Need ideas for 75g tank that just died :(

[bighabeeb]

So I had a 75 gallon fowlr that was just about to be turned into a reef tank when, lo and behold, the great late october snowstorm hits the northeast, turns out my power, and kills off more or less everything in the tank (I was without power until earlier today, so thats 5 days).

Fish are all dead except for a hippo tang who seems to have brain damage (keeps ramming into the side of the tank now), a cleaner shrimp survived, and most of my cleanup crew seems to be alive still.

So the question is, how "starting over" do I need to go? Will my rock still be ok? What killed the fish was the temperature I'd imagine, as the temp went down into the 50s in the tank. I didn't have a lot of fish, so while sad the loss wasn't the start of financial ruin, whereas the several hundred dollars in live rock would be.

If its not gonna be okay, any advice for something unique I can drop in there (obviously after emptying, cleaning, and starting over)? I was thinking of retracting to freshwater and going with cichlids, which I've done before, but I'd really like something DIFFERENT. I know my tank is too small for any of the true sharks...what about small octopus varieties and/or rays/guitar fish of some kind?

Any thoughts and advice would be appreciated.

 

[Scotty09]

Sorry to hear bout ur tank

 

[Michaelis88]

I feel so sorry. I think I need to get a power back up since ur story. Since all ur fish died , there will be ammonia etc you might wanna do a 30% water change weekly. All your filter and skimmer etc must be on while. After 2or 3 weeks, water should be find( water test weekly).
Live rock shouldn't be a problem you can leave them in, as long as there a tiny part survived, with your power head still can grow.

 

[bighabeeb]

Well its looking like the tank MAY survive. Did a water test last night and, despite having a couple of dead ones that I can't find, ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates are all still at either zero or trace amounts. I added a couple of hermits to hopefully clean up the mini-cemetary I have going on, and will keep an eye on things...but maybe, just maybe, it's just going to be fish loss. Sad, but thankfully I only had a small number of fish in there.