Total Tank Crash -> need advise

[mling]

We came home from a 3 day vacation to a total tank crash. All the life stock, fishes, hermit crabs

[xCGx]

A grounding probe may have saved them. Sorry about your loss.

[fab]

Very sorry to hear about your crash and the devastating loss of your livestock.

 

Your live sand and live rock are probably cycling, assuming the bacterial life was not killed off. You said you replaced the water with "fresh water." I hope you did not mean "freshwater" and that you did mean "a fresh batch of saltwater." Assuming you meant saltwater, then I'd recommend you let the ammonium cycle go to completion. Hopefully the nitrifying and denitrifying bacteria in the rock and sand are still alive and working for you. Look for the ammonium level to spike and then to fall off, followed by a spike in nitrites and nitrates that should fall off. When all of these levels return to undetectable levels the live rock should smell fresh, with no rotten smell. If and when that occurs, then your live rock and should be fine. After than I recommend you allow some more time for the rock and substrate to recolonize before adding livestock again. You might benefit from seeding the sand with some fresh live sand from someone else's tank while you are encouraging recolonization. Likewise you might seed the live rock with some fresh live rock, also, just to help it recolonize. A couple or even a few weeks of recolonization should do, although some people like to allow months for this process.

I believe there is a device that tracks electric leaks of devices in tanks. Would this have help prevent what happened to my tank ?

Tracking electric leaks only provides awareness that an electric leak exists. It will not prevent anything in and of itself. Prevention depends on how you react to having been made aware. So, I believe the correct answer to your question is 'maybe.' Many believe that grounding probes are likely to exasperate an electrical leak as it completes a circuit allowing electricity to flow through the tank, leading to electrocution. There are lots of articles arguing both sides of the benefits and risks of grounding aquaria.

 

good luck in your recovery,

 

fab

Edited July 2, 2007 by fab

[HowardofNOVA]

Dang, sorry to hear about your loss!

After my move last week, I was shocked by a MAG pump that was putting out stray electricity too!

ANY time you believe you have an Electrical Issue, immediately get it out of your system and either fix or replace! As you unfortunately found out, electricity if UNFORGIVING!

 

IMO, I would remove the sand and replace with new, being your starting over, I would also give your rocks a quick spraying with a hose and scrub off the old dead corals off the rocks. You'll have plenty of time during the cycling to get re-established but would help getting through this quicker!

My reason, is with a massive die off, your basically sitting on Ammonia Bomb and is stead of taking weeks to cycle through, take out the old now to expedite the cycle.

 

Again, sorry for your loss, but don't give up!

You got a chance for a new beginning!

[treesprite]

I'm so sorry your tank crashed and the animals died :( Very scary crash.

 

I have had that problem with powerheads not coming back on after power outages - usually they would start again, but a couple I had to throw away. I was told something by the LFS about the magnet in the impeller not making full contact to re-start and that it had to do with needing to keep the impeller clean (gets a sort of film over the magnet). I clean my impellers once a month now and haven't had that happen in a long time.

 

I have to ask about the grounding probe for anyone with answers. One of the first things I put in my tank was a grounding probe, because the LFS told me to do it. I just want to get at least a 3/4th consensus as to whether I should take it out.

[yauger]

dude that sucks, I'm sorry to hear... I'm in you rneck of the woods so if you need some help let me know... Good luck!

[Sharkb8]

If ammonia is really high - would it be beneficial to do frequent water changes to bring it down? I mean, even nitrifying bacteria can only take a certain concentration of ammonia before they too start to die off . . . . but in theory, I agree with the others. Give it time and it should rebound. You will have at least some bacteria and pods in there that may have survived. Give them a chance to come back. Reseeding would be a great way to restart, but I'd get the ammonia down first before trying to add more pods. Best of luck. Stick with it. You should be able to get that tank back up and running very well again by end of the year I would think.

[Gatortailale]

1) buy grounding probe

2) run carbon for few weeks or more

3) do 10% +water changes ever few days

4) let tank cycle for another few wees before adding anything.

5) sand - sure you probably can add some new sand to old to improve looks/texture.

 

sorry for your loss - in future try to plug pumps, powerheads on separate outlets - circuits so if one trips, you still have water flow from another device on separate circuit. I have main return pump on one circuit; tunze streams on another circuit and closed loop on 3rd circuit.

[davelin315]

I think you guys have missed what he's asking. The circuit breaker tripped, most likely in the storms that went through the area. If your tank is on a GFCI and it was overpowered by the power turning on, then nothing would have helped other than having different systems on different plugs. If it's the circuit breaker itself, you had too much current running through it and blew it, or, it could be that the rains caused the circuit to trip and it's not going to go on by itself.

 

Let your system cycle again and if you think it might happen again, run another circuit to the tank and run two pumps independent of each other and also install a battery back up air pump. They can run for quite a long time and may have helped out a bit.

[rrubberbandman]

Who was watching over the tank while you were out of town?

[mling]

Thanks for all the advice. I've decided to keep the live rock since they still smell fresh but replace my sand bed, just leaving a little to seed. The old sand bed was crush coral and I believe that it was one of the reasons why I had trouble keeping Nitrates low. I have replaced the sand bed with aragonite, the same as my reef tank where nitrates is always next to zero.

 

So now I just need to be patient and let the tank cycle. Easier to be patient when u have 2 other tanks to tinker with.

 

We make al ot of long weekend trips out of town and no body is home at that time. One reason why we don't have a Lion fish, as much as we would like to, since I understand they only take live food, not prepared food that an automatic feeder can provide. Hopefully this won't happen again. It was not a pretty sight for my 8 year to home to as she is really into marine stuff, having names for all our fishes.

[treesprite]

The old sand bed was crush coral and I believe that it was one of the reasons why I had trouble keeping Nitrates low.

 

Good move. My trate is still high, but was through the roof before I took out the CC (tank is temporarily bare-bottomed).

[davelin315]

Thanks for all the advice. I've decided to keep the live rock since they still smell fresh but replace my sand bed, just leaving a little to seed. The old sand bed was crush coral and I believe that it was one of the reasons why I had trouble keeping Nitrates low. I have replaced the sand bed with aragonite, the same as my reef tank where nitrates is always next to zero.

 

So now I just need to be patient and let the tank cycle. Easier to be patient when u have 2 other tanks to tinker with.

 

We make al ot of long weekend trips out of town and no body is home at that time. One reason why we don't have a Lion fish, as much as we would like to, since I understand they only take live food, not prepared food that an automatic feeder can provide. Hopefully this won't happen again. It was not a pretty sight for my 8 year to home to as she is really into marine stuff, having names for all our fishes.

 

Lions can be trained to take dry food.