disaster

[phenom5]

well...my tank got fried. this sucks, i'm freaking ****ed.

this all started 4 days ago. i gave the tank a quick once over before the lights went out...everything looked great, except my tri-colored nana that hasn't looked great for a few weeks, but i was confident that it would be okay. the next day i went about my day and went to take a look at the tank early in the evening. the nana was completely bleached...okay, maybe i was wrong about it bouncing back. then i start to look around my tank and nothing looked good. everything was closed, all my SPS were showing some very poor color, my frogspawn was completely closed up and showing some skeleton, zoos were closed up, candy cane did not look good. i had to put dinner on hold while i ran a full battery of tests...but the result were normal. i woke up the next day to no improvement, went to check SG again to make sure it was okay. i thought the water felt kind of warm, so i checked the thermometer...83degrees. it didn't seem right, for one the water just felt too warm, two the lights out temp shouldn't be at 83degrees. i grabbed my thermometer that i use with my mixed SW and put it in the display...90-91degrees.

about a month ago i order a new heater for my mixed SW. i had been using some ridiculously big heater to heat 2g's of SW. i got a smaller heater to use for that. when i got it i thought to myself...i would hate to lose this tank b/c my old heater went bad and didn't turn on or didn't turn off. so i put the new heater in the tank and pulled the old heater. the old heater had a fair amount of "stuff" growing on it, so i needed to clean before i started using it for my mixed SW. i got busy, and i put off cleaning the old heater...

turns out that the new heater was faulty...it doesn't turn off. if i turn it all the way down it turns off, then if you turn it back up it kicks back on when you set it for a higher temp...and never turns off. so my choice was to leave the heater on, or unplug it b/c it was obviously faulty. i unplugged it, and imediately put my old heater in some vinegar to clean it. the problem was my tank's temp started to drop too fast. i turned on the lights to slow the water temp's decent, and eventually got the new heater out & the new heater in the tank. the temp is stable now, but i think the rapid spike in the temp, and unfortunately the speed at which the temp came back down was too much for many of the corals...especially my acros.

as of right now...
frogspawn is gone. one head has some polyps left but it does not look good.

tri-colored nana frag is gone, completely bleached, no PE.

a. pulchra was lost to RTN, along with another unkown acropora.

mushroom coral, the very first coral to go into this tank does not look good.

BL hermits are all MIA.

my gramma is fine, as are the zoos and montipora and caulastrea. i'm convinced that if WWIII ever hits the only thing that will survive are cockroaches and zoanthids...i've got a couple of acros that look okay, at least so far, so hopefully it won't be a total loss. i'm going to skip my water change this week, try and keep things as stable as possible for a bit.

photobucket's down for maintenance, but i'll put up some pictures of the corals i lost...

 

[mr pink floyd]

sorry to hear that man, my 200 watt heater for my 29 is messed up too, i had it set for 78, it rurned itself on at 82!

the temp got up to 85 that day... wow

i i threw in soem ice cubes in the tank, tyook it down 1 degree, put some ice water in a gallon jug, dripped it in the aqualifter, over 3 days i took it down to 78-79, all corals (softies) looked kinda meh, but recovered, i haev trhe heater set for 71 now, adn it turns on at 76, off at around 79, so its good, but i monitor temp alot more now, expecially because im abotu to add a halide and some SPS

good luck

 

[phenom5]

you might bump up your temp a bit. better to run it at a stable higher temp then to have it run at 82degrees with the lights on and 76degrees with the lights out. i have my heater...the one that works that is...set at 81, tank runs at about 82 w/ lights and fans on, so i only get a 1degree swing. ultimately that's where my problems came from, too much of a change too quickly.

here's some shots of the corals that i've lost back when they were looking good.

frogspawn

after i switched to BB the frogspawn was never as happy as it was in that picture...too much flow limited PE. here's a pic of it after the BB switch.

here a really old shot of the mushroom...i got it for 12 bucks, how could i pass that up.

here's the a. pulcher when i got it.

here it is a few months later.

i'll see if i can find a more recent pic b/c it's grown quite a bit since this pic was taken.

here's a picture of the tri-colored nana about a few weeks ago.

and finally a shot of one of the acros that may make it...i hope.

maybe i'll take some pic of the coral now...but it's kind of depressing to take pics of dead coral.

