Disaster! Will I lose everything now

[ryansc]

Ok so 2 nights ago I noticed my return pump died. Put in my back up and did my scheduled water change. And since I had my sump offline I decided to drain and clean it.

Short of the long I somehow forgot to plug my heater back in. I noticed yesterday my hammer was semi closed, as well as my torch hammer and othe corals. Figured it was due to water change, stirring up stuff sand bed cleaning. You know, too much at once.

But tonight I go to empty my skimmer and the top falls in my sump. OK np, but when I go to get it out the water feels cold, not warm like I'm used too. Check my thermometers. 61.2 F

I think I'm going to cry. This past year has been hard personally. I have many corals I grew out from 1 inch or less plugs to double fist sizes.

I tossed in my extra heater I use to mix my water for changes. But is this a case of too little too late? My plum acro is not purple, very light pink.

I guess I'll be up tonight monitoring the temp to make sure it doesn't rise too fast.

I duno I'm just floored at my stupid mistake that could cost me thousands in coral and pride.

 

[Sapelo]

You probably want to prepare water to make changes too. You are likely to have die off even inn the best of cases.
The good news is that coral are really pretty hardy. Somewhere there's a thread from Sk8r about a multiple day power outage that left her tank in the low 60s for an extended period of time. I think most of her lsp came out ok.
So sorry to hear about your troubles. Good luck!!!

 

[Reefstarter2]

If you bring temp up slowly you should be able to minimize loss. But you will lose some for sure being that cold. I have done that too. Mine got to about 70 and was lucky. Good luck

 

[ca1ore]

I've had temp drops like that on a few occasions. Bring it back up slowly. If your corals have bleached at all, reduce the lighting levels for a while. SPS can be unpredictable, some may die or they may not.

 

[Bent]

I think you'll be shocked to hear what all of our systems have survived. Life is pretty resilient, if it wasn't everything would die out pretty quickly in the world. The key is slow slow swings. So even if your returning the crisis to normal, your still making wide swings by fixing it quickly. Just take it slow and you'll be shocked what survives.

My system has so far survived:
A busted display tank that made the ATO run and drop the SG down to 1.010
A skimmer flood that once again dropped the SG down to 1.010 or lower
A large Kalk overdose
A huge nitrate spike
A 3 day blackout for hair algae.

The old sand I drained and dumped in a bucket from my display tank about 4 or 5 days ago. I opened the bucket yesterday to dump the sand out and there was still bristle and spaghetti worms in it still living.

Remember Jurassic park?

Life finds a way.


Fix the problem slowly, as much as it pains you to do.

 

[ryansc]

I am taking the n slow and steady. I didn't forget what your first taught here when u ask about reefing. If you do too many things or change things too fast it won't end well.

So update after long tired day of work. Ammonia seems to be 0. Torch, hammer and Duncan's all 1/2 open. Can't say I blame them.

Brought temp up to 70 quickly. In about the 1st hour using extra heaters then backed it down to one. Now it's at 78ish.

I was supposed to be changing my bulbs tomorrow. Should I not and wait for things to recover to normal?

 

[chilli_reef]

I would wait. You do t want to shock them with a higher par after that ordeal.