Your thoughts after a bad day of reefing.

[dcw1sfu]

So woke up yesterday morning to my skimmer shut off (thank god for float switch overflow protection) and my return pump shut off. After some trouble shooting seems as though my Eheim 3000 had shorted some how and was smoking hot and actually melting on the inside. No problem throw on my older back up Eheim 3000 and go out for the day. Return in the evening to once again return pump not on and just a buzzing sound. Turns out this pump had died too (both pumps were perfectly clean).

So I throw on my Mag Drive 9 and im back up and running again. However, ive now woken up to some very pale corals. My thoughts are that the 2 inch water drop due to the return pump not running all day and no surface aggitation allowed far more light penetration paling out alot of my acros. Ive ran a Hydra 52 with 4 T5's, the hydra 52 peaks between 90% and 100% (not on all channels).

So now that Ive got the return pump situation fixed Is the best way for these corals to recover just ramp my hydra 52 down to peaks between 50 and 60%? Cant really lower my coral colonies in the tank. Or just leave the light as it was seeing as now it has its usual light penetration with full water height and surface agitation?

Whats the general recovery time for something like this? A month or two? Sad thing my corals were looking the best they ever have.

 

[Reef Frog]

I bet the burning plastic has something to do with it if I read your post correctly. I'd do the largest water change you can get away with and run carbon heavily, changing it out frequently. If you have a suitable QT tank, I might consider relocating any prized colonies there until the coast is clear. Don't want to make you paranoid but I've read horror stories on the effects of burned plasic in aquariums so I'd get on it ASAP. Good luck to you.

 

[dcw1sfu]

I bet the burning plastic has something to do with it if I read your post correctly. I'd do the largest water change you can get away with and run carbon heavily, changing it out frequently. If you have a suitable QT tank, I might consider relocating any prized colonies there until the coast is clear. Don't want to make you paranoid but I've read horror stories on the effects of burned plasic in aquariums so I'd get on it ASAP. Good luck to you.

Thanks never thought of that. It really does look like the affects of too much light however I'll side on the chance of caution. I did a 30 % water change this morning I'll change out my carbon as well.

 

[FirstContact]

Sorry to read about your bad reef day. I know when my 46g was suffering old tank syndrome day after day no matter what I did after eight years running it was maddening. So I set up a 120g and tore down the 46g. Now all is good again. Hope your corals recover. Sorry about your pumps.

 

[kmbyrnes]

On the bright side, your tanks still have water in them
Sorry about your bad day, at least you were prepared for the first failure. Lucky you were prepared for the second.
Hope you corals are doing better after a WC.

 

[BrandonFlorida]

I woke up Saturday to my protein skimmer sounding dead, then remember the stupid snail in my sump, turned it off and left for breakfast. Got home and turned it on, and it worked. Then sunday I notice my water level in the tank is very low. Go into sump room and see the return pump took a nose dive. Thanks jebao!

 

[TONY_C]

So woke up yesterday morning to my skimmer shut off (thank god for float switch overflow protection) and my return pump shut off. After some trouble shooting seems as though my Eheim 3000 had shorted some how and was smoking hot and actually melting on the inside. No problem throw on my older back up Eheim 3000 and go out for the day. Return in the evening to once again return pump not on and just a buzzing sound. Turns out this pump had died too (both pumps were perfectly clean).

I just thought I would highlight this. I'm new to the hobby, at least the reef side of SW, but I did have SW many years ago. It's amazing that both the main pump and the backup pump could fail within the same 24 hour period but stuff happens.

I truly hope all works out for your fish and corals, you were fortunate to have spare pumps available and even then one spare wasn't enough. Anyone reading this who doesn't think they need some spare equipment and some redundancy in their setups is really playing Russian Roulette with their livestock.

 

[d-man]

So first, I'd "reef" a lil bit, then get to work. Bring the light intensity down a bit. If you think it's just that then don't thriw carbon in. That will help the light penetrate even deeper and could really mess up the corals?
Next set up an apex to have those fail safes if you can. Ie if the pump fails, lights turn off etc.
If you don't have an apex, get one. Even though mine loses connection a lot from the internet(too much local agitation in frequency) it still controls things. Mine i solely got for safety and redundancy. It controls my main, heater and CaRx(even though I have an AP regulator)
It's piece of mind for sure.yes, I won't get email alerts but I have a 900g tank, so it'll take a while to go awry unless a crack obviously