UV burn...what to do??

[christyf5]

Lucky me, I just arrived home to find half a bulb at the bottom of the tank. Is it burnt out? Of course not, its frying all my corals.

So....wtf do I do now? I turned off the halides immediately. Do I run with just actinics for awhile? Replace the bulb and run as normal? Most of my frags look like they're gonna be hitting the trash bin, couple poccis don't look happy. Zoos are extremely ****ed. Fish are freaked.

Ugh, you know those days where you wonder why you're in this hobby? Today is one of them :confused:

[Borderjumper]

aww Christy that sucks! I dont know if theres anything you can do for the burn.. I would guess just keep your water quality up. I think if it were me I would replace the bulb and then run a few days or a week with some screen over the tank and a reduced photo period.

Im just basing this on how a sunburn feels worse if you go back out in the sun.

[PoonTang]

Noooo Christy thats so awful. Dont give up. I will have frags here for you ASAP of course. I would think a few days of subdued lighting would be the best thing, give things a chance to heal if possible.

[Myka]

I would replace the bulb, and run actinics only for a couple days. The frags will appreciate a couple "cloudy" days! :)

[christyf5]

The frags are dead except for 3 which were sort of tucked under the eurobracing, I don't have hope for most of the right side of the tank. Whatever.

Anyway, my scopas and powder blue tang both have "cataract" looking eyes on the upper parts. The PBT is swimming but looks confused and I'm pretty sure he is going to ick up in the next few days.

Do eyes fix themselves or have I got a couple of "special" tangs now?

effing hobby. I am so ****ed off.

[Lance]

:sad:

[PoonTang]

hopefully the eye thing is temporary like "snow blindness"

[Borderjumper]

what kind of bulb was it Christy? You dont have glass on your reflectors?
What frags did you loose? I will send you home with some frags when you pick up the GFO.. it should be delivered tomorrow

[christyf5]

I'm not worried about the frags, they can be replaced (and its not like I don't have any frags :razz:) Most were from Sarah and a couple from Snappy. Life isn't over, its just so bloody frustrating. First the wavebox and now this. Things just happened too close to one another I guess.

The bulb was an ushio single ended, just under a year old. I never bothered to put glass on the reflectors simply because it wasn't required and I never thought the bulb would break and keep running (of all things! in my world when a lightbulb breaks it stops working, apparently this isn't so in metal halide land). In hindsight I really should have glass covers on my reflectors and I'll be measuring them right quick. My regal tang is a complete arsehole and loves to gulp air after eating which often results in his tail flipping water as he dives downward. He sometimes does this when he's bored too.

I've put several screens over the tank on the affected side. It looks kind of funny actually, I'm using an old piece of undergravel filter that came out of a sump I bought, some plasticky green netting and a couple small chunks of eggcrate I found. It still lets too much light through IMO but I'll do the reduced photoperiod too.

I fed everyone some mysis just a bit ago to see if my royal gramma was still around as I hadn't seen him yet. He's a belligerent bastard but timid when he's spooked. I saw his butt as he flashed by so everyone is accounted for (unlikely that he would be affected by the UV as he likes to hide out in the rocks). The PBT ate, so he can see. The scopas doesn't look too bad except for the eyes and he ate. Its mostly the PBT that is affected the worst as he likes that side of the tank and was probably too stunned to clue into the fact that he was getting burned.

Lesson learned: put glass on your reflectors regardless of bulb type if you have retarded fish.

[Delphinus]

I had a lamp crack in half on me. I lost all the SPS under it, but other things in the tank recovered. I'm not sure about the fish's eyes. I'm hoping for the best that they'll come around in a few days.

Really sorry to hear this BTW. :( Ugh, one thing or another.

[bvlester]

go with reduced tighting 2 hrs on 2 off 2 on 2off 2on and then off for the night use just actinics for a while, you can try and adding some melifix to the water to help with the eyes. If the frags have any tissue they may come back.

good luck,
Bill

[whatcaneyedo]

Reefer Rob are you going to chime in? ... Basically the same thing happened to him a few months ago.

[christyf5]

The frags have some tissue. A couple are unbelievably bleached. Most have very thin looking tissue so I would imagine that will slough off as the days go one. Then again I have had a few recover before when I babied them.

[JDigital]

Sorry to hear the bad news Christy.. I too would assume that if a bulb broke it would cease to function.. Glad I use DE's now, forces me to use the glass shields.

[lastlight]

Power through Christy and keep making the machine better and more fool-proof =) Sorry to hear of this.

[pterfloth]

Unbelievable! I have SE Ushio's with no glass on my reflectors too! And I'm away in Portland on business.

Sorry to hear of your misfortune. Hope everything recovers.

