Skimmer motor burnt up, killed all my fish, need some advice

[DanG]

So about 1am this morning my wife wakes me up and says she smells something burning. I've got bad allergies and can't smell too well and said we've got a half dozen smoke detectors, if something was burning, they'd go off. She got up to look around the house and says it's something in or around your fish tank. Head downstairs and sure enough, smells like burnt electronics. Everything is running except my skimmer. I pull it out and there's a looney sized hole in the pump and what I thought, the source of the smell. Take another smell around my tank and it's the water that stinks.
I pulled out the reactors and refilled one with fresh carbon and one with fresh GFO. Dropped a couple of new bags of Chemipure in the bubble traps of the sump and did a 10G water change. I started looking around the inside of the tank and my coral beauty was dead, the six line wrasse was right next to the coral beauty and my 15 year old blue tang also dead. There were a couple of snails and hermits that were still wandering around and seemed fine.
Made it to bed around 430 this morning and when I got up at 11, no sign of anyone in the tank, so I can only assume that they've all died.
I've got another 10G water change queued up for tonight, but I'm not sure what the point of it is with everyone dead.

So obviously this is a major hit to the tank, but in order to get the tank going again, I don't have a clue where to start. I've got all the reef test kits, but don't know what could have killed everyone so fast, so I don't know what to really test for. I got all the fish out before they started decomposing and am not really worried about the 6 snails and crabs. Do I keep doing 10G water changes, drain the whole thing and refill, is my sand contaminated, rock still ok to use?

I also need a new skimmer for my tank, it's 70G with a 10G sump. I've traditionally had a light bio load, so I don't need something huge. The previous skimmer was an marine Color RDC 250 and I'm not interested in trying that again unless I could get a better pump for it.


Any help would be appreciated.

[WarDog]

Sorry for your loss. I'd remove all livestock and basically do a restart, starting with a massive w/c. You may have nasty crap in the rock and sand. Might be a good idea to send off a water test and check for metals etc.

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

Sorry to hear about your tank crash.

I agree that you should do a complete restart. Rinse off everything in some clean sw water first before you add it back to the tank.

Good luck.

Anthony

[DanG]

Any suggestions on a skimmer?

[gregzz4]

Originally Posted by DanG

Any suggestions on a skimmer?

Too many to choose from.
If I were in your shoes, I'd use my budget to narrow down the best ones for my tank/sump size.
Start by looking on BRSupply, then narrow them down by either what you can buy locally/best reviews, or what you can stomach financially shipped.
Look for the highest LPH air intake you can find in your budget/matching your tank/water volume size.
Don't cheap out, but don't bother with 'oversizing' for your system either.

A unit designed for a 300 gallon system won't work well on a 50 gallon tank.
Keep it realistic.
Size it for your sump, ease of cup removal, water depth, pump brand name.

Research, research research ...

[DanG]

Thoughts on the Reef Octopus line? The int110 should be a good size. Plenty of room in my sump for it and found it for $275 Canadian.

[Craigdillman]

Love the reef octopus brand/line had mine for 5th year now NWB 200 I believe no issues till last year the pump motor died after about the 5th year and simply got a new pump for like 80$ and the rest works great

highly recommend

pay a little bit more upfront but never had an issue

[Llorgon]

Hey, something similar happened to me. My powerhead melted or fried and sent melted plastic all through the tank. Killed everything except for one snail.


I sucked up all the melted plastic bits in the sand, did a 100% water change and added lots of carbon and started the cycle over again. All was find. I had no lasting effects.

[DanG]

Thanks for the help and advice everyone. I ended up with a Reef Octopus 110 int, still changing water and carbon. My brother got out of reefing so he gave me 2 buckets of salt, so convenient for me when I'm changing a ton of water.

[titus]

Hello

Sorry to hear about the incident. Yes agree with everyone to do large water changes. Reef Octopus makes good skimmers.

Titus