 

[mr pink floyd]

mine is stable now, it stays at around 79, even at night, the heater kick on only at night now, my fuge light (one of those aluminum clip on ones fro mHD) heats the watwer during the day, it is about 2 inches off the top of th efuge wit ha curly light bulb rated 6500 k, with a 1/8 inch piece of acrylic between it and the water runnign throug ht filter lol

 

[chocolateblnt]

sorry for your loss ...

 

[Agu]

bummer

I don't like having heaters in nano tanks. Most of the small ones available are cheap pieces of junk with lousy components. I calibrate my heaters in a bucket of water for a few days before installing them and never set them above 75 degrees.


IMO there's a demand for small quality heaters with a separate temp probe and external controls.

 

[phenom5]

i wish i didn't have to run a heater on my tank Agu, but there's no way. my night time temp would drop too much. but i definately have to agree about the small heaters being pieces of junk with lousy components...

thanks Blunt...i just need some motavation to get my tank back on track if you know what i mean.:smokin:

 

[chocolateblnt]

lol phenom I wish you were closer I'd blow some of that motivation your way

I agree with Agu in the fact that there is a lot of demand for quality nano equipment ...

 

[mike batptiste]

ive been using a stelth heater that i had in my 75 gal well i put it in my 24 gal auqa pod and it does a great job my tank is at a constant 78 but the heater is a bigger one

 

[Cutiewitbooty]

well good luck and hopefully some of your corals pull through. Sorry to hear about your losses

 

[Agu]

What were the results ? I'm curious to find out what survived.

 

[phenom5]

as of right now the results look like this.

tri-colored nana
acropora unknown
mushroom coral
are completely lost.

i fragged up the a. pulcher to try and save it. i've got 2 or 3 very small frags that i'm crossing my fingers on. after frag it and giving the new frags a day or so there is some PE on a couple of the tiny frags...so there may be some hope.

i also fragged the frogspawn. there was one branch that still has some polyps left, there's more skeleton showing then polyps but it may come back...who knows, it's too early to tell right now. also, i've got 4-6 new heads budding on the branch that i saved so it may actually make it out okay. anybody have any idea how long those tiny little heads will take to grow?

GSP...who knows. they are closed up and have been since the "incident", but they tend to do that.

caulastrea, purple digi frags, green cap, zoos, and 2 unkown acropora frags all seem to be okay.

all in all i came out of this a lot better then i first thought i would. re-aranged my rock, i need to replace some of my clean up crew, and now i need some more frags ( my wife's gonna love that since i told her the tank was stocked and just needed time to grow out not too long before all this happened). i'm going to add sand back to the tank...i think. i know, i know i'm a BB guy, right? well, i still think BB can be a great way to run a tank, however my tank is not really setup in a way that BB can run effectively. i'm not sure if adding sand back to the tank will have the positive results that i'm looking for, but i think i need to get back to a simple, effective, and efficient setup...all things my tank is not right now.

 

[flameangel88]

Sorry for your loss.

The best heaters for me so far:
Hagen Thermal compact 150W (in my 24g pod)
Visi-Therm Stealth 200W (in the quarantine tank)

The temp been very staple with both heaters.

 

[All Delight]

I have Ebo Jager and I have to set it at 78 to turn on at 81. I got one of those new titanium heaters that I want to put in to replace it. But your story makes me want to leave whats working in there. Even thought it doesn't work at the temp it specified to work it works at the right temp I want it to work at.


Sorry you got !$%# up.

 

[tripstank]

I still have not had a heater that actually kept the temperature that the dial reads. I have tried them all listed so far except for the new digitally controlled titanium heaters. They seem to be going around 50 bucks, may be worth the investment.