[mark]

wow. I thought the glass envelop was more to protect people from the UV but without, the water would filter for the corals.

[fishoholic]

Sorry to hear this :sad: I hope your fish pull through ok.

[christyf5]

wow. I thought the glass envelop was more to protect people from the UV but without, the water would filter for the corals.

I think the UV rays coming out of an unprotected bulb are pretty darn strong. I even had an acan at the bottom of the tank that got a bit bleached, lucky it was tucked under a rock a bit so it wasn't so bad. The stuff closer to the bulb is gonzo but as you go lower down in the tank stuff is affected less and less traumatically (but still affected) so the UV rays are filtered by the water to an extent but much more water depth than you'd think.

[Jason McK]

Oh No Christy,
I had the same thing happen to me a few Months Ago. Except I was in Japan at the time. My Wife had to deal with it. Strangely enough everything made it even 2 clams that where directly below the bulb.

Hope your as lucky

[christyf5]

Everything on the right half of the tank is dead today including a 10+ year old pocillipora damicornis and my prized cyphastrea decadia :cry: and I found my midas blenny dead as well :sad: The PBT isn't looking good but the fish are a bit wigged out from the 2h on/2h off photoperiod so I guess we'll see. Ugh this hobby just makes me sick sometimes.

[Borderjumper]

:sad: That sucks

[bvlester]

Give the 2 hrs on 2 off anouther day or 3 the fish will get use to it I have done this before to control agea bloom that happened when a timmer went bad so now all my timers are mechanical not digital.

Hang in there it will turn around. one thing for sure you probable don't have parisites right now. If you have a UV serilzer I would make sure it is going in the sump it will help combat Ick if it rears it bad head. Also it will kill any bad parisites that are in there so it dose not get to your fish. there ammune system will be down right now fighting the burn. Feed with extra garlic in all meals, this will also help in the recovery.

Bill

[Lance]

Everything on the right half of the tank is dead today including a 10+ year old pocillipora damicornis and my prized cyphastrea decadia :cry: and I found my midas blenny dead as well :sad: The PBT isn't looking good but the fish are a bit wigged out from the 2h on/2h off photoperiod so I guess we'll see. Ugh this hobby just makes me sick sometimes.


Damn that sucks, Christy. So sorry to hear this. Hopefully everything is on the mend now.

[christyf5]

Give the 2 hrs on 2 off anouther day or 3 the fish will get use to it I have done this before to control agea bloom that happened when a timmer went bad so now all my timers are mechanical not digital.

Hang in there it will turn around. one thing for sure you probable don't have parisites right now. If you have a UV serilzer I would make sure it is going in the sump it will help combat Ick if it rears it bad head. Also it will kill any bad parisites that are in there so it dose not get to your fish. there ammune system will be down right now fighting the burn. Feed with extra garlic in all meals, this will also help in the recovery.

Bill

LOL, I think enough UV was injected into the tank as it is and I don't fear an ick outbreak currently, I'm more worried about the skin condition of the fish. We all know what a bad burn does to our own skin, imagine if we spent all our time in the water after getting a bad burn.

[Lance]

LOL, I think enough UV was injected into the tank as it is and I don't fear an ick outbreak currently, I'm more worried about the skin condition of the fish. We all know what a bad burn does to our own skin, imagine if we spent all our time in the water after getting a bad burn.


One thing fish have over us is the ability to heal wounds incredibly fast; hopefully it works the same for burns.

[bvlester]

fish are very resilent critters tougher than we give them credit for. A uv serilizer will kill bad bacteria that may inhibit the healing process also and I did say put it inthe sump maybe the return line would be better that way all the water has to pass through it to get back in to the tank. anyways as I sugested before melifix would aid in the healing process for the skin and scails any ways. It may help sooth the sun burn that theu got I don't know about soothing but it does sound good.

Good luck again and I hope all other s pull through and keep your chin up..

Bill

[christyf5]

The powder blue is dead, I don't anticipate the scopas lasting longer than tomorrow night. The candy hogfish has a missing fin and isn't using that side to steer so he's just sort of hovering and swimming to the right (but he looks "relatively" ok). The raccoon is acting really weird and I wouldn't be surprised if he kicked off in the next couple of days. The regal, who probably caused it all, is swimming around like nothing doing and the gramma is flipping me the bird from his hidey hole.

I think it was just too much UV for the fish to bounce back from, for all I know the bulb could have been broken like that for up to 7 hours (thats how long the lights had been on for). Thats a long time to be in a tanning bed.

[bvlester]

sorry to hear the powder blue didn't make it. those hipos are babies every time some thing goes wrong they run and hide and say I didn't doit he did. mean while everyone else is tanning away. This is just a nouther reason why I don't do halides I have heard of this happening before.
I
At least with the itinics onand off for 2 hrs at a time the corals should like it and the coriline algea should also like it as they need the itinic light spectrum to heal and grow.

