98 Degrees (not the band) please help

[petergorde]

i know that this isnt a disease, but it has to do with fish health. today my heater went crazy and my tank was 100 degrees when i got home at 8:00 when i left at 2:00 everything was fine. my fire shrimp was the only casualty that i know of. i have a maroon clown, a bi-color angle, blue leg hermits, turbo snails an open green brain coral and an LTA. the LTA was all sucked up and the green brain had produced some webby stuff but still looked good. i know that is waaaaaaaaaaay too hot for amything but are there any other reprocussions i can expect? is there anything i can do to prevent anything from happening? please help me and my fish.
thanks
peter
:help: :help: :help: :help:

 

[caillou]

Not much help but about 14 years ago I had an F.O. tank, took my domino damsels out for some reason and put them into a smaller tank for the day (maybe I was cleaning the big tank) anyway left the heater on (no thermostat) and litteraly cooked the damsels. They lived for a few hours after I found them but they were goners.

 

[bang guy]

I'm sorry I didn't notice this thread earlier. It's probably too late.
I would have suggested not trying to force the temperature down quickly. Just let it fall naturally to about 88F and then 85F the following day and then a couple degrees a day until it's where you want it.

 

[petergorde]

hi guys, thanks for the help i set my thermometer to 79 degrees like i ususlly do and just let it go down naturally but it did go down by the next morning. i lost all my shrimp, my open green brain coral, and my LTA, but 3 days later my fish are doing fine and eating like normal although my maroon clown has not been eating with the same varocity as he did before.

 

[elfdoctors]

Sorry to hear of your losses.
Heat causes damage primarily by two means. The major one is hypoxia (lack of oxygen). Warm water can hold less oxygen than cool water. It also speeds up metabolic processes so that more oxygen is needed in a tank. Increasing water motion might have helped as this would allow for more oxygen to get into the tank (as well as sped up evaporative cooling).
The second way is protein denaturation. Proteins are extremely important. Heat can break down these proteins so that they no longer work properly (similar to what happens when you cook an egg). This is usually time and temperature dependent (it happens much faster at higher temperatures).
To prevent this from happening again, you should consider purchasing a thermometer which alarms you if the water temperature is too high or too low (e.g. Lifeguard TempAlert). A better brand heater may also help. Most of the better brands are designed to fail in the off position.