We'll, I was sittin in my living room last night at about 6, and my power flickered. I figured it was just a power flicker, no big deal right? I didn't go and make my walk throughs like I should have. I went up stairs at about 9pm and my pepermint shrimp was swimming around really weird, so I decided to throw to put in some pellets to see if I could make him happy. I opened the lid, and was completely dumbfounded by what I found. The heater had broken during the power flicker, and the temp went up to over 90 degrees!!!!

I ran downstairs and got as much ice as I could and began to float it. I took all of my corals and my shrimp and put it in my 72gal tank for holding, and the temp went down about 45 min later.

I lost only a few pieces of coral, and they seem to all be hard corals, but we'll see. I also lost my Carpenters Flasher Wrasse. He was the first to go. I put the ice in and he died soon after.

I wasn't happy....

Man I hate to hear that. Let me know if I can give you anything to fill in the holes. What type of heater and how old was it?

I'm not at home right now, so I can't look at the brand, but the heater was about 2 months old. and yeah, you can give me those blastos you have :D

Kerry has those in her tank and you might have to whoop her to get them. :)

Was this your nano? Is your Yashida goby doing okay? That was a really cool tank, hate to see something happen to it. Hopefully everything else in your tank makes it, I know it's hard when things seem to be going well and for no reason something like this happens. Kind of makes you wonder sometimes why we put up with all the setbacks that reefkeeping can give you, but I guess if everyone could do it, then it wouldn't be much of a challenge. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help. And keep us posted on how things are going.

This must be a week for bad things to happen. I came home last night and my main VHO lights weren't on. Thought it was just another flakey timer issue and tried to turn them back on when I hear a sizzling sound and see some smoke coming out of the ballast. So I had to go out and buy a replacement IceCap ballast. Get home and I find out that they've changed the wiring on them, and I need to rewire my endcaps for the new ballast. So I finally got it all done about midnight, and went to bed, to have someone run over my brick and stone mailbox at around 2:45. Hit it hard enough to throw a 40lb stone block 50 feet from where it originally was. Also broke the 4" concrete curb, taking out about a foot long chunk. My wife saw them driving off, so we got in the car and followed the trail of leaking fluids to a house about a block away. Called the police and they came out, but they said it was a civil matter and didn't seem to be interested in doing much other than writing out a report. Hopefully the guy who did it will come clean and offer to pay up so I don't have to drag him to court.

So a couple hundred for a new ballast, and probably $500 or more for a new mailbox. One highlight was that I posted a message on ReefCentral to IceCap to see if they could fix my old ballast, and they answered this morning by 7:30. Can't get much better service than that.

Hopefully it will quit raining so I can go pick up the bricks and stone scattered around my yard and put up a temporary mailbox. I guess I'll give the guy until this afternoon to come down and here before I go confront him, though it should be funny actually. I have his grill of his lexus and one headlight in the yard, I was thinking of just going and saying "I think these belong to you..." and asking if he wanted to buy them back for the cost of a mailbox ;) .

It's actually a hi-fin goby, not a yashia goby. While the water was still warm, I watched him shoot down in the sand right on the front of the glass and went about halfway down in the sand bed until I poked him and made him come out. And yeah, he made it. So did my green banded goby.

My Acans and my Blastomussa Merleti colony finished dying off last night, and I have a 3 head candy cane that seems to be going out too. I find it kind of weird that all that died was hard corals. I guess I'm happy about it though.

That sucks about your mailbox, but sounds like you have it pretty well covered :P

P.S.

I thought my pistol shrimp had died too, but I just heard him click!

Hi Richard !!

What a bummer. I hate heaters. Their off switch always seems to go on strike and cooking results. Always, Always happens. I finally stopped trusting heaters and bought a Medusa temperature controller that only sends power to the heater if the tank's temperature is below whatever temp you set the Medusa.


As much as it is a drag to have to buy more hardware, the Medusa is excellent insurance.

Sorry to hear that the heater bug has bitten you !

Best,
George


Posted from Bucharest, Romania !!

This is a week for bad things to happen! I came home yesterday to a flood from my 75gal! My aqua lifter pump went out and broke the siphon in my overflow, and so between the return pump and my auto top-off, I probably had about 10-12 gallons of water in my living room on the carpet! Which sucks because I refuse to move this tank in order to dry the carpet underneath! I just rent, so they will have to just keep my deposit!

Stupid heaters :angry: