Everything dead.. Got some data, help me sort out the slaughter..

[obelix]

Ok.. I'm pretty new... Here's what I have.. 240g display (8x2x2) 65gal sump 13 gal ref.. I had this as stock...

250+ crabs/snails

3 coral banded shrimp

1 royal blue tang medium
1 oc clown
1 niger trigger
1 yellow tang small
1 small naso
1 diamond goby
1 bullet goby
7 green chromis
1 domino
2 bluefin damsel
1 blue devil damsel (bought all these damsels as a cycle fish but they didn't die)
1 scooter blenny
1 adult 6" red coris wrasse
1 Urchin
600lbs of live rock
3" sand bed

I has just started my attempt a some corals, so I had few sps, and zoe and 4 new 250w MH lights..

Also
1 green BTA

..

So here's what happened.. I went to work on friday, came home friday to the tank clowdy and everything dead (I had stopped at the fish store on the way home and bought a new clown to add).. Power had died at 9 when the MH clicked on, the timer device had shorted.. Verified by ever time I plugged the timer back in it popped the GFIC... So apparently my tank had been offline for about 10 hours..

When I got home, I was floored that everything died so quick and I found the timer issue and remove it, and started everything back up and waited about an hour to pull it together and then took some levels.. I also put the clown fish in about this time ( I know I should have waited but I had no where to put it)

All fish were dead.. The only things to live were all the crabs and snails, the urchin, the green BTA and so far the corals and zoe are ok..


So I took levels at about 6pm the day of the deaths, 9am the next day and about 9pm-10pm tonight..

So I guess my question is what really happened and how can I prevent this from happening again..

Was is O2 deprevation, or something else, as you can see in the attached JPG, you can see the levels spiked very high the day of the problem..

Was it the O2 or did something else happen. How could a power outage cut off in less than 12 hours..

As of now I think a UPS is out as it would only last about 30 minutes with my reeflo barracuda, but I do plan on getting about 4 silent air model B11 battery power air pumps (if there is a better idea please let me know) as they can be set to only turn on when the power cuts off.. And will probably buy a nice generator.. Hopefully the idea being I the air pumps will keep everything alive until I get home and then I can kick on the generator in the event of a bad power outage.. Probably get an aqua controller III so I can get emails to my phone when the power goes out...

I'm floored and pretty new to the hobby so I guess I'm asking for everyone's opinion on what really happened.. I'd like for you all to look at the levels in the jpg image that I have been taking for the past two months and please explain the spike and sudden drop in the levels.. Specifically the rise in DKH, the fall in PH and the spke in No2 and No3.. I guess I'm confused on why those 4 levels changed so drastically..

http://gallery.ultrafunky.com/240aquarium/page.jpg


http://gallery.ultrafunky.com/240aquarium/page.jpg

[crvz]

Well first, please resize pictures before attaching them. It's hard to read all your details when they're strung across so far.

How long was this tank setup? The fact that you had any measurable ammonia in the tank with fish in it should set off an alarm. I hope it was just a test error (I'm looking at the dates before the gfci tripped).

But even so, my first inclination would be the O2 levels in the tank wiping it out, but I'd have to consider that there were other issues with the tank health; whether or not they increased the rate of O2 depletion or otherwise accelerated issues is somewhat difficult to say.

[IslandCrow]

I have heard of tank crashes with shorter power losses than that. I'm with you, and would think that it would take longer, but I guess not. That's about the only thing I can think of, unless there's something that may have caused an ammonia spike before this. Invertebrates are much more tolerant of ammonia than your fish, so that would explain why the inverts survived. I'm not sure if the inverts need less oxygen or not, so that's certainly still a likely culprit.

