Central Air went out today, possible pico reef death

[brandon4291]

Sorry to report ladies and gentlemen, but I came home today to a house with an ambient room temperature of 102 degrees, confirmed by my trusty radioshack temp unit with working alarm (which was beeping away as I walked in the door). it got hot here in Lubbock today and wouldnt ya know this is the day for AC troubles!!!

I didnt not post this as a call for sentiments, I know everyone is sad when a fellow aquarist loses a reef for whatever reason. Ive promised to report both the good and the bad with these experimental systems. This was simply a mini-El Nino (El Pico) event that has happened in my home, any good aquarist would rebuild and go at it again.

no, I will soon post pics of whatever surviving corals there are and document their return as well as observations of the reef system after cooldown (ie copepod life, fanworm life, crab/invert etc) It does not look good, Ive had polyp bailout/meltdown on my prized blastomussa groups but oddly enough xenia is still there and not shriveled up to a blue pinhead... thats the first specimen I'd expect to lose. Wierd. Caulastrea looks okay, frogspawn and hammers I won't know until its cooled and they try to open up again.

Moral of this story: get one of those $200 devices that senses an alarm going off and pages you or calls you on your cell phone---this would have saved everything today.

Ill post update pics and writings as soon as I work triage on the various frags. So far, the reefbowl looks about 25% dead but its the Mini75 I'm worried about---I have two 13w pcs over this 3/4 gallon reef and I would guess its been at 95-105 degrees for the last 5-6 hours. I can see several fanworms drooping out of their tubes, dead pods, dead worms etc. We'll see what can be salvaged.


Actually Im taking this quite well considering my compulsiveness about the picos....always wondered when this day would come. I always thought it would be a freak nerf-ball accident or a breakage at cleaning--never thought the ole' AC WOULD KILL MY PRECIOUS PICO REEFS

bye for now, be back soon

Brandon M.

 

[brandon4291]

Hey guys and gals (SeaMaiden!) Id like your input while Im giving my systems CPR to keep anything alive I can. First I need to get the temp back down. Fixed the prob with the AC (actuator switch) now the house is cooling, but the reefs are still in the upper 90's. Rather than changing the water fully with 78 degree SW (which I thought would shock them again) I have opened all the lids and in the process of blowing cool air across them to enact a cool down slowly. Also, the specific gravity of the Mini75 raises .002 every 5 minutes when the lid is off and the cooling fan is on, so Im also carefully watching SG with my swingarm hydrometer which is calibrated for water in the 70's (I dont have a glass hydrometer)!!! I am open to ANY suggestions you have about this scenario. For now, I plan on getting the temp down and doing a full water change to remove dead matter in suspension after they slowly cool.

 

[Anonymous]

Very sorry to hear about that B... the only advice I can give is to cool it down slowly. I bet a surprising amount of bristleworm and copepod life will survive--my tank hit 95 last year and everything bounced back. When you feel the time is right to add corals, just ask for whatever frags you want from my tank and they're yours.

 

[brandon4291]

Matt that is awesome. Now that is a reefing brother come to the rescue! Actually upon inspection this morning the corals do not look as bad as they once appeared. In your experience, have you seen SPS die off with this kind of event or do they come back after a heat shock? Thats what I care about the most, its taken me months to elicit growth from these montiporas and thats what I hate to lose most.

B

 

[Anonymous]

Wow, brandon, what an awful feeling it must have been to come home to that.

Along with not wanting to shock animals with water that is too cool, I'd try to set up a drip of fresh water to prevent too great a change in the salinity. Unfortunately, with a swingarm you've given up a great deal of accuracy. However, this could be mitigated by simply performing several water changes (on the order of 50% or so), with water that is also temp adjusted, first a bit warmish, then cooler, to help bring the temp down to acceptable levels. You may wish to tank one tank and just change out the water to water that's at the proper temp (though I'd go with a higher temp of 80F-84F). Sometimes the situation is so bad that taking your time is the worst thing to do, the animals may fare better if they're just reintroduced to proper parameters, rather than suffering through a slow readjustment.

Good luck, my friend!

 

[Anonymous]

I think the small volume of the bowl will cool down quite rapidly once your AC comes back on. If it drops down over the course of a couple days I think you'll be all right. I've never experienced SPS in that kind of heat--I lost a couple cleaner shrimp when my temp went that high, but otherwise it was just cured LR. All sorts of inverts survived it. You should get it back down ASAP, but I think a water change isn't necessary. Coping with the temp change will be enough for the inverts without having to cope with other, even slight, parameter changes. Remember that natural reefs hit 89-90 on occassion.

 

[brandon4291]

Yeah that's a good call about the temp variances in the wild...in thinking about that I wonder if the blastomussa lineage is never found in those zones where there is 90 degree fluxes, seeing as this particular LPS was wiped out in the mini75. It didn't seem armed for the challenge, each red bud went through pure meltdown. Caulastrea as well... I can pick and saw off their dead skeletons with tweezers and serrated scalpels so they can be replaced when I go buy a new coral head and frag it (well after the new AC gets installed this weekend). If the montipora dies, my entire aquascaping will be shot becuase it took 8 months for them to grow and plate as the have--to the point the aren't "glued" anymore but plated over the entire rock base.

