Heater died, tank temp dropped, what are the chances of my zoas/shrooms surviving?

[MTWiley]

The heater in my NC12 died either last night or the night before. The tank was 64.5F this morning when I reached in to move some zoas that I thought were melting because of too much light and the tank was so cold I knew something was up. I checked and the heater wasn't lit up. I guess I'm glad it didn't get stuck on and make coral soup, but I'm still kind of upset. Luckily I didn't have any fish in the tank, just Shrooms and Zoas. Anyone have experience with their tank dropping ~15 Degrees and having livestock survive? Also I set my heater to 74 instead of 78 to make it a bit less of a shock bringing the temps back up.

[MarineSniper]

I think they'll be fine. Both corals are very hardy and my bet is that they'll all bounce back

You can pick up a heater controller for under $100 that will do a much better job at keeping the temp consistent and most have an alarm that sounds if the temperature drops or rises beyond a set point

[MTWiley]

I've got an apex on my other tank, will probably just pick up an PM1 and PowerBar for that tank, I've been meaning to anyways.

[James77]

I doubt you will lose anything, since the drop and increase would have been gradual. If you are controlling nothing else but a heater, you can pick up a ranco controller for $60 or so, rock solid.

[doctorgori]

The tank was 64.5F this morning

64F would mean your room temp is 64F in SoCal?

[MTWiley]

Originally Posted by doctorgori

64F would mean your room temp is 64F in SoCal?

I guess it was last night, that tank is in Torrance, and I spent the night up in Palos Verdes.

[bennr]

I'm sure your mushrooms and zoas will be fine.....those are hardy specimens....bring back up to 78 and should be fine

[IslandCrow]

Had a buddy of mine whose chiller got stuck on (or maybe he set the temperature wrong, I can't remember for sure). He said the water got so cold he was getting condensation on the outside of the tank. I don't believe anything was lost, to include his acropora, montipora, etc.

[MarineSniper]

Originally Posted by doctorgori

64F would mean your room temp is 64F in SoCal?

Spent any time in Southern California? At Pendleton, the temp will drop an easy 30 degrees at night, at times

[SDguy]

I agree, everything will be fine. Once I left my windows wide open and the same thing happened to me (I don't even use a heater). No problems.

[Big E]

I'd be more concerned about the bacteria dying. I had a heater die on me & the temp only dropped to 70 degrees. It caused an ammonia spike and killed all my snails, starfish & urchins in the tank.

The fish barely noticed cause it wasn't severe, but still an issue.

[DrBegalke]

The Apex is a good start. But I would be sure to have two heaters, each capable of heating the tank on its own.

I don't think you'll lose the zoanthids or mushrooms.

[SDguy]

Originally Posted by Big E

I'd be more concerned about the bacteria dying. I had a heater die on me & the temp only dropped to 70 degrees. It caused an ammonia spike and killed all my snails, starfish & urchins in the tank.

The fish barely noticed cause it wasn't severe, but still an issue.

I respectfully disagree that 70F water will kill aerobic/anaerobic bacteria to any noticable point.

[Big E]

Lol, it happened, believe what you want. There was "some" aerobic bacteria die off & it was enough to kill the inverts in the tank.

The inverts were all dead the next day, one fish was breathing hard, & the ammonia test showed a reading above normal.

I was shocked because I would think it wouldn't matter either.................maybe it was the rapidness of the 10 degree drop or the temp may have been low for more than a day without me noticing it.

There wasn't a lot of live rock in the tank so that could have help cause the problem, although the 60g tank only had a pair of maroons & a juvi cortez angel.

[clarky11]

Get two temp monitors. I have one heater that has an external temp setting and then I have just a temp alarm on the other side of the tank that is supposed to sound the alarm if the tank gets below 75 or above 82.

[Big E]

This article shows lower temps & amount of substrate can effect nitrosomonas(ammmonia eating bacteria) growth rate.

http://www.academicjournals.org/ajb/...20Charyulu.pdf

20 degrees C (70F) is where growth is affected.................30C(80F) is optimal

Here's more.............scroll down to where optimal temperature is talked about.

http://www.bioconlabs.com/nitribactfacts.html

[SDguy]

Reduced growth and death are not the same thing

[Anemone]

My anemone tank had this happen last month as well. Unfortunately, I didn't notice for a few days - hadn't cleaned the front acrylic in over a month (lazy me) and noticed the algae had gotten thick pretty quick. Stuck my hand in the tank and "whoa, something's wrong here."

Looked at the digital temperature reading on my Won heater - it said 97 degrees (and obviously, it wasn't on because the tank temp was so "high"). That obviously wasn't right. Looked at regular digital thermometer, and it said 70 degrees. And this was in the middle of the day after the house heater and tank lights had been on for several hours. Figure the tank was getting down into the mid 60s at night, and unfortunately, I don't know how long this had been occurring (less than a week for sure, but maybe several days).

The tank is a 65 gallon. None of the fish seemed particularly bothered (pair of GSM clowns, a Fridmani pseudochromis, yellow watchman goby with attendant tiger pistol, and a yellow-tailed blue damsel), but all of my RBTAs seemed really, really PO'd (shrunken into the rocks). None of my snails seemed affected (or course, I only had two trochas in this tank). I added an additional, large turbo variety from my garage tank to help with the algal growth.

I cleaned the algae, did a 5 gallon water change (the water in the bucket was a very murky, dark brown, yuck!), and pulled out an old Ebo-Jager I had in a box and hooked it up to a Ranco single stage controller I also had in a box (used to use it with my chiller, back when I was using a chiller). Two days later, I did a 10 gallon water change and again cleaned out the algae. The RBTAs began extending a bit more and looking more "normal." 5 days later I did another 10 gallon water change and the RBTAs are back out and looking normal, although they are much smaller and some are paler.

At the last count, I figure I lost about 10-12 clones through this mishap (and I'm sure the ammonia spike from the deaths probably created a cascade effect). Luckily, I still have about 20 remaining (exact numbers are hard to come by - they tend to flow into one another in the rockwork).

So, temperature drops can have a pretty significant effect (even in SoCal ), but some hardy critters (like anemones and mushrooms) can survive and revive.

FWIW,
Kevin