So, I know I'm not much help on the cause, but here are a few suggestions on keeping it from happening again. First, always have at least one powerhead or recirculating pump on a separate outlet. That probably would have saved your tank in this circumstance right there. You're absolutely right that the average UPS isn't going to buy you too much time. Of course, if you just have a powerhead or two attached, it can give you another couple hours. The bubblers you're looking at purchasing are a great idea as well. Gas powered generators are perfect for long term power losses, but unless you have one that's going to start up automatically (which are usually only the really big ones), you're out of luck if you lose power while you're away. What I'd suggest is an inverter. Basically, you hook it up to one or more Deep Cycle marine battery, and depending on the load (remember, you don't need to power your whole tank), it can keep your tank on life support for 12 hours or more easily. I own a TrippLite, which automatically kicks on when my power goes out: http://www.tripplite.com/EN/products/product-series.cfm?txtSeriesID=314&CID=1. In that instance, it will run my Koralia powerhead, Eheim 1260 return pump and skimmer (the skimmer just happens to be on that powerstrip). The longest I've run it is about 4 hours, but the battery was still over 90% charged according to the indicator on the inverter.

I'm really sorry to hear about your tank. Hopefully the clown is doing alright.

[otrlynn]

Well, it looks like you have had measurable levels of ammonia in your tank from 8/11 onward, as well as nitrite, and neither should be present in a cycled tank. Your alkalinity has not been very stable and seemed to be on the way up, peaking at 19 the day after the fish died. And one wonders whether these factors just contributed to the stress that the fish were under when they were suffering from a lack of oxygen. How old is this tank?

[obelix]

Yes, the clown is alright and I guess the first member of aquarium 2.0, and was hosting the anemone this morning.. Thanks for the trip light stuff.. I'll look into that.. Maby I'll put the pump on that alone, or some small powerhead like you said.. thanks

[ludiNano]

i didn't put a fish in my tank for the first 6 months after set up.

.... After the first one died.

[abulgin]

I agree with everything that's been said here. Although you have a lot of fish, I wouldn't think they would all die because of a 10 hr outage.

One thing no one has addressed though--it appears to me from your discussion about the new clown that you do not quarantine your new fish, and a disease, added to the stress of the outage, could well have caused this. if you don't qurantine, I am shocked that someone would spend as much money on fish as you have and not quarantine them--that's just, well, D-U-M dumb. Please take that in the nicest light possible, as I am not trying to be a jerk, just beside myself.

[Jay1982]

On 7/26/08 did you notice anything different within your tank? Your ammonia went up to .25 from 0. Something what releasing ammonia into the tank.

On 7/25/08 your pH dropped to 7.7 why? On 8/15/08 it went down to 7.4 That is probably due to the power outtage therefore the water was not able to create a good exchange of gases and caused the pH to dip.

Something else I am noticing is that you are having different salinity readings almost weekly. Try to keep your tank at the same levels. In such a big system you should have these varations. Also, on a side note, your calcium levels are dipping, if you want to keep corals you should keeping your CA levels at around 400.

So get back to everyone as to why these values changed, if you don't know. In the future, you'll need to do some research as to why these changes (such as the pH, Ammonia, etc..). Its good to do tests, but its not just about writing down what you test. You need to correct any problems ASAP. Like the ammonia, the first week of .25 You should have tried to get the ammonia to go back down to 0 and find out what was causing it.

Now asides from those readings. (And please, don't take this the wrong way) QT your fishes before putting them into your tank. This could be a HUGE factor as to why you lost your fish. A weakened fish from disease won't take that much tolerance to O2 deprivation, especially if the disease has infected their gills. Not only that, but you'll end up spending even more money replacing these fish. Another thing to note, if/when you get a new aquarium set up, please, please, please don't use fish to cycle a tank. Yes the damsels made it through the cycle. But I know that I've been stuck in a small room filled with smokers and survived to tell the tale, but I came out of it unhealthier, and definately didn't enjoy my time there.

So anyways, to recap,

1) check out and get back to us as to why your readings fluctuated, we won't judge you, everyone needs to start somewhere and we are here to help. If you don't know why, thats ok. Lesson learnt. And you'll be better prepared to address future situations in the future.

