No vacation is too short :(

[baio44]

5 day vacation...no problem I thought. Tank was cleaned the day I left, topped-off, auto-feeder, etc. The apartment thermostat was set high so the a/c wouldn't kick on while I was gone. Well, the building switched the heat on during those 5 days. I returned to a sauna!

 

The tank water was so low it didn't even make it into the overflow. So, an 84 degree tank mixed with no flow other than a koralia = heartbreak, death and algae. Before and after pics attached.

 

Lost livestock: CB Bengai Cardnial, coral banded shrimp, skunk cleaner shrimp, snails, crabs.

 

CORAL: 4" chalice, favia, 1 head frogspawn, small toadstool mushroom, 1 SPS, green star polyps, feather dusters (alive but wilted), red and skittles acans (recessed but hopefully will grow back), pulsing xenias (probably grow back well), bleached green monitpora, few zoas, shriveled ricordea.

 

Sorry the pics are so big, couldn't compress them!

-Jeff

[Halcyon]

I am so sorry for your loss.

[Coral Hind]

Sorry to hear the bad news. Some of the corals pictured look like they will recover just fine.

[Hilary]

Wow, Jeff, sorry to hear about the tank. It's amazing what can happen the minute we turn our backs on the tanks. For your next vacation consider having a club member stop by once or twice to just eyeball things and make sure nothing has happened (like the apartment suddenly being too hot). My worst tank disaster happened over a 2 day trip when a mouse shorted out the wiring to the room with several of my small tanks. Lost just about all of the critters in one of them, just like you. Now I pay my petsitter $5 to stop by the house every day and make sure power is on and nothing funky has happened. If she finds something, she's to call a club member.

 

Hope your corals recover!

[Jon Lazar]

An Aquacontroller with email notification is another backup option in addition to a petsitter.

 

Wow, Jeff, sorry to hear about the tank. It's amazing what can happen the minute we turn our backs on the tanks. For your next vacation consider having a club member stop by once or twice to just eyeball things and make sure nothing has happened (like the apartment suddenly being too hot). My worst tank disaster happened over a 2 day trip when a mouse shorted out the wiring to the room with several of my small tanks. Lost just about all of the critters in one of them, just like you. Now I pay my petsitter $5 to stop by the house every day and make sure power is on and nothing funky has happened. If she finds something, she's to call a club member.

 

Hope your corals recover!

[Origami]

Sorry for the losses. As CoralHind noted, some of those don't look so bad given the stress that they went through. All the best for a speedy recovery!

[baio44]

Thank you everyone for your suggestions and sympathies. Already set up a petsitter for the holidays. The pics attached were before and after pics. All the coral in the after pics are only getting worse and losing more tissue. This sucks, but is also a fun challenge to nurse everything back to greatness.

[trockafella]

Do you have an ATO.?

 

Also, thats why I think a chiller is a good piece of equipment to own, just incase something like this happens..

 

 

[Jon Lazar]

That's a great attitude to have. I have multiple colonies in my tank that I grew from from tiny coral crumbs of less than .25 x .25 in...talk about a proud papa!

 

Good luck,

Jon

 

This sucks, but is also a fun challenge to nurse everything back to greatness.

[baio44]

No ATO or chiller. It's a small 29G biocube. I'll post a pic soon. Some corals are getting worse and some are getting better. Time to fix it up and start with new small frags again. Anyone have suggestions for an online monitoring system for the tank?

Thanks