reservoir went dry - HELP PLEASE!

[Shevlin77]

Reef Central pros.....my wife was watching my tank while I was away for work as she has done dozens and dozens of times. Well this time she forgot to refill the reservoir and said it pulled air for an hour. My foxface tipped me off (she didn't tell me at first!!) because its stressed and changed colors to half Brown on the top half of his body which it never does (when its nervous he usually the whole body changes color). I was talking out loud about how weird it was then she then told me it pulled air for about an hour!

Could that be a fatal blow to the fish? what parameters change when that happens so I know what to test and what can I do at this point to help the fish?

Thanks!!!

[Shevlin77]

oh and happy NYE bubbly for everybody!

[Virtuoso]

I'm still really new to all this and don't even have a tank setup, but from what I have gathered I don't think you should be in any huge danger by having the reservoir (sump+skimmer?) offline for an hour.

If your wife can do a decent water change I would see if maybe she could do that? Can't imagine it would hurt. But again, I'm new and I'd wait for a more experienced person to chime in.

[Shevlin77]

thank you for the response virtuoso. I appreciate it. But it was not that it was offline the sump went dry and pump was pulling air into into the display for an hour. i thought I read awhile back that when that happens it can be dangerous because it pumps CO2 or something into the tank. Not sure about that which is why im worried!

[odiest]

You should be ok. The major change would be salinity if too much water evaporated out and the would slowly drift up over time, and drop back to normal when it was topped off. The air bubbles may have irritated the fish and corals but should cause no long term damage.

David

[Texxxx]

Air bubbles in the Dt are not a problem. Here is a link you can read about it.
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-01/eb/index.php

[ludnix]

That shouldn't be any issue at all. If you're concerned about the pump running dry you might consider getting an automatic top off unit.

You can get one for about $50 with pump and then only have to worry about keeping the top off container full. http://autotopoff.com/

[travis32]

Air going into the tank should be fine as others said. I would be more concered about the raise in salinity. Your fish probably stressed at the change in sg.

it really depends on the size of your system though. If you have a small system, it would have been a bigger more noticable change in salinity, also depending on the size of sump compared to overall water amount. If you had an increase in SG of .003 and you keep your water at 1.026 as we all try to do, then, it could have risen to 1.029 or 1.030. In a matter of a day that's a pretty sharp rise and most fish and corals may have issues with this level of increase in a very short amount of time.

That said, if they are just showing signs of stress and not doing summersaults or something, then, I would just get the SG under control asap. Get an auto top off unit besides the wife, and go from there. A lot more controlled to keep the bucket full than to monitor the sump all the time. I use a 5g bucket. I top off the bucket every 3 - 4 days.