Triage for overheated tank

[Lambo]

I just returned from a 4 day vacation to find that the AC was off and most of my tank had died off. Current water temp is 92 degrees. What's the next step? I presume a significant water change and removal of the dead. Thanks for your help.

Hanging in there:
2x clown fish
hermit crabs
snails
a few ricordia
pipe organ
Zoas

RIP:
Frogspawn
Plate Coral
Hammer Coral
numerous mushrooms
wellsophelia
Australian torch
Green BTA

 

[discordipinna]

If you can, I'd remove everything that looks alive to a separate tank with all new water. Even if you remove the obviously dead things and do water changes, you might have enough die off in the sand and LR to cause continuing problems. Better to know the live things are safe while you try to get the display back under control.

 

[NikkiT]

Sorry to hear about your temp. problems. I had that happen to a 30g tank 3 years ago, it stinks.

Fist of all, does the water, the rock or the sand bed smell? If the answer is no, I would test. Nitrates, nitrites, will likely be high (unless you have one heck of a skimmer); then I would proceed with several large water changes over the course of the next week. I would also run carbon. Lots of carbon. If you have a skimmer, I would skim wet for at least a week. And yes, remove what you can. You may also need to worry about the amount of oxygen in your water if you are not running a skimmer, I would toss in a bubbler.

If the answer is yes, and the rock/ sandbed has gone anaerobic on you (it would smell like rotten eggs) then I would tear the tank apart, remove all remaining livestock, replace sand bed and add new (fully cycled) live rock and a bacterial culture, and new water, and start again.

One last thing: be careful not to shock the remaining animals with too rapid of a temp change. You want to bring the temp down, but slowly in my opinion. Zoas, mushrooms and clowns can take high heat for a few days, I would slowly bring the temp down to 80-82 over the course of about 24 hours to get the remaining animals out of the temp. Danger zone.

If you need to borrow a small tank for a few days, send mike (mnat) and me a pm.

 

[ThatGuy]

Don't give up on the plate. I've read LOTS of stories where someones dead plate produces a bunch of babies months down the line or comes back. Also wouldn't give up on the mushrooms as they are pretty resiliant and can come back given a little time. Good Luck.

 

[Lambo]

Thanks all for the input

 

[Lambo]

So I did essentially a 90% water change, pulled out all of the live rock and removed as much dead stuff as possible. The dead stuff smelled horrible, the live rock smelled about as good as live rock does. Amonia levels were high and has been treated. Clownfish are doing ok as is my Emerald crab. I am still waiting for my Zoas to open. On the bright side if there is one, I did need to move the tank which I have, and I got a fresh start on my rockscape without having to work around corals.