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Crap... it happened again!

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sfsuphysics

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I heard what I didn't want to hear... around 5:30am this morning the g/f woke me up and said "Baby, somethings wrong with the tank water, it looks icky".... strange how we can go from sleep to completely awake in no time when it matters.

Went downstairs saw my entire tank was milky white, almost like milk, I can maybe see a few inches into the tank, surfaces inside are covered in white too.

So I went about the standard.. ok toss a poly filter on, get carbon ready run that, raise the skimmer tube to run wetter. Then try to figure out what exactly went wrong.

Well long story short, I found out the DC8 on my AC3 unit somehow stopped work, I figured this out when I tried to manually turn on the halides to punch some light into the tank to try to see in it.

My theory of what happened, is DC8 failed, as a result heater stopped, temperature dropped, then that caused a spawning event, not sure exactly what spawned, could have been some snails in my tank (i've seen them squirt out in the past), could have been my clams, maybe even corals, or some combo of all. So moved heater to another circuit, and trying to bring the temp back up, but no need to just yank it up too quickly.

Looking at my AC3 online graphs, looks like temperature started dropping around 11pm, luckily last night was a tad warmer than usually, lowest it got was 74 degrees, and looks like it took about 6 hours for the tank to drop that much... but it does explain a spawn.
The pH dropped too from 8.1 down to 7.6 which is a little more of a concern, but that occurred much later, I'm guessing as the event of reef love started to concentrate a bit more.

Unfortunate thing is I did a water change yesterday, but good thing is I got lazy and didn't dump the old water, so as soon as I can warm it up a bit I'm going to do a dirty water change :D

I'm fine though, the heater event last time pretty much toughened me up for things like this, and in the couple hours since I woke up and started clean up procedures I can see an inch or two more in the tank. I'll report more later.
 
Whew, at first i thought you had the caulerpa outbreak or tank crash. It's a good thing you found out sooner than later. My wife wouldn't bother telling me if anything wrong with my tank.

Hope it works out for you...
 
Thanks guys, in the 30 minutes since I posted the tanks got noticeably clearer, I can't see the back, but I can see the pumps in my sump, and maybe 6 inches into the tank, man the rocks are completely covered in white stuff, yet the corals are not... who knows maybe the corals just had a big feast last night.
 
I hope work out for you Mike. Watch out for those snails, especially the larger ones like Trochus or Mexican Turbos. Those guys can squirt the milky white stuff ALL day! Just the other day, I caught a bunch of Trochus doing that but luckily, it was on a very heavy skimmed system so the water didn't turn very white. It did got a little cloudy for a day or two though. On the bright side, at least someone or something had a good time in there other than myself.. :bigsmile:
 
Yeah I've seen the Trochus spawn before in the tank, and it got noticeably cloudy, but not as cloudy as this. This was cloudy to the point if you could only see something if it literally was against the glass. Could have been Trochus, but I do like to think my skimmer is a bit over-rated for my system, just couldn't keep up I guess.... in fact it wasn't overflowing or anything either which was strange to me (still had a good foamy head near the top though).

Once in Tahoe there was a major snow storm overnight, come morning everything was covered in white, that's pretty much what my tank looks like (again... except the corals for some reason, I was unaware they had a mechanism to keep stuff off them)
 
Hmmm the plot thickens... further testing (and talking to Curt) about my DC8 apparently all my electronic switched got forced to the off position and the 2 physical ones got stuck to on. What I first thought was simply a failed heater and the tank got too cool actually also involved my peristaltic pumps going off...which unfortunately means they pumped about a gallon of 2 part solution into my tank *sigh*... I wonder if the white isn't a spawn but a precipitation now... I need to check my calcium and alk to see if it's off the scales.
 
I had that happen..but it was on a mechanical timer. However, I mix my 2part at 1/4 strength. Sure, I have to mix up new solution every other week, but it is safer.

Keep us posted. Hopefully all is well in the end :)
 
Yeah tested my water Alk is at 14, Calcium is at 500, I'm not out of the woods yet... now i have to wait to see how many corals get burned as a result.

Tony: I mix my 2-part at 1/2 strength so it's a bit diluted when I drip it. My best estimate is it was going for upwards of 6 hours (normally it runs 30 minutes to do "2 cups"), which is over 1 gallon of solution.

Just did a 25g water change with my water change water from yesterday after it warmed up... a tad dirty.. but meh... the Calc/Alk was lower in that batch, even though it's only about 1/8th my tank volume... man if I only had some I.O. mixed up that would surely drop the calcium and alkalinity in a hurry :D
 
EEeekkksss that sucks. Did he explain how they could have gotten stuck on?
 
I mentioned there was a little bit of corrosion around the dip-switches, so he thinks it could a little microprocessor that went poof, or be a bit of water damage , either slowly from humidity in the room, or perhaps one chance drop of water that was angled the right way to fly 3 feet away from the tank and land right in the only spot open to the outside... *shrug* Pisses me off because I purposefully put it as far away from the tank as possible so no accidental drips get anywhere near it... plus I don't even work in the tank around that area, but a bubble of air that rises in the tank could easily fling water further than you think I guess.

Either way I'm sending it back and he's going to look at it to see if it's a fixable thing.
 
>crosses fingers<
hope it's fixable.

Maybe he needs to offer port covers?

I know when I get my APEX I'll be slapping it into a waterproof case I all ready own :)
 
Yeah I thought about building a little acrylic box for it with rubber gaskets but to be honest there's too many damn wires (8 plugs + communication line). I thought I had it far enough away, but eh... maybe it was just the ambient humidity, the room is nearly 400 sqft but there is over 300g of water in that room.

Anyways, my Cirrhilabrus solorensis (red headed fairy wrasse) did not make it, guess he was just a little more sensitive to the swings.
 
Had to take a couple pictures because... well regardless of how bad it really looks for a tank, there's something inherently pretty about it. It's like Ian's corals popping against the black sand/bottom of his tank, well in the same way the pure white makes everything pop.... Not the greatest of pictures (i.e. no macro) but still looks nice, pictures don't do it justice though.

It's winter time in the reefs! :D
frontwinter.jpg


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