How to start up after a tragedy...

[skae310]

Basically my heater failed due to what I think is the thermostat breaking. Bottom line in a couple hours my tank heated to 107 degrees F and absolutely everything I owned but one nassarius snail died. I really had no choice but to empty the tank and get rid of all the dead stuff. I now have dry live rocks (now dead rocks haha) and I am wanting to find a way to restart over the summer. However I want to cycle before so when summer comes I can add a fish almost immediately. Should I wait til the rocks are 100% dried off? or wait til spring? not really sure what I should do.

 

[Jason7894561230]

Just re try and have confidence what happened isnt your fault good luck and have confidence!

 

[Krypt]

You can actually just discard the dead livestock and refill the tank and throw the rocks back in, they don't need to be dried out. The die off that occurs within the LR from the crash will fuel a new cycle easily and you'll be more then ready for the summer.

 

[cabezon]

You can actually just discard the dead livestock and refill the tank and throw the rocks back in, they don't need to be dried out. The die off that occurs within the LR from the crash will fuel a new cycle easily and you'll be more then ready for the summer.

Exactly. Just let the tank run. I bet more survived than you thought in the small critter arena.

I have had several heaters go on the fritz. Sounds like you had one large heater rather than a couple or three smaller ones. Unless you get a controller I think smaller is better. We had a cold snap in Florida a few weeks ago, and I am glad I had extra heaters, my tank was getting colder.

Sorry for your loss. Good luck

 

[kingman8610]

Agree with cabezon... Dont throw money away by throwing away the LR!!! that can be re-populated whe you add more LR or Live Sand, ect.

Only dispose of Dead organisms (that you can see obviously) and let the rest recycle your tank, you should be ready to restock in a couple, maybe a few, months...