TANK CRASH: MH Exploded?!

[GMGQ]

Originally Posted by lastlight

You can shield your SE bulbs if your reflector allows for it. I should as well but didn't want to lose PAR or buy the shields. Good luck and sorry to hear.

No, it's the old style with a mogul at the base, and above the bulb is a wide chrome reflector. No housing around it.

Originally Posted by Gripenfelter

This happened to another board member on a local forum. A dragon wrasse jumped out of his tank and smashed his MH bulb. The chemicals in the bulb are volatile and extremely poisonous.

Metal Halide bulbs use rare earth salts along with argon and mercury vapour. The metals and vapours are poison.

Your best bet to ensure the survival of your fish and coral would be to do HUGE water changes.

I always have a quarantine tank running as a back up filled with water from the DT. If possible, transfer everything to a friend's tank ro a quarantine tank until you clean out the tank completely. The metal and poison will not decay and will stay in the water for a very long time.

Thanks for the tip.

I have a 30gallon skimmerless frag tank which has 4 fish in there already. Maybe I can move a few of the smaller fish over...

[Reefer Rob]

I don't think the bulb would be the cause of your cloudy water, unless the inner bulb broke. I had an outer bulb break on my 180, and ended up cooking 1/3 of my tank, but no cloudy water, and the fish were unaffected.