Also, notice in that next-to-the-last picture in the Mini75 thread how well the GSP were doing. Now in the last picture, taken today at lunch, they are all closed up and the LR surface looks barren. Will they return?

Seamaiden, Ive seen you post several times about getting the most accurate/reliable SG meter by using a scientific glass hydrometer. Unlike the average boy scout, I was not prepared for a heated SG-Test emergency. I just ordered a $28 hydrometer from aquaticeco.com that has temperature scales on one side w/conversions and SG readings on the other--one can test at any practical temp. Hindsight right!?!?

Brandon

 

[Joey French]

Brandon, from someone who has had to deal with death of happy tank creatures to unforseen circumstances, I will be the first to send frags of any coral I have... They were given to me, and I would love to share the wealth. I hope for the best, and saddened that the considerable effort that you have put into creating stable tiny microcosms has been jeapordised. Just let me know, and hope all goes well.
Joey

 

[brandon4291]

Joey that is really nice of you man, I won't forget a gesture like that from both you and Matt W. if I weren't so impatient I'd take you up on some frags for sure. Isnt it a bummer when this happens?!?

LFS opens at 10 today (Sunday) and they have a 25$ montipora colony that will frag quite nicely and replenish the entire system with the lost SPS. Now that half of the Mini75 has been lost, I realize my subconscious ties to the mini systems and to avoid the need for electric shock therapy I must get them rebuilt today.

Still, its a grave loss because all the lateral plating is lost and each new frag has a nice white glue plug at the base--it takes 6 months for those to completely overgrow which is a looooong wait after seeing it established the first time around. Amazingly, montipora on one side of the tank (the side getting the powerhead output) all survived, including red and green porites frags and yellow/orange m. capricornis.

The caulerpa in the refugium did not crash, and most of the bugs survived the event. I did have some cloudy water which indicates bacteria shock/dieoff but its nothing a few water changes and two weeks won't fix. At least the system wasn't a total loss. The Reefbowl survived with only one loss, it does not get as hot due to the lighting system.

Brandon

 

[Joey French]

Good to hear that it wasn't a total loss. Hope you can get it back in shape quickly.
Joey

 

[Bleeding Blue]

Brandon, I hate to hear of your loss. You seemed to be doing everything right, and I am sure I speak for everyone in the nano form when I say that the care and success of your systems has always been inspiration for us. It is a humbling experience to have to face such unforseen circumstances. Maybe the silver lining is that you can look at it as a way to fix any mistakes you made in setup (it is kind of a lame silver lining, but it was the best I could come up with), as well as a learning experience for everyone. Good luck. Keep us posted.

Mike

 

[jhiltabiddle]

I AM FROM LUBBOCK....HEAT SUCKS......YOU CAN BIULD A CHILLER REALLY CHEAP FROM THERMOELECTRIC COOLER (WAL MART) THE ONE I BIULT DROPS TEMP OF 15 GALLON AQUARIUM 10 DEGREES. RESPOND IF YOU ARE INTERESTED.

[email protected]

 

[brandon4291]

I am all about custom-tweaking of wal mart parts for reef purposes...heck wal mart on 4th street is where I got the vase, pump and most of the parts to make the reefbowl. Welcome to reefs dot org bro and nice to see a fellow Lubbockite in here with me, our other friend NPaden is the only other one I know of. BTW he has the largest reef in a 300-mile radius around here, a 415 I believe. And, its fully stocked just like we cram into our nanos. major dolla

I am very interested in your cooler design and it would help. Maybe its something like Ben (lalawman) was talking about. At least I can see you at a reefclub meeting in town sometime to mull over the details with you.

Thanks

Brandon

 

[LA-Lawman]

Hey Brandon....

Ouch.... i hate to hear of heat problems..... I am getting a 8 degree swing in my 20g..... I only have a finger leather in there. and some green hair algae... I am afraid to add fish with the temp swings.

I am gonna order the aquamedic chiller from champion... i will run it off a canister filter.

BTW - I wonder if Heatsink technology would work for you. I know some of the computer gurus use a water cooled heatsink to cool the computer processors.. maybe attach two fan cooler sinks to the back of your pico...

you get a small DC power supply. put it on the floor and run a heatsing for all your picos off of it....

 

[brandon4291]

Ben I think that may be my only practical approach if I want to try direct cooling. Refrigerant cooled setups require pumping and hose in/outs, and this is a hassle for sure in the pico system. For the heat sink versions you mention, I have seen in some internet pics that they have a 4 inch plastic tube you insert in the water column. This may take the place of the heavy fanning to offset the pc lights and could be hidden under a canopy... Then I could use tiny dc fans in the hood like a scale model and use the chiller probe to keep the heat from building in the water column. One my LFS can get says it will drop a 20g 6-8 degrees, imagine what that would translate to in a .75 g. Good heat insurance. For the time being until that venture, I coolin' here in the new ac setup. Hopefully she will never fail me. >knock on wood<