the mentioned that I'd want to make sure was "Apex ready" was lights, pumps, and powerheads. If so I'll send it back when it comes and get a different one. It was pretty cool when the lfs guy showed me one of his display tanks that had the Apex and he shut down his skimmer & restarted it for me with his cellphone. That was awesome. So yea, I'll be adding modules(?) to control even more. Likely I'll be moving it to the 55g when it's up, as that will have my predators in it until I get an even larger set up (yup!).

I cleaned up my rock, but I didn't go wild and kill it. I was very sorry I had set it on the porch for 3 nights, but figured I'll take my lumps. I put it all in some salt water, scrubbed it up as much as I was able and put it in my tank. I did well over a 75% water change after I thoroughly scrubbed all the dead algae and coralline off the pumps and the glass. I watched my ammonia badge change color even more and sighed. Yes, I expected it, totally, but it was like getting a sharp stick in the eye, reminding me how horrifying it was Wednesday night and how thoroughly my heart & spirit were crushed.
The 3 fishes that I plan on getting when the tank is ready is two clowns and another red scooter dragonet.

The silver-lining? My husband is now willing to learn and help me. I had to agree to letting him add a "decoration" from the petstore first, ****. Seriously, what is it with some people. It's a big ol' roman type ruin, but he found that it'll have to go into the 55g with the predators. About an hour after that he asked if he could get his own tank. Sounds like he'd like a nano, so I gave him some direction and we'll see what he comes up with. In the meantime, I've been waiting for him to watch some videos on glass cutting so that I can finish my sump. Since my hand surgery I've not been able to apply myself to the task without a lot of pain, so he's going to cut the remaining 3 pieces for me. It's really the only roadblock to get through before I can complete it.

Thank you everyone for your support, kind words of encouragement, and advice. You all have really held me up during this time and I'm eternally grateful.
I intend on doing whatever I can in return for R2R and to help anyone else here.
Peace.

You can plug your heaters into the apex power bar. And set it to run in tandum with the apex temp probe, to turn on and off at a temp of your likeing. For instance, with my tank, i used to run just 1 300watt heater. It turns on at 77.8 and off at 78.4, i have my heater keep the temp around 78° so the apex is just for backup if it gets too hot. After seeing alot of heater failers lately, i decided to buy 2 150 watt heaters, and connect them to the same outlet on the apex. So now, if one were to break, i atleast have another one to sorta keep things going

 

[Paul B]

I have 3 small heaters in my 100 gallon tank just for that problem. Heaters go bad all the time, it is just a matter of when