Emergency help needed: broken heater in sump!!

[Plato1]

I walked in from work today and saw my tank looking very white. I was messing around with the return pump last night and must have broken my heater as I discovered it broken in my sump.

All of my corals seem to have expelled their zooxanthellae as they are white. Most of the corals are retracted, but the xenia, colt, and some mushrooms are open, just bleached. All my fish are alive, as are inverts, but the heater was plugged in without any ground probe on the tank.

I know I should have had the tank grounded, but it wasn't. I stopped the return pump and unplugged the heater. What should I do? Do I need to do a large water change? Will my corals die?

Anxiously awaiting,

Plato

 

[Anonymous]

Take the heater out of the tank if you have not done so already. Besides the problem of electricity, there are metals (such as copper) that may leak into the water from theinside of the heater.

 

[Len]

Plato,

I feel for you. I had a similiar situation happen to me before in the past. I let the water level drop to low over night, and the bubbles from the incoming overflow caused my heater to explode. Things looked as you described - bleached and mostly lifeless.

What I recommend for you is what I did for myself (and worked). Do a series of large water changes, in the neighborhood of 50% every week for a month. Make sure the salnity and water temperature of the new water matches that of the old so as not to further stress your corals. Use Polyfilters and carbon during this time. I did it mostly to absorb the melted plastic compounds and metal leeched into the water, but even if this isn't relevant for you, it's still a good idea after mass zooxanthellae expulsion. I don't doubt some of the lower life forms died from this incident, and these chemical filters will help absorb excess nutrients from the water. Keep the tank well circulated, with plenty of air/water gas exchange.

Reduce your light intensity if possible, either by turning off some lights or shortening photoperiods. I did this a week after the heater blew in my tank, and noticed corals seemed to regain their zooxanthellae faster with less light (switched off my MH and used only 4xVHO's during this time).

I'm sure you'll be grounding your tank from now on. Get a GFCI for any component that touches water.