# Tank Disaster



## DennisZ (Feb 3, 2015)

Hello everyone, 

I'm not particularly active on this forum but this morning, I pretty much lost all my corals from a cheap heater. 

Overnight, the heater stopped functioning properly and raised the temperature of the tank water over 30 degrees. By the time I saw the tank, my LPS corals were skeletons, my leathers bleached, and softies melted. The worst part was the tear down of the tank, it smelled terrible! I tossed all the coral which were clearly dead but one coral, my pseudocorynactis. It looked somewhat salvageable. Indo pacific pseudocorynactis are impossible to find.... 

Anyway, I'd like to share some hints of advice that I've learned from this. 

1) DO NOT use cheap, old heaters. I knowingly knew my heater was pretty budget and I've used it for a few years. Heaters breaking down are very common, in fact, most of the disaster-related cases I've heard about come from heaters failing. Buy the high-quality ones and replace very old ones. 

2) It's beneficial to have at least 2 aquariums. Luckily I had another reef tank to place the pseudocorynactis in. It's like a safety net. The only problem is, most reefers like to link systems. 

3) If you notice a slight problem or "off" feeling, address it immediately. I could have possibly prevented this problem. I noticed some of my coral were looking distressed before I went to bed. I didn't think too much of it, should have possibly checked the thermometer in the tank.


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## imy112 (Dec 8, 2011)

Sorry about the crash and coral loss. Solid advice and a good reminder to check and recheck equipment. Good luck starting over, glad atleast one coral survived.


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## darkangel66n (May 15, 2013)

Sorry about the crash. One other thing that works well are two smaller heaters. If one fails hopefully you not it before it is an issue.


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## planter (Jun 9, 2008)

That's terrible sorry to hear about your tank. Heaters are one of those pieces equipment that can completely wipe out a tank without warning.


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## duckhams (Oct 13, 2009)

A tank controller can be a very effective insurance policy against heater malfunctions. Even if the heater is stuck in the ON position the tank controller (i.e. APEX) will sense the temp and turn the heater off for you, avoiding disaster. Sorry to hear about your troubles.


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## Thehvacman (Apr 18, 2016)

This same thing happened to me twice! Corals can take a heater failing in the off position way better than an over temperature event. Although all of my lps looked dead little pieces of tissue on the skeleton redeveloped into new heads, so don't rush and throw out everything. Would have just done a water change and change filter. I work in hvac and have access to controls, so I wired a temperature controller to cut the power to an outlet that I plug the heaters into, if the temperature goes over 82. This gives me alittle peace of mind. Good luck.


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## DennisZ (Feb 3, 2015)

Thanks for the advice everyone.

Unfortunately everything was reduced to a bare skeleton. It was a nano-tank and the ammonia levels from the die off was insane because of the huge amount of corals I had in there. They were sitting in an ammonia solution hot tub for hours.

The one coral that I think may survive isn't doing well. It's "melting" and all of it's mesenterial filaments have been ejected. There's also a hole on it's side now. I'm hoping it will make a turn around soon, it's my indo-pacific pseudocorynactis (http://www.gtaaquaria.com/forum/showthread.php?t=223433). If anyone does have pseudocorynactis for sale, I'm definitely looking for another one.

I'm keeping things positive right now because coming into the hobby, I understood that you may lose everything in one day if things go wrong. Next time, I'll be investing in a tank controller and high-end equipment.


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