Tank heater malfunction...

[Jamo7]

Came home to none of polyps open and my fish freaking out, temped my tank at 97. Fish survived somehow. My wife floated ice bags while I ran to the store and grabbed water mixed it as fast as I could and after hours of water changes and ice floats I finally got it back down to comfortable temperature. What are the odds my corals are still alive? Toadstools look toast, unsure on gsp, cabbage, trees, bubble coral looks like he will be fine. All my zoas are fully extended but did they just die that way or are they fine? Snails are still cruising. Should I start taking things out or see what happens?

 

[jsvand5]

Not much you can do but wait and see. In the future you really need either a controller for the heater or get multiple underpowered heaters that could never get you tank that hot.

 

[Skynyrd Fish]

Relax and do nothing except get stable. Don’t swing the temp to fast. Keep checking for ammonia. This will possibly mini cycle. Get some water change water ready Incase. However I would do nothing until I saw an ammonia spike. Good luck.

 

[BeejReef]

I was just following along on your natural seawater experiment thread. Glad your fish made it. Very sorry to hear about your troubles. Best of luck.

 

[Jamo7]

Stopped by the house really quick and tested ammonia. Looks like there is a little? Hard to tell. Fish still fine zoas look fine, bubble looking good, Kenya’s still closed up, toadstools still closed, gsp is making a come back, cabbage looks the same. Water temp still at 80.

 

[Jamo7]

Hard to tell if this is 0 or 0.25 ppm?

 

[Mjrenz]

Hard to tell if this is 0 or 0.25 ppm?

It's always hard to tell with api and saltwater, if your fish are all breathing and acting normal you're probably fine. If you do see signs of stress you can dose prime to the tank to detoxify ammonia for 24 to 48 hours and give your biofilter time to process it

 

[FactoryKTMmotocross46]

What kind of heater, size, and how old was it? You should get lacrosse mobile alerts. For $30 initial and .99c a month, you can prevent anything like this from happening again.

 

[xiholdtruex]

It looks like 0ppm ammonia you should be good. Just keep everything stable had my heater go out on me two weeks ago and picked up a inkbird to be on the safe side. Glad your tanks coming around