summerkill

[Anonymous]

been a bit warm for this time of year here in Portland Oregon and i am an idiot.

the stench was bad

the water was cloudy

the corals were white

and my anthias are no more.

since i moved a couple years ago i have been battling the temp in the tank during the summer months. the last place had central air so it wasn't a problem previously.
last year i got a pattern down where i would come home around 4 pm and throw ice in the tank cooling it for the remainder of the day and by morning it would take most of the day to get the temp up again.

well, the family and i decided a weekend in a hotel with a pool sounded much better than sweating at home, so we took off. i threw my 1 liter bottles of ice in and figured all would be well but didn't take into account that the windows in the house would be closed and thus never be ventilated in the evening, cooling the house, etc.

i wish i could curse here. :evil:

 

[Anonymous]

so i broke the whole tank down.
i figured i would do all the things i wanted to do but wouldn't because i didn't want the hassle of moving a full tank.

for example, my 46 bow sits angled in the corner atop an antique icebox about 3' tall. i planned to make a shelf in the back to put my ballasts on so i could free the current ballast space for an additional 'fuge. i have a few of these types of tasks that i think i will do seeing the tank is screwed.

so if you were me, would you reuse the DSB?
it is close to six years old and chocked full of critters. it sits in the garage right now in a 20g trashcan. i tend to think it is dumb to throw it away, especially when the price of aragonite is so dang high but it would be the ideal time if i were to ever do it.

 

[Anonymous]

Ouch. sorry to hear about your crash. I lost most of a tank last summer to the heat. The very next day I went out and bought a 11000 BTU ac unit. I didn't care about the heat, but my tank sure did.

If you only had a 2 or 3 inch deep sandbed, you may get away with keeping it. If it was a real DSB, like 6 inches or so, I'd shy away from keeping your dsb. By moving it to the trashcan, you probably stirred up some bad ju-ju's. I'm not sure how long before you set up your tank again. I'd think that the longer the sand sits, (once stirred up) the safer it will become. But, if it sits too long, you're going to stir up the nasties when you put it back into your tank.

HTH
Brett

 

[fishfarmer]

Been there, done that. First look into some sort of chilling unit, even if it is just a window A/C in the fish room. I have my A/C unit in the same room set to come on when the room hits 82. It works great.

As for your sandbed, if you still have some critters alive in it, I would keep a few lbs of it alive for seeding a new bed. When my tank crashed due to heat, I left my bed in since it was only a couple of months old. It cycled my tank fairly quick. I pulled most of my rock and remaining corals and kept them alive in a separate tank with several water changes and skimming.

 

[Anonymous]

I don't see why you can't let the LS recycle in the trash can. Just do copious water changes and keep it stirred up til you're ready to reinstall.

Holy shite! I'm talking like a puter geek... 8O

 

[Anonymous]

I'm so sorry to hear what happened, Podman. Man, that stinks!

Personally, I'd reuse the DSB. Stir it up (and I mean STIR it up!) every day over four or five days, and do a sizabe water change every 24 hours...and I think you'll be fine. FWIW, that's what I would do.

Again...sorry to hear about your sad news. I am, however, glad to hear that you're jumping right back in!

Chris

 

[Anonymous]

thanks to all for the encouraging words.

i have sort of ignored the whole fiasco today. late last night i moved some things around and totally removed the tank from my house and put nearly everything in the garage or at a friends house.

i had plans to go dirt bike riding today and just threw the thoughts of this away. nothing seems to have minded my lack of attention. looks like i may some survibvors that will make a good start on the next build up.

i think i will keep this dsb in a barrel or rubbermaid something and use it to seed a new one if it seems stable to do so.

now if i wasn't so darn busted up from todays activities i might do something.

 

[Anonymous]

have been lucky. My tank has been set up for a year now and I have never used a heater. In the summer I watch carefully. I put 2 radio shack fans in and it keeps it just right.Cross my finger. You know in vegas it gets to be 115. My house is always at 78 or so.My electric bill is hi.But it works

 

[Anonymous]

I'd think that you'd be losing a large portion of the smallest particle sizes if you stir and drain and repeat, repeat, repeat... You may want to consider the readdition of these particle sizes if you are going for the full-on DSB. Otherwise, just rinse it with fresh water a few times and it should be fine.