Possible contamination. Please help.

[Ace5high]

Here is the scenario.

Tonight one of my moon LED strip lights came loose from the hood and a few minutes after it had turned on fell into the tank. 90 Gal Mixed Reef tank btw.

I do not know how long it was in the water but couldn't have been more than 5-10 min or so. Its one of the ones with a plastic outer covering and filled inside with water. Soon as I unplugged everything nothing electrical caused any major issues but as it was "Cooking" in the salt water the inside of the LED tube was reacting with the current and was creating a grey metal lookings soup mix. Fortunately most of it was contained inside this plastic tube. BUT when I lifted it out of the water some of the grey "reaction water" poured into the main tank. I tried as quick as I could to siphon it out but it was a mess, water was flying all over the living room and my bucket started leaking (out of nowhere).

Long story short is that the contaminated water did get mixed into the main tank. I have NO IDEA of the level of actual contamination or even what was created by the electricity reacting with the solder joints and salt water mix. Since it was coming from the solder Im assuming Ive got some major lead/metal contamination. Has anyone ever had something like this happen or know anything about what could have gotten mixed in the tank?? Im in a bit of a panic and mixing new water ASAP, but its going to be hours before I have enough water to start doing any water changes...

Please any input is much appreciated!

 

[bjohanson1234]

DON'T PANIC!!!!

Panicking never gets anyone anywhere. You are doing the right thing by doing a water change.

Probably got some tin and lead in the tank from the solder joints, possibly some copper also. Since most of it was contained, probably not much to cause any sort of problem. Just do your water changes to keep the water quality up. Keep an eye on your live stock and try to do your best to keep them from stressing.

I had my light fixture fall in my tank while it was on. It just tripped the GFI. Didn't lose any live stock.

 

[Smitty]

+1 Bj...my digital thermometer once fell in my tank a few months ago, and I didn't realize until days later. The battery had rusted up some, and I'm sure some if it leached into the tank (filled with corals and inverts), but nothing bad happened. Just do a good water change or two like you've planned.

 

[Ace5high]

Thanks guys, some fish were acting very aggressive tonight, which I have never seen before... Other than that its been a few hours and everyone is still alive.

I moved my magnum 350 with carbon over to this tank and have been running that. I should be able to do about a 40 gal water change in another 6-8 hours or so. Hopefully this wasnt anything very serious. I would hate to think that fish/corals might show signs of heavy metal poisoning later on due to this incident...