Devastation...frogspawn is dying...

[DurTBear]

It's been unusually hot in SF the last few days and when I got home last night, my tank was at 90 degrees. Everything has somewhat recovered except for the frogspawn which looks like it's dying, the GSP's haven't opened up yet and the the hammer coral looks bad (although it looks like it might survive). A sad day for me...

[macman7010]

90 degrees is far, far too hot for just about any reef dwelling animal, and honestly I am surprised your fish made it through. You will want to be on the look out for signs of bacterial infections, (fungus, etc) since huge spikes in temperatures promote the growth of bacteria and the stress of the temperature hike may have weakened the fish's immune system.

Judging from the picture of your frogspawn it doesn't look good. Temps in just the high eighties can bleach SPS corals and cause LPS corals to slime and eventually perish. If you can get those temps down where they should be, mid-seventies to low eighties at max, the frogspawn may pull through but it looks pretty desperate in that photo.

I would recommend either a tank chiller, fanning system, different lighting interval, or room A/C unit to prevent this from happening again.

[MSU Fan]

my tank was up at 83 degrees due to the heat in WI yesterday too - it was 81 in my house!! I have to turn on the AC to get the temps down, as well as point a fan at the top of the water to get it to cool down. I feel for you, truly!

[melosu58]

Sorry to hear that. I would get a fan and blow it across the top this will bring it down some. I know a couple of those clip on fans would work fine. Dont give up yet and get those fans blowing across the top. Hope all goes well.

[produceb]

I live in florida also, how do you not run your AC all the time. I think you will find it is better to set it at 76 or so when you leave instead of have to recool the entire house when you get back. the power usage may actually go down.

[Kurt_Nelson]

Uhhh... the two folks talking about AC live in Wisconsin and California. San Francisco is a pretty mild climate and normally doesn't need AC. Think ya misread something there.

[Dr.Nate]

maybe I missed something but was does AC have to do with temperature?

Also, to bring the temp down I agree with everyone else

[melosu58]

Air conditioner

[artoledo]

I leave my AC on at all times. Its been real hot here in FL lateley and i just cant afford for my tank to die on me after all the hard work i have put in. Leave that AC running and point some fans over the tank. Good luck.

[DurTBear]

Yeah, I have a clip on fan which is now blowing across the top of the water surface. It normally doesn't get that hot in SF so I was really surprised that the temperature got that hot. But hopefully I'll be more prepared to deal with something like this in the future.

Unfortunately, the frogspawn is basically dead now. One of the heads has almost completely melted away. It sucks because it was actually splitting before the heatwave. It grew a second mouth and looked like it was pulling apart. And the GSP's haven't come out ever since the tank got hot. As for the fish and inverts, they all look and seem to be acting fine. You're absolutely right...I'm probably lucky to have escaped with just losing the frogspawn and GSP's. But I'll keep a close eye on everything else and watch for bacteria/fungus.

Thanks for all the suggestions guys.

[MT79]

Watch for ammonia, nitrite. It would be a wise to do a PWC and run GAC as well, if you don't already. The coral dieing will release toxins, and other unwanted things. Sorry to hear about your situation, I hope everything else pulls through.

[Squado]

To make a long story short, I got a new job about two weeks ago and havent really been able to watch my tanks conditions like I was once able. Anyway, I came home one day and the tank reached 89 degrees at night starting at 81 when I left in the morning. Dont give up. Although some of the reef looked stressed, all corals and fish survived and have begun to look like they once did. The main problem I encountered was a cyano break out, which my pwc's were slacking. Anyway, do some PWC's and Its always better to lower the temp slowly, rather than panic and try try to change it rapidly back to the normal temp. Whenver there is a change like that take your time, whats done is done and patience is the best thing for the tank......

[DurTBear]

Cool...I'll definitely do a PWC and run GAC. Should I take out what's left of the frogspawn to prevent further toxins from being released or leave the skeleton in there?

[MT79]

If it is going to die, it would be best to remove it to get any remaining tissue out of the tank.

[DurTBear]

Will do...thanks MT79.

[MarineFlake]

This is an interesting post to me as my daughter recently did me a favor and raised the tank heater to MAX (Shes 2 going on 10). When I got home one day from work I noticed the tank felt warm. It was 89.? in the tank. (Good heater) I suspect it was only that day that the temp was so high. I turned the temp back down to 80 (Normal for my tanks) and turned the clip on fan to low so as not to shock everyone coming back down. The next day my corals were somewhat unhappy but by day 2 you couldn't have seen any difference. I don't understand that if your tank was only 90 degress for 1 day how it could be so devastating. My questions to you are, was it only one day and was 90 degrees the peak or just what you observed that night? Seems to me that the corals should recover just fine from a little warmer water over a one day period. Im just looking to get the whole story ; )

Peace.

Originally Posted by DurTBear

It's been unusually hot in SF the last few days and when I got home last night, my tank was at 90 degrees. Everything has somewhat recovered except for the frogspawn which looks like it's dying, the GSP's haven't opened up yet and the the hammer coral looks bad (although it looks like it might survive). A sad day for me...

[DurTBear]

That's a good point. I actually observed the temperature to be 90 degrees around 10:30pm after I got home from the hockey game. So as you have noted, the temperature could very well have been higher during the day time. Normally, I'm home right after work so I would have been able to take care of this at an earlier time point. But I had to go down to San Jose right after work because the game started at 6pm as opposed to the usual 7pm. Anyway, it was still only one day and it seemed like the most damage was done to the LPS'. The Frogspawn died and the hammer coral has not fully recovered although a few heads have shown some encouraging signs.

Oh yeah, to make matters worse, the Sharks lost the game and were eliminated from the playoffs too...

[MarineFlake]

Dead frogspawn, sorry looking hammer coral, Sharks lost..Just a bad day in your hood for marine life all around.. 8O

[DurTBear]

Yeah, basically...don't forget about the Warriors, who have basically been underwater for the last 13 years, lost as well!

[cmor1701d]

I'm probably too late with this post but I hope you didn't throw out the frogspawn. When I was in India last November my tank got up to 90 for a couple of days. I had freind stopping by every other day to feed and check that ato was working. She didn'r think that the unseasonably mild weather combined with a closed house and MH lighting would heat up everything that much. All my sps bleached, my leathers looked bad and started turning brown and the frogspawn was gone.

I did a 25% pwc when I got back (a few days later) and continued with 1 per week for a month. I fragged the leathers and now have a slew of small frags that are starting to look good. My frogspwan on the other hand has almost completley recovered. 3 of 5 branches are as full as they were before my trip. The other 2 are bare.

My foxface had large brownish spot on one side (bacterial infection?) though all the other fish were ok. A few weeks later you couldn't see any sign of a problem with the foxface. Water changes can do wonders to make things healthy again.