Nick Steele
2500 Club Member
You’d be surprised how quick oxygen can be depleted from a system with a decent bio load. How big of a system and what was your stocking?
NeonRabbit221B
2500 Club Member
To be fair I can’t hold my breath for an hour either. I would keep some flow going. Cutting off a hob is fine but no water movement is deadly. Read threads on power outages of reefers without battery backups and can find instances of quick crashes.
in addition I thought ammonia may have been .25 and nitrite .5. Very hard to read API IMO.
NeonRabbit221B
2500 Club Member
Glad your blenny is looking better. I would make sure he isn’t in the container too long without filtration
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Jilly92
Valuable Member
I say zero because its not any readings on the card, it might be like a smidge over 0 but thats not gonna kill everything. I don't have any prime but I did top off after tests
Impossible to say but I would take a guess. Your dinos look like they may be ostreopsis which is the most toxic of dinos (not to fish but to inverts/coral). My suspicion is the black out caused the ostreopsis to go in to the water column (they will be back if so unless you're running UV). That is probably what killed the inverts. I agree with others that suggest oxygen depletion as the cause of the fish deaths. If you aren't doing it I would run some GAC to try and protect whatever inverts and coral you have now.
NeonRabbit221B
2500 Club Member
Just to be frank. No flow and water movement will very quickly kill a tank. If your power goes out, keeping flow going is priority #1 and tank heating comes in later. 1 hour without flow can kill but a tank can drop 5-10 degrees in 24 hours and pull through.
the ammonia reading is above zero and ammonia at any level can quickly become toxic. Higher ph increases ammonia toxicity Prime to detoxify and additional air are critical.
the ammonia reading is above zero and ammonia at any level can quickly become toxic. Higher ph increases ammonia toxicity Prime to detoxify and additional air are critical.
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Jilly92
Valuable Member
Oh ok. I have my equipment linked to alexa so I believe when I told it to turn everything back on it either didn't hear me or malfunctioned. So I will definitely start making sure that they get turned on. Thank you
JCTReefer
Valuable Member
If oxygen depletion was the cause, I must be very lucky. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve forgot to turn the pump back on after feeding. Likely 40 times in the last 3 years. Sometimes for several hours before remembering. Sidetracked with the kids, Dinner and a movie, and then “Oh crap” I forgot to turn the pump back on. Very sorry for your losses. Hope you get it figured out. I did lose half of my fish population after a huge bacterial bloom: and we know what bacteria can do to oxygen levels. Ammonia spiked through the roof. Wife decided to dump 3 years worth of food in the tank. Next set up will be automated with feed mode. No more forgetting.
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Jilly92
Valuable Member
Goodness. And yes I've forgot to turn the pumps on multiple times as well, thats why I was so thrown off I suppose. All the wrong things happen at the right time and boom disaster. I will be more aware in the future for sure.
Sleeping Giant
Proud Canadian Reefer
I would just stop shutting down the pumps all together, otherwise they should be setup on a timer. So you don't forget when to turn them back on.
