Almost cooked my reef tank!

[kaybee]

I don't use a heater, but due to the heat generated by water circulation equipment I run fans over my tank 24hrs a day.

I had departed my home for much of the day and left before my tank lights came on. I returned this afternoon and noticed my frogspawn wasn't fully expanded (very odd hours into the lighting period). Then I noticed that nearly all of my corals weren't fully expanded.

I then remembered late last night (~1am) I turned off my cooling fans, intended for only a few moments while I checked something out...and then discovered I forgot to turn them back on!

My fans were off for about 14hrs and during that time water temperature shot up from a normal 78F/25.5C to 90.3F/32.3C! I immediately turned on the fans and shut off all circulation.

I'm not sure if the temperature peaked at 90.3F or if it was still increasing when I discovered it, but 6hrs later temperature has come down to 82F/27.7C and continues to gradually drop. Most of the corals no longer appeared stressed once the temp 'got down' to 86F, though a few aren't fully expanded as they should be (xenia, neospongedes, fox coral). Luckily no melting or tissue recession occured. Looks like all the corals will bounce back from this.

My yellow polyps and zoanthids 'appeared' totally unaffected by the high temperatures, as did my fish and most of my inverts. The sole casualty was a fromia sea star. Unaccounted for (so far) is my porcelein crab (though it's mostly nocturnal so it's normal for it not to be seen).

Definately a close call!

[ILuvMyGoldBarb]

WOw, glad you caught it before it was too late. That would have been a real shame to loose that beautiful tank.

[greatXpectations]

yikes! i hope everyone bounces back ok

[spudbuds]

Glad you caught it. I hope everything recovers okay for you.

I started setting an alarm on my cell phone anytime I shut something off just so I remember to turn it back on. I'm so afraid of doing something like that.

- Bill

[jimpierce]

I'm starting to see how my heater is really moot as well. I keep it in the sump but I have to be careful where I put it so it doesn't end up on. I recently turned down all the way to cool the temp in the tank from 80 to 82 down to 78 where I used to keep it.
I guess I should have figured with lights on 20 out of 24 hours a day things would stay warm enough. Time to set up a fan I guess.

[kaybee]

Looks like everything's doing fine. I fed the tank last night to see how feeding responses were and the corals ate. Also found my filter-feeding porcelein crab. I've heard of hobbyists suffering great losses when temps shot up to 87F, so I think I definately dodged the bullet.

[Lady Hobbs]

Whew. You are one lucky duck. Doesn't take much for a person to loose a whole lot of money and time, does it?

[oldhead]

Holy crap, glad that you were able to nip it in the bud quick enough to not have any problems. I always have the fear that something like that'll happen to me. So I've gotten in the habit of running through a checklist twice before leaving the room just to make sure everything is on.

[jman]

Wooow glad u caught it, tanks hate too much heat like cars! i'm checking out chillers now because i'd rather have something direct to the tank i think it will lessen my worries heat kills.