[jbicb3]

I live East of Houston, and when Rita hit early Saturday morning, I lost power. I wasn't home, I was in Austin, however, my 75 gal FOWLR was, and we were without power until 2pm yesterday (4 days). The temp in my house got to well above 100, and I lost all my fish, stars, shrimp, dusters etc. I have seen nas. snails moving around, and my whelk may pull through. He's moving very, very slowly, and not retreating into his shell. My 100lbs of live rock have assorted worms hanging out of them, dead. I'm not sure how the LR will recover in the long run.

My skimmer is working overtime, and I'm using a Fluval 404 w/carbon to help remove some of the poisons from the water. I plan on doing a 50% water change this weekend, although our community is on a well that hasn't returned to service yet.

Anyone have any suggestions on what I'll need to do to recover the most from my losses?

Thanks,
Jerry

[Reefland]

So sorry to hear that Jerry. I would remove anything that is dead that you can visibly see and do the water change as you plan. The liverock will have probably suffered some loss but it will recover in time. At least that is something that can be salvaged.

[Ninong]

Sorry to hear about your loss.

I think your live rock will eventually recover but in the meantime you may still have stuff inside the live rock that is still decaying. I'm not sure I would bother to do a water change just yet since virtually all of your livestock has already died.

What sort of a sand bed do you have in this tank? That may (or may not) be a bigger problem than the live rock. What depth is your sand bed and what is it composed of? If there has been a massive dieoff of sand bed infauna, it may be better to replace the entire sand bed.

I think I would just keep skimming the tank and checking the water parameters every two or three days to see if things are moving in the right direction. Assuming things are improving, you might want to do a water change later on. I don't think it would be wise to add any new livestock for at least 30 days.

Good luck!

[jbicb3]

I'm not sure what type of sandbed it is, just that it's sand, not crushed coral. And it's about 2" deep.

Originally Posted by Ninong

Sorry to hear about your loss.

I think your live rock will eventually recover but in the meantime you may still have stuff inside the live rock that is still decaying. I'm not sure I would bother to do a water change just yet since virtually all of your livestock has already died.

What sort of a sand bed do you have in this tank? That may (or may not) be a bigger problem than the live rock. What depth is your sand bed and what is it composed of? If there has been a massive dieoff of sand bed infauna, it may be better to replace the entire sand bed.

I think I would just keep skimming the tank and checking the water parameters every two or three days to see if things are moving in the right direction. Assuming things are improving, you might want to do a water change later on. I don't think it would be wise to add any new livestock for at least 30 days.

Good luck!

[Ninong]

You will have to watch your sand bed closely. It's hard to say one way or the other whether it should be replaced or not. That's a judgment call.

I have a 6" DSB (mostly Southdown) in my tank and it would most probably have crashed if it had been without power for four days. I was without power for four days following Katrina but I had a generator to keep the return pump, skimmer pump and minimum lighting going. On the third day, the outside temperature got to 98 degrees with a heat index of somewhere around 110 degrees. I have no idea how hot it was inside the house but it was plenty hot. I did lose some livestock but not everything.

[Poseidon]

I hate to hear stories like these... I hope I don't have to face it! My fish are PETS just like my DOG, well smaller.

[inwall75]

Whoa!!! Sorry for your losses.

I'm glad you are taking a positive tack and are willing to rebuild.

The only thing worse than a power outage on a reef tank is a power outage on a reef tank with a sandbed. They cause dissolved Oxygen to go to dangerous levels much quicker. However, when you are talking 4 days, I don't think sandbed vs non-sandbed is going to make that much difference.

It's your choice, but I would get some cocktail shrimp, lay them on the sandbed, and net up any critters that have survived and come to eat the shrimp. Then pull the bed. If you like sandbeds, replace it with fresh sand later. All nutrients that were once bound up in the biomass of the critters and bacteria in the bed is likely just sitting in there rotting. Whatever P that didn't leak into the water column, was adsorbed to the CaCO3 sand. Remember, that the bacteria that causes all of our problems are anaerobic. Sulphate Reducing Bacterias and bacterias that will shed Phosphates are going to be the only ones who survived this tragedy. Your Nitrifying and De-Nitrifying bacteria that live in oxic and anoxic levels were nuked due to a lack of Dissolved Oxygen.

I'm not telling you what to do. I'm strictly telling you what I would do. Obviously, by now, the Nitrifying and Denitrifying bacteria are busy growing their populations and you could start over with just waterchanges. However, that sandbed is now a literal cesspool of algae food. I wouldn't do a 50% waterchange unless I removed my sandbed first. That will allow the LR to clean itself out faster. I would keep up with the aggressive skimming, change carbon weekly, continually turkey baste the LR, and do regular water changes. In addition, don't allow the detritus that spits out of the LR to sit and rot in the tank. Make sure you either siphon it or turkey baste it into the water column for your skimmer to pick up. The death in the LR will give you a new cycle. After that occurs, then if you want a sandbed, that is when I would add it. There's certainly no reason to start out with a brand new sandbed and fill it with detritus and Phosphates right from the start. Depending on how long your tank has been set up, you might want to even consider cooking your rock. That's probably what I would do but your setup has now moved from 30 days to 60 or 90 days. Trust me, I understand how long that is.

[jbicb3]

Some good news... My water temp was down to 84 deg this morning. My Lightning Whelk is now climbing on the glass, I see several small feather dusters alive on the LR, and the water LOOKS much clearer. I haven't checked levels yet, but will do that this weekend, and move all the LR and clean out any dead creatures I come across.

I guess I can clean the sand that's in there and re-use it right? Maybe washing in in a pillow case, and letting it "bake" in the sun to kill off any bacteria left in it?

[tmkx3]

HI! I live in crosby and I didn't get my power back until tuesday. I haven't set-up my salt tank yet but I have a fresh tank that I lost half of my fish,not because of being without power but because when I did my water change the city had superchlorinated the water and I didn't know so when I treated my water at regular dosage it wasn't enough. The lfs said that you have to double your chlorination treatment and that you have to be careful what product you use. I have another goldie tank that needs to be changed too but I am terrified of killing my fish. I am going to age tha water and condition it too.

[Ninong]

One of the risks involved with tapwater is that you never know when the local water supplier is going to add something unexpected to the water. Sometimes they add stuff to "clean out" the pipes.

You need to know whether your tapwater is being disinfected with just chlorine or whether they are using chloramine. That's very important because chlorine will dissipate within two days (especially with aeration) but chloramine will hang around for two weeks or more. If you're going to treat it anyway, I guess it doesn't matter all that much but if you're just going to age it, it does. And you can't always rely on what the switchboard operator tells you. I called my local water district and asked them if they used chlorine or chloramine and the woman who answered the phone told me that all they use is chlorine. Several weeks later, in a conversation with their chief engineer, I learned that they actually use chloramine and have been for several years now. When I told him what I was told earlier, he simply said that "the ladies in the office don't know the difference between chlorine and chloramine."