heater exploded in my tank! long story but I need help

[mary911]

I have (or should say had) what I think of as a simple 55 gallon tank set up, marineland canister filter and HOB protein skimmer. I didn't have much in it, a pair of maroon clowns, a powder brown tang, anemone, a few tree corals and more aiptasia than I care to admit. I've had this tank for over 5 years and although I've had it for some time my knowledge in keeping saltwater is not where it should be. I set this tank up, let it cycle as I was instructed by the pet shop, added these and that's about it. Other than water changes and cleaning the filters the tank has taken care of itself.

The other night I was woken up by the breaker in my surge protector blowing. I went in and inspected the tank, couldn't find anything amiss other than one of the plugs to the filter had backed out of the outlet and needed to be plugged back in. I figured maybe the prongs trying to pull the amperage the pump needed could be what had caused the surge protector to blow so I secured the plug, switched the surge protector back on and figure I was good to go. The next morning I was leaving for work and everything seemed normal except that my anemone had buried itself in the sand (which I figured he was just trying to relocate) so I left for work, everything on the tank still plugged in and working fine, or so I thought. By the time I got home from working my 12 hour shift my tank was a nightmare. The heater, which I can only assume had cracked the night before causing the surge protector to blow, had exploded and was all over my tank. All corals and aiptasia were dead, my rock covered in this black slime left from the corpses, my brown tang was dead within minutes of getting home, anemone was still buried in the sand and the clowns were stressed but still ok. I quickly switched my clowns and anemone into a 10 gallon tank with fresh saltwater and some of the contaminated water from my 55. I hosed off the live rock removing the slime (and killing it in the process I'm sure) and placed a piece in the 10 gallon for my clowns to hide. I know I need to basically start from scratch, and I'm ok with that, but how do I keep the 10 gallon tank from cycling and killing the clowns and anemone while I'm waiting for my actual tank to set up and go through the cycle process?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I would hate to loose these guys too :sad2:

[Silly clownfish]

I am sorry to see that no one has responded to you. I hope it isn't too late to offer advice...

I had a heater fry a tank once. It was a very old heater, probably from the 70s or 80s that was not submersible (HOB) and it fell in, sparked, smoked, etc. first, I am glad you did not get shocked. You should have you tank on a GFCI outlet. In my situation it was a quarantine/jail tank for a really mean damsel, and not int nded as a permanent tank, so that'shoe I ended up in the no GFCI situation and fried the heater/tank. I had an oily black film on the water surface, which might be what you were seeing on your rocks.

How does the media in your cansiter filter look? Some of this (i.e. the portion without black crud) would have been enough nitrofying bacteria to prevent a cycle in your 10g. If this is no longer an option, can you get any of the following to seed the tank with bacteria
- filter media, or LR, or suvpbstrate from a disease free, established tank? There are procpducts on the market that are supposed to basically be bacteria in a bottle to quickly cycle a tank. This might be worth a try.

If you can't get you hands on anything else, Prime will render the ammonia less toxic.

Best of luck...