TANK CRASH: MH Exploded?!

[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.

[Gripenfelter]

I agree, cloudy water is more indictive of either an anemone exploding or a bacterial bloom.

[GMGQ]

I'm thinking the cloudy water could also be from everything that died. All the flesh on the SPS are gone, and the LPS were spewing stuff into the water...

[Reefer Rob]

Is everything not under that light OK? If so the damage is done. All you can do is some water changes to export the extra nutrients, and I would leave that light off for a couple of days, then slowly bring the photo period back up. Hopefully you can save some of the flesh that was in deep shade. This is assuming the inner bulb is intact.

[GMGQ]

Originally Posted by Reefer Rob

Is everything not under that light OK? If so the damage is done. All you can do is some water changes to export the extra nutrients, and I would leave that light off for a couple of days, then slowly bring the photo period back up. Hopefully you can save some of the flesh that was in deep shade. This is assuming the inner bulb is intact.

Nope, all SPS have bleached, LPS and zoas long the bottom are closed up. No difference between the left and right of the tank.

This morning I turned off the timer for both MH's, so right now only actinics will turn on. I think i'll get a XM bulb replacement for now...

Here's a pic of the MH bulb:


The inner bulb is in tact. I still couldnt see where the glass went in the tank.

[Reefer Rob]

I'm thinking it's not the bulb then. It looks like you have enough of the outer casing to give you some shielding. My bulb cracked the same way, but exposed the tank to the whole inner bulb. It cooked only the corals under that halide.

[fishytime]

Originally Posted by GMGQ

I'm thinking the cloudy water could also be from everything that died. All the flesh on the SPS are gone, and the LPS were spewing stuff into the water...

+1.....when my tank crashed it looked like milk.....sorry to hear about your troubles man.....the cause is neither here nor there now.....your main focus is damage control.....worry about what caused it after you save your tank...large water changes and get anything that is dead or on its way out, out of the tank asap

[Reefer Rob]

Originally Posted by fishytime

+1.....when my tank crashed it looked like milk.....sorry to hear about your troubles man.....the cause is neither here nor there now.....your main focus is damage control.....worry about what caused it after you save your tank...large water changes and get anything that is dead or on its way out, out of the tank asap

How will he know how to treat the tank if he doesn't know what caused it? Water changes are a good idea, but he needs to get to the root of problem in order to fix it. JMO of course.

[Casey8]

I don't think it caused from your broken bulb, it must be from something else. Do you have a refugium having some plants that go sexual at night ?

[Bryan]

The inner envelope is intact, so no heavy metals would have entered the tank, I believe you cooked the tank with UV, The glass shielding although covering the majority of the bulb still does not stop UV from leaving and bouncing all over the inside of the canopy into the water column.