O.k. well, I hate to even be typing this as it really devastates my efforts and passion for this hobby.
I was gone for a week this week on business. I arranged for a great fellow reefer and friend to watch the tank. I told him to check it every 2 to 2.5 days. As the 5 gallon top off was going fast.
I left town Saturday morning, he checked it Monday, said he almost forgot out about it but checked and everything was great.
He checked it last night, and devastation hit. I got a call from him stating that they had some power flickers in the city and my breaker had flipped when the power flickered on rapidly. Unfortunately we don' tknow when the breaker flipped because it had been since Monday night he checked it last.
So, as much as 48 hours, but probably much less since the known power flickers were Tuesday sometime.
Well when he called yesterda, 6-7 of my 8 or 9 fish were dead and/or missing.
He indicated all corals, clams, and anemone looked good.. He removed the dead fish. (large fish that died.. My 7" marine betta just at 1 year old, my 5" Powder brown tang, my 3" bristletooth tang.. to name a few.)
My starry blenny and sleeper goby made themselves known and were alive while he was there. He was able to get the breaker flipped on and the tank restarted without a hitch!
With all the known dead, there was still a $100 mystery wrasse missing, cleaner wrasse, and small clown missing.
Well, tonight the clown was found attached to a power head. The cleaner wrasse showed up alive, and the sleeper goby and starry blenny were still alive 24 hours after power restored to the tank.
Tank hit 71 degrees as it's low temp. I had set my heater controller to 75, to allow the corals and fish to adapt to wider temp ranges if something like this happened. So, daytime temps hit 81 and night time temps would easily hit 75. Everything had adapted to this for the past month or so.
So, the most obvious cause of fish death was oxygen. My issue with that though is why not the corals? There should have been ammonia. My DSB is in the sump, without the sump ammonia processing would have been reduce (along with oxygenation).
Well, either way, what do people do to prevent this? I thought if I had a better controller that emailed me this could have been prevented, however, that's not true. Because, if the breaker flipped, that means my internet would have been off and no emails would have been sent.
Sounds like my RBTA split overnight. Which is a sign of stress. So, I'm hoping that the water quality is improving and not getting worse with time...
What's the impact of a DSB losing circulation for 24 hours then being turned on and feeding the display. If my clams and corals were o.k. are they now going to be killed as a result?
Or will the powerheads and water flow sufficiently reoxygenate the sump to prevent any massive die offs.
Ugg, I hate being too far away to do anything. I feel completelyhelpless as I hear my tank may be completely crashing...
I return on Saturday, I have no idea what I'm going to be coming home to. If it's in the middle of a cascading crash or in the middle of a complete recovery other than $250 worth of dead fish....
I still am at a loss as to why a loss of oxygen sufficient to kill 5 fish, would not have killed any corals? Can anyone explain the chemistry of that.?
I was gone for a week this week on business. I arranged for a great fellow reefer and friend to watch the tank. I told him to check it every 2 to 2.5 days. As the 5 gallon top off was going fast.
I left town Saturday morning, he checked it Monday, said he almost forgot out about it but checked and everything was great.
He checked it last night, and devastation hit. I got a call from him stating that they had some power flickers in the city and my breaker had flipped when the power flickered on rapidly. Unfortunately we don' tknow when the breaker flipped because it had been since Monday night he checked it last.
So, as much as 48 hours, but probably much less since the known power flickers were Tuesday sometime.
Well when he called yesterda, 6-7 of my 8 or 9 fish were dead and/or missing.
He indicated all corals, clams, and anemone looked good.. He removed the dead fish. (large fish that died.. My 7" marine betta just at 1 year old, my 5" Powder brown tang, my 3" bristletooth tang.. to name a few.)
My starry blenny and sleeper goby made themselves known and were alive while he was there. He was able to get the breaker flipped on and the tank restarted without a hitch!
With all the known dead, there was still a $100 mystery wrasse missing, cleaner wrasse, and small clown missing.
Well, tonight the clown was found attached to a power head. The cleaner wrasse showed up alive, and the sleeper goby and starry blenny were still alive 24 hours after power restored to the tank.
Tank hit 71 degrees as it's low temp. I had set my heater controller to 75, to allow the corals and fish to adapt to wider temp ranges if something like this happened. So, daytime temps hit 81 and night time temps would easily hit 75. Everything had adapted to this for the past month or so.
So, the most obvious cause of fish death was oxygen. My issue with that though is why not the corals? There should have been ammonia. My DSB is in the sump, without the sump ammonia processing would have been reduce (along with oxygenation).
Well, either way, what do people do to prevent this? I thought if I had a better controller that emailed me this could have been prevented, however, that's not true. Because, if the breaker flipped, that means my internet would have been off and no emails would have been sent.
Sounds like my RBTA split overnight. Which is a sign of stress. So, I'm hoping that the water quality is improving and not getting worse with time...
What's the impact of a DSB losing circulation for 24 hours then being turned on and feeding the display. If my clams and corals were o.k. are they now going to be killed as a result?
Or will the powerheads and water flow sufficiently reoxygenate the sump to prevent any massive die offs.
Ugg, I hate being too far away to do anything. I feel completelyhelpless as I hear my tank may be completely crashing...
I return on Saturday, I have no idea what I'm going to be coming home to. If it's in the middle of a cascading crash or in the middle of a complete recovery other than $250 worth of dead fish....
I still am at a loss as to why a loss of oxygen sufficient to kill 5 fish, would not have killed any corals? Can anyone explain the chemistry of that.?
I think your prep work was great.