2) Do some water changes to get your readings back to normal, including calcium seeing as how you want to keep corals.

3) When restocking, do it slowly, and don't forget about QTing

Thats it for now until you can get back to us with your readings

[Sk8r]

also, in a new tank, the sandbed, while live, is still a baby sandbed. If the fish load is increased too far too fast, it can reach a tipping point, in which the load exceeds the capacity of the sandbed/skimmer. In this case, the power-out exacerbated the problem, and, imho, the water went low-oxygen. The tangs (high oxygen fish) died first, adding to the problem for all others. And it just went south from there.
By my advice, keep your fish load low enough that you could survive a fairly lengthy power-out without a problem. As an example of what can happen, I had my return pump jam (snail shell.) I had to drain and disassemble my sump to disconnect the exterior-mounted pump, which meant breaking down the refugium as well (interior to sump), and meanwhile cleaning the pump and removing deposits. The jammed pump turned out to have more than the snail shell for a problem. The return line had clogged. We had to snake the line up a house floor with an ribbed hose and then disconnect the input to the tank. Still no joy. I went after another pump. STILL couldn't push water through. I kept working with the system, and finally found the last snail shell, creating a perfect little cone valve in the neck of the T connector. Total down time, with two people working like dockhands? 6 hours. We have a low fish load and came through ok. But things like power-outs, pump problems, a clogged line/intake---these things can happen in better-run tanks than ours, and understocking gives you grace to find the problem or devise a fix. (A generator is a good idea, if you're not in an apartment.) I offer this with all sympathy: most of us have had a catastrophe at some stage; and thank goodness you've had some survivors.
One additional point: your skimmer is the primary oxygenator; also the downflow and the fuge. A really good skimmer is a great help to a tank.

[obelix]

Well I guess I'll do things differently this time around.. I like this device http://www.tripplite.com/EN/product...iesID=314&CID=1. Looks like I could hook a few marine batteries up to it (outer wall of the house the aquarium sets on is the side of the house) Put the batteries in a box outside, I would think a few marine batteries should run the pump and skimmer for a long time, and they are relatively cheap, and I could expand the batteries for the length of time I want to protect everything.... Also get a last resort silent air b11 devices to kick on just in case.. everything else fails.. Of course I'm looking at getting a 3-5k generator, for the tank and the rest of us of course..

[frank2926]

It was most likely due to low oxygen. Your Alk and ph are very high.
Too high. Higher alk and ph means lower oxygen levels. So with already very low oxygen levels you lose power, and quickly went to no oxygen. If you were dosing ph booster, stop. Do not be as concerned with ph. Focus on the Alk levels. Ph levels are based on the alk level. As long as you have a good alk level. 8-9-10 Do not worry to much about the pH . People who run calcium reactors(me)
usually have ph in the 7.8 to 8.0 range. . Check alk once a week and adjust accordingly. Without many LPS or SPS corals your alk demands should not be very high. When adding fish or snails. wait 2 weeks before adding another. You increase the bio load with every fish you add, the bacteria needs some time to grow to handle it.

[mm949]

looks to me like everything went down hill after the water change..??

doubt it was soley due to the power failure but looking at your levels it didnt help any either

could the cloudiness be due to the algae in the fuge going asexual??

i would make up a 5gl bucket of fresh saltwater and run some tests on it....might be bad batch of salt..??

on a bright note reef tanks general bounce back pretty quickly so let it sit for a few weeks and try some CHEAP fish
good luck

[Agu]

In addition to the obvious effects of the power outage the cloudiness was caused by an algae bloom. That further sucked the oxygen out of the water.

Even if you had flow in the tank, water would have stagnated in your sump and fuge. Once the power came back on that polluted water will be pumped back into the main tank feeding an algae bloom that further starved your tank of oxygen.

Point being that in an extended power outage just having flow in the main tank isn't enough to prevent a disaster.