The smell of death.

[CW from the OC]

It's been 2 days since my tank was killed, and this is the first time I've felt up to posting about it.

Friday afternoon I was out of town on vacation, and received a call from my dog/tank sitter that the power was out. She confirmed that the Battery Backup on my Vortec pump was running.

The power came back on later Friday, and everything was fine.

Saturday morning when the sitter checked, power was on and everything was fine.

When we arrived home Sunday afternoon, power was out again. A neighbor told us it went out again Saturday at about 10:30am.

The tank is a total loss. The color and consistency of soup, chunks floating around, redish grey, and you could not see more than a couple of inches into it. I could not bear to take pictures to post.

At this point, the few things that were not dead are dying. I've been doing constant filtersock/carbon/massive waterchange dance. I'm waiting for the ammonia spike to come and kill the straggling survivors, mostly red mushrooms.

And the smell. So painfully distinctive, the smell of rotting death.

 

[migston]

Wow that's every reefer's nightmare right there. Truly sorry about your loss. If ever you need Cheato or a Colt frag let me know.

 

[NicoleC]

Oh no! So sorry to hear.

If anything is left to save, here's how to triage:

Get Rubbermaid/Sterilite tubs
Fill with saltwater. If need be, forget the RO and go straight cold tap. Don't go more than halfway high; they are not designed to hold water. 5g paint buckets will work as well and you can fill those up to the brim.
You can skip the heaters right now but get an airstone or a small powerhead in the tubs.
Move livestock to tubs. For corals, forget the acclimation. If there are any fish left, they do need acclimation.

Don't mix rock and corals and fish; just move the corals and fish. Otherwise the sponge, etc. may rot inside the rock and bring the problem to the tubs, too.

Keep Amquel on hand in case of cycle in the tubs.

If you can get to my house by 4:30pm, I have buckets and Clor-Am-X. I gotta go to the airport after that

 

[NALCOMIS]

weird, i wonder what caused the quick loss. maybe no heat? or somthing else electrical pooped out? I would think a tank would be able to survive 2-3 days in this heat with no electricity.

possibly a plate coral caused a chain reaction?

 

[GTR]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7812517#post7812517 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by sammoorefield
weird, i wonder what caused the quick loss. maybe no heat? or somthing else electrical pooped out? I would think a tank would be able to survive 2-3 days in this heat with no electricity.

possibly a plate coral caused a chain reaction?

Even in perfect weather your well stocked tank is at risk in a matter of hours due to lack of air exchange without circulation.

CW, Sounds like you were as ready as you could be with a battery backup in place. Not much else you could really do to prevent it. It's a said thing for sure.

SteveU

 

[sharkdude]

Sorry for your loss CW. Once you get over the heartache and consider re-setup, put out a call and I'm good for a donation to the cause.

Check out the penn plax battery backup airpumps. they at least maintain some circulation and aeration for several hours on 2-d batteries.

sammoorefield: how long would you survive without your heart to recirculate your oxygen laden blood?
Think of seawater as the equivalent as blood and the pump as your heart and you'll see why things begin to suffer very quickly in event of a power outage.

 

[Bebo77]

dude sorry to heat that... these power outage have me on my wits end...

 

[WarDaddy]

Wow, that is my biggest fear. My system went down on Saturday, I have no idea how log. I have batteries on effecient pumps to keep things moving. When we got home, power was up, everything looks ok.

Saturday will be know as the day many tanks saw their last day. I fear your story is just the first of many to come.

Whe you are ready to fire it up, PM me, I should have some stuff that may help you get going.

 

[So Cal shaggy]

Wow sorry to hear about your loss. It was probably the heat more than lack of circulation or a combo of both that did the tank in. That is the 1 thing that worries me is a power outage when I am not home even though I have battery operated backup pumps with no chiller in this weather most tanks would not last too long. When you get everything stabilized give me a holler I would be more than happy to donate some LPS and softies.

 

[thing1]

Sorry bro, thats a real heartbreaker. These things take so much work and care, its a real tragedy when these things happen.

I'll be looking forward to hearing a startup story from you in the future.

 

[JenDub]

Oh man, that's bad! Where in Fullerton are you? We didn't lose power that long (thank god!), I'm over by St. College & Chapman....

 

[Fmellish]

That does suck, but doesn't border on my biggest fear. My biggest fear with a tank would be it breaking and flooding my house.

It sucks to loose your fish and corals, but you can rebuy/regrow them. Imagine if your tank broke and flooded your house. Now that's my biggest fear.

I know it sucks, but this is a great chance to start fresh.

Josh

 

[CW from the OC]

Thanks everyone for your kind words and offers of support.

I'm not sure what I'll do with this tank. I'll keep trying to save what I can and see what comes fo it, though it does not look good. I have a brand new 210 LeeMar Starfire sitting at Pacific Reef, waiting to be installed in the new addition to my house. If I hadn't have paid for the new tank, I wouldn't put it in. I guess I'll go ahead and install it, maybe make it a FOWLER or something.

The tank water is clearing up, the smell is a bit better. All SPS, LPS and Clams died. A few Zoo's and shrooms are hanging in there.

JenDub: I'm near Euclid and Valencia Mesa. Apparently we lost a couple of transformers. Our power was off most/all of the time from Friday until noon Tuesday. I got a generator running Sunday at about 5pm.

 

[Maximus]

Sorry to hear about your loss. It sounds like the Vortech battery was not suffcient to keep your reef alive? Did it come on the 2nd time the power went out?

 

[RobbyG]

Man I am so sorry to hear about your loss, It is the kind of loss that all of us live in fear of, I feel your pain.

 

[CW from the OC]

I don't know how long it ran the second time. I tested the battery earlier in the week and it ran about 28 hours. When I arrived on sunday, the power was on in the house, but was extremely browned out. I'm guessing it was running at 15% of full power. Regular incandesent light bulbs lit up, but were brown, fans ran on very low speed. Unfortunately, none of the aquarium equipment would run. The tank sitter "thought" there was power Saturday morning, but admits she saw the fans running on low power and just assumed all was fine.

So to get to the point, I don't know if the power ever really came back on after Friday night, so I have no idea if the battery ever got recharged. I'm guessing we never got good power for any significant amount of time, because I think the battery wold have gotten a decent charge over a 12 or 14 hour period.

However, the battery did perform as it was designed to, and I recommend it highly. I just had a bad series of thing occur when I was out of town.

The one thing I could have done better is to better educate my dog/tank sitter on what to look for, and make sure he/she knows where and how to set up the generator.

 

[salt e]

im sorry to hear of the crash...another tank down... Hugo is also suffering... ~sigh~ my heart goes out to you guys...

 

[Maximus]

Why do these things happen when we are out of town? Just horrible luck That makes perfect sense now regarding the battery backup. It probably wasnt fully charged and lasted only a short time. Do you feel that if it was fully charged, it would have saved your tank? I'm guessin yes.

 

[CW from the OC]

I do believe it would have saved the tank, if it had gotten fully recharged. I got 28 hours the last full charge, and others are reporting 30 or so hours after a few charge/discharge cycles.