Good luck, take it one day at a time.

Bill

[Tom R]

Hi Christy

This hobby is certainly not for the faint of heart. If it is not one thing it is always something else.

I can't help you with the replacement of fish however if there are any coral replacements required, you are welcome to piece of anything I have.

Tom R

[christyf5]

Thanks Tom I appreciate it!

Bill, you're totally right about the regals, man they really are big babies aren't they. And even though he's about 6" he still tries to cram himself in the smallest crevices of rock which is likely why he emerged unscathed.

I had a look this morning to see if the scopas was still in there. He's hanging out in the back forty but the flashlight definitely gives a more realistic view of what is going on. His entire back is burnt for lack of a better word, there is a dark black strip of what I imagine is either dead or cooked skin. I'm just leaving the actinics on today because who wants to go out in the sun when you have a bad sunburn. He didn't eat last night, but that means nothing to me as the PBT was out and eating before he kicked it. Anyway, maybe I'll have to do a shorter routine of MH or find enough screening for the full tank to reduce the MH strength some.

The flashlight also showed that there is a bit of tissue left on the undersides of some of the corals. If I can just stop the tissue recession (with the mighty power of positive thought because nobody really knows what to do about STN) I bet they'd regrow over the exposed skeleton.

[bvlester]

I'd bet they would regrow too. Are you dosing with anything to help the healing process?
I'd run the actinics only for a few days it wont hurt anything may even help some of the corals and the coriline realy like it. I do not run MH for reasons I have come acrss and seen. they also eat the power to much. T5HO work just as good and you can get bulbs that put out 20,000k, 14,000k, 12,000K, 10,000, 6,500K and actinics. I run a 4 bulb unit right now but have a couple single unit here also that I am continplating adding to the mix once the 90g is up and running. Right now I run 2 10,000K and 2 actinics. ever body is happy. the 2 extra lights will have 12,000K or 14,000K as the 90g is deeper and these will be on for 4hrs only at high noon. my actinics stay on all the time just the 10,000K are on and off except night no lights at all. If ick rears it head the 10,000K are on for only 2-3hrs high noon the rest of the day it is only actinics for 2 hrs at a time. I may go 2on 2off or 2on 1off depending what is happening. it doen't seem to bother the fish they get use to it. I call it bad weather days as tropical storms can last weeks.

I hope for the best for you nad your tank, speedy recovery.

Bill

[muck]

Oh...snap!
Sorry to hear about this Christy.
Was this on the 90 still or had you transferred the corals over to the new box already?

[christyf5]

This was on the 90. I'm still waiting for the 180 to cycle.

[neoh]

what all came from this disaster?

[christyf5]

I ended up losing 3 fish: a kole tang, powder blue tang and midas blenny. All of the frags on my frag rack from CoralMaster and a friend up north who was preparing me for the tank move with bonus frags, died as well. I think I lost about 25+ frags. The large pocilipora colony survived as well as a "hitchhiker" frag on the side of an aquacultured acro. The aquacultured acro's underbranches came back and are growing in nicely. The cyphastrea survived as only the top part was badly bleached. All of the coralline on the top of the rocks was burned off and the rocks were stark white for some time but have coralline on them again.

I put glass shields on all of my reflectors. Its much easier to clean now and although the regal tang still splashes the bloody things :rolleyes: at least it will just be the glass that breaks and not the bulb.

[muck]

Good to hear Mr. Purplepants survived that fiasco.
Too bad about the frags... :(

[christyf5]

Good to hear Mr. Purplepants survived that fiasco.
Too bad about the frags... :(


Mr Purplepants is such a wussy he probably hid in the rocks the whole time. This time it saved his arse. UV burn has to be one of the worst things I've ever seen on a fish (aside from those monstrous "to the bone" lesions I've seen on salmon). Yeah it really sucked about the frags, I've gone through photos and have my "wish list" which I'm slowly working away at. Sadly I think some of them aren't (easily) replaceable as Sarah lost some colonies over the winter. I hate it when you lose friendly freebies, nothing like going back to the person "uhh, remember that stuff you gave me? Can I have it again?" :razz:

[Chaloupa]

If I still have it, you're welcome to a chunk..but I lost TONS over the winter. And my tank is just starting to look like it's worth looking at anyways.

So sorry to hear about your trouble ... I seem to have missed this thread.

[Frenchie2]

My purple tang has had a "cloudy" eye for months, probably due to running into something in the tank. It doesn't seem to bother him, he swims like a mad man and eats like a pig and seems to see through that eye anyways. I guess that's going to stay like that forever... Sorry to read about this incident... What a bummer!:sad: