Need everyones help

[SINNERMF]

The night before Valentines day my breaker flipper. The temperature dropped and everything looked crappy and some things began to die off. I put everything in a hospital tank except my 2 fish since I could not catch them. I have been doing 10 gallon water changes every couple of days in an effort to correct whatever was stessing everyting out . Tonight I was doing one of my water changes in an effort to correct the problem and I discovered my heater that was in my sump and was almost invisibe literally blew up. The temperature has been reading in the range it should be until today so I never suspected the heater being a goner.

Question 1. If my heater blew up the night before Valentines day, would this have tripped my breaker??

#2 What should I do to get my tank so that my coral will live in it? I just did an addition 10 gallon change after I pulled the busted heater out.(all the salt and water I had left) Should I do a massive water change (80-100%) or will that affect too much water water Chemistry?

Also I have been itching to redo my rock work. SHould I just drain all the water and redo my rock or???

Any and all input please.

Thanks in advance.

Mike

 

[JCR's Reef]

Dont do a massive water change. 50% at most. You could do 10% water changes per day, that would be a little better until things start to bounce back.
The heater could have been letting stray voltage into the tank and it can affect alot of things. It will also trip the breaker if its not plugged into a GFCI outlet. But if you were digging around in the water with the heater plugged in, it wasnt letting too much in.

 

[Fireworm]

I second what Josh said. Don't do a huge water change, that will stress out everything that much more. I would stick with the smaller changes more often, and make sure your test kits are good.

The heater could have flipped the breaker. I hope you get it all figured out Mike. THat part of the hobby sucks. Trying to figure out what went wrong, when it goes wrong just sucks

 

[Miasma_F]

In addition to the frequent water changes, you should probably run some carbon. From what I read on other posts, running a poly filter would also be a good idea. I've never used it, but a poly filter is supposed to remove heavy metals.

 

[LornaS]

Poly would be good along with the carbon. See if anyone has a copper test kit and test for that too. Hopefully everything will get back in check.

 

[SINNERMF]

the wierdest thing is I was unable to catch my Coral Banded during this whole thing and he is still kicking. However my Brittle Star and tiny snails did not make it. The water tests out fine, I'm gonna get a metals test after work.

 

[Fireworm]

That is wild that he made it and the rest of the CUC didn't.