Help 71 degrees! How bad is it?

[bprewit]

One of my glass heaters in my sump broke sometime last night and I didnt even check my tank this morning as I left for work since I was running late. My g/f called me at 2:00 this afternoon to tell me I had two dead fish and none of the pumps or lights were working. The broken heater tripped both GCFI's that all equipment is plugged into. I helped her find the problem and get some pumps running until I got home just a bit ago. I lost my sailfin tang and my little fuzzy dwarf lionfish but the eel and two spot tang are still doing ok it seems and all inverts from the clam to the xenia are open and looking normal. With it down to 71.4 degrees how much damage will this do? How should I go about bringing the temp up or should I just let it climb on its own even though it will take 24hrs or so to bring the total 120gallons of water back to normal. What should I do????

[NaCl_H2O]

Look at This Thread from just a few days ago. Must be winter ....

[captexas]

Did the heater actually break or just go bad and trip the GFI? If it broke open, the fish may have been killed by the chemicals inside the heater or even a slight jolt of electricity before the GFI tripped. The temp is probably not what killed the fish, but it's possible. I would put larger odds on the lack of oxygen/circulation due to the loss of power. As the temp drop mostly likely occurred over a few hours, I would also increase the temperature slowly and things should be fine.

[Bill S]

Mine went down to 70 degrees on Tuesday - I did a water change, turned off the pump to my fuge where the heater is, and forgot to turn it back on! What a maroon! Anyway, we noticed it after about 24 hours. Fired up the pump, and all seems to be well. Back to 80 in about 12 hours. Thought maybe the bubble coral might be wounded, but he's fine. My torch didn't like, but recovered fine. The hammer actually seemed to LIKE IT. I can tell you that on real reefs, unlike what you read, HUGE temperature changes are often found. We were in Belize sailing last summer, and the water on the reef in spots was near 100. Seriously, it was like a hot tub. When there's no wind, no waves and 95 degrees... Everything seemed stressed though...

[bprewit]

cool thanks for the replies and read over the other post of cold temps. The heater broke in half and I got to dig all the parts from the sump so it was definatly the culprit and as far as the fish deaths go yep its a good possibility they got a good dose of electricity before the gfci tripped. Either way things are looking fine just really bummed that I lost my two favorite fish!