To Heat or Not to Heat (Nuking of the 54 gallon)

[aquawolf]

I had made mention of this in a few posts earlier, but kept forgetting to start a new thread on it. So, here goes.

My 54 gallon tank was running a little too cool compared to my other tanks. They usually hover between 78 to 80 degrees, but this tank was ranging from 74 to 77 degrees. Of course 74 is not too terribly cold, but you could tell a definite difference when working between the tanks.

So, I took a logical approach to this situation. I had a Hydor Theo 400 watt heater that I was not using for anything. I placed it in the tank and set it at 76 figuring this tank would now be the most stable temperature controlled one in the house.

Everything was going well and I basically forgot that the heater was even in there. About 2 weeks later, my wife calls me at work and says the tank is all cloudy, and many of the corals look ticked off. The only thing I could come up with off the top of my head was that it was going through some type of bacterial bloom, and I would check it when I got home in 4 hours.

What I found when I got home was a tank temperature of 91 degrees. The heater was still on and when I pulled it out of the tank it was literally smoking! I immediately gathered as many cold packs as I could and began floating them in the tank to try to cool it down. I had to keep switching between frozen cold packs, ice cubes in ziploc bags, and whatever else I could find while some of the used stuff was being frozen again.

I lost my 8 headed hammer, a 2 headed frogspawn, many montipora cap frags, some zoanthids, and pulsating xenia. The toadstool leather and large fish eating mushroom still haven't recovered fully, but the leather is trying its best.

They say pictures are worth a thousand words, so I will be posting those next. You may want to keep this thread in mind if you have plans on adding a heater to your system without using a controller.

[aquawolf]

Frogspawn skeleton:



Montipora pieces:



Hammer skeleton:

[quader94]

an 8 headed hammer!!wow i always see 2 or 3 but not 8

sorry for your losses

[aquawolf]

The giant mushroom:



Amazingly the Duncan actually survived this ordeal and is still doing very well. This is the bright spot of the entire situation.



As you can see the leather did not fair nearly as well:



FTS series:

[aquawolf]

Originally Posted by quader94

an 8 headed hammer!!wow i always see 2 or 3 but not 8

sorry for your losses

Yes Tim, I had that piece for nearly 4 years and it started out as 2 heads. You can see from the picture how quickly the hair algae started setting in. I believe these pics were taken either 2 or 3 days after it happened, as it took a couple of days for the skimmer to start working properly again and for the water to clear up enough to take a picture.

[aquawolf]

Here is what things looked like on June 28th, I cannot remember how many days later this was.

As you can see, the mushroom is still in pretty bad shape:









Here are a few shots of the frag racks:









Here is the shining star of the survivors, the duncan:






And an FTS from that day:



The system has still not fully recovered yet. The leather barely puts out its polyps, if it does so at all. The mushroom still has its mouth expanded. The hair algae is definitely going away, but it is nowhere near being totally gone yet.

I will try to get some updated pictures tomorrow to show you the condition of everything now.

[quader94]

sorry to hear that
and i saw all that algea, man that stuff spread quick!

[aquawolf]

Originally Posted by quader94

sorry to hear that
and i saw all that algea, man that stuff spread quick!

Massive die off of living tissues in a smaller size body of water makes all kinds of strange things happen. It will take some time, but I will get through this as well.

[quader94]

well best of luck

[aquawolf]

Originally Posted by quader94

well best of luck

Thanks Tim, I appreciate it.

[gouch]

awe man AW....im so sorry. this tank was one of personal favorites of yours.

it is a really creative idea with it being a frag/display tank. hope the recovery goes smoothly for you.

[aquawolf]

Thanks gouch. It definitely stings quite a bit when something like this happens. Of course, I wish the recovery was was going much quicker that it actually is as well. It may go faster if I was to remove the leather and the giant mushroom, but I do not really want to give up on them like that.

On another bright note, I am actually seeing a couple of the orange montipora frags getting some of their color back. They look kind of peachy, but at least its a start and much better than solid white.

[gouch]

Originally Posted by aquawolf

Thanks gouch. It definitely stings quite a bit when something like this happens. Of course, I wish the recovery was was going much quicker that it actually is as well. It may go faster if I was to remove the leather and the giant mushroom, but I do not really want to give up on them like that.

On another bright note, I am actually seeing a couple of the orange montipora frags getting some of their color back. They look kind of peachy, but at least its a start and much better than solid white.

glad to hear it is coming along even if it is slow going
agreed, peachy is better than white, lol

[chrisd]

wow that sucks mike, i always spent the money for a good heater but after seeing this i will spend the money on a temperture control, good luck

[Doug1]

Oh Man, sorry to hear that Aqua