Sorry to hear of the setback Dez. When I posted like an idiot about how cool damsels are I think I had my reply window open a while and your post wasn't there yet so I had no idea.

I don't know enough to help you out but good luck I'm sure you'll get to the bottom of this. If anything a few big water changes might help get rid of something you can't test for that MAYBE leached...

Brett,

It is the most frustrating thing ever and the guys here at Marine Aquaria have been awesome. They took the damsels in and I ran 1 lb of carbon for a few days and I actually have my skimmer up and running. Then they gave me an even bigger damsel that has been in their sump forever cause no one wants the fish and they can't seem to kill it.

I took it home (this was a couple of days ago) acclimated the fish and checked on him in one hour. Seemed okay. Then to go clean up my kid's toys, then came back downstairs to check and the fish was dead! 2 hours! Completely dead, no red gills or anything, just dead.

Today, after a couple more days of carbon and skimming, the guys at Marine aquaria give me this huge fish that a customer brought in to test my water again. I put him in my tank and he seems fine, but then after a couple of hours, the fish has laboured breathing. I knew he was not doing well so I put him back in the original water he came in and half of my water cause the original water got cold. After a little bit, the fish stopped having laboured breathing.

So what I'm going to do is to drain my 40 gallon frag/tank. Isolate it from the system. Mix new salt with R/O DI water. Then I'm going to Marine Aquaria and they'll give me a damsel - theoretically at this point the fish should be fine - fresh new water. If the fish is not fine, then I know it's a crappy batch of salt. If the fish is fine, then I'm going to move a bunch of my rock into the tank to see if it's the rock leaching stuff into the tank. If it's fine, then I know I have to change all my water out or something. If the fish is not fine, then I know that there's something leaching from that 5 year old rock. Then I gotta get rid of the rock.

Here's wierd thing as well. The colt coral frag in my tank has been doing well during this whole time. Good polyp extension and everything. What kills fish but not coral? And what kills it so fast?

Could it be the sponge that grew on the rock while it was in the dark for 4 years? Now it's beginning to die off (only the parts that are exposed to the light). I scrubbed as much of the sponge off today to maybe try to eliminate another variable.

Argh....time to pack the bag in on this hobby....life was much simpler the last 4 1/2 years without a tank.

not sure of the effect on fish of high alk but have you've been able to get it down?

dead sponges= bad
im quite shure dieing sponge could be a issue, i have no idea if its causing your problem though, have you tested amonia/nitrite? not shure if they release anything toxic

Parameters are all pretty much stilll the same. The dkh went down a bit though

Temp 78
Salinity 1.024
ph - 8.3
Calcium 440
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 5ppm
dkh - 15
Phosphat 0 - 0.25

These are all within limits of keeping fish. Must be an unknown toxin. My colt coral frag from my nano is still doing amazing with great polyp extension.

Tonight I drained the 40 gallon frag tank and I started the RO/DI fill of it. So I will have to wait a day before it's full and then I'll salt it and try to figure out which variables cause the fish to die/breath hard.

Anybody wanna buy a tank? argh

must be the salt
 

Hi Dez,

I've been following your thread; you've done a great job. What I think would be causing it is the salt that was put away for years. My guess would be that some of the minerals chelated or something crazy and are now in the water, killing fish. Think heavy metals.

I'd do a massive/emergency water change, followed by another (dilution is an itch), and one more for good measure. Then try a damsel...

I am fighting cyano (still ayoung nano), so I hear some of your frustration.

all the best

Here's the thing though....the 5 year old salt was new and still sealed. Do you think the salt has a shelf life? Hopefully I'll be able to figure it out. The fish store maybe thinks it might the be 5 year old rock that was 'cooking' leaching something out. We'll see in a few days I'm sure. Thanks for the comments. PS, do you like the aragocrete that I made as my closed loop intake (remember I came to your place and picked up that cement?)

Worst case you replace the rocks and salt Dez! Sucks but that'd be a garantee! I need to see this one mature please power through!

Ha ha, do you mean worst case remortgage my house? That'd be another $2000 in stuff. I probably spent that in electricity trying to keep that stupid rock alive. Should have dried it out....but who knew it would take 4 1/2 years to get the tank up.

Well....I've even stopped really updating this thread. I should put up pictures of the skimmer running at least to show some progress when I get home.

Thanks for the encouragement Brett (to spend more money that is).

You can't stop now; it will be worth it when you figure it out!
(plus this is my favorite tank journal 'selfish :redface:')

I would be worried about the salt as wells and I have no actual scientific facts for this but just a feeling. I know you'll figure it out and the guys at Marine Aquaria are awesome keep the faith it WILL get better!

YES - BIG PROPS TO MARINE AQUARIA. I've known the owner since he was in high school. He's gone above and beyond for me. He's opened the store later at night just so I could get a bulkhead and plumb my tank. Last night he personally came to my house to pick up the "test" fish because I didn't want to kill it. He was closed but made a special trip to pick up the fish and bring it to the store. He has given me beer at the store (it was a plus 32 day last week). He has taken in my dying damsels. He even offered his freshly mixed store saltwater so I wouldn't have to wait for my R0/DI to fill. I declined cause I didn't want to take advantage of him. I know I could get some stuff cheaper online, but I like supporting local vendors. I know that he's worked his @$$ off to get to this point and taken on a lot of debt just to cater to us hobbyists.

Thanks for the comments about this build thread. Hopefully I'll get outta this hole and maybe you'll be able to see the tank in person one day since you are in Edmonton.

Alright, despite the setbacks here are some pictures of the other progress that has been happening. Last week I set up my skimmer - nothing special, here are the pics.

It's an old PM Bullet 3 skimmer.
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1248922836

You can see the auto top off in this picture, it's nothing fancy. That Kent float valve came with the sump. It's hooked up to my RO/DI. I do have an electronic ATO system and I might use it but I'd have to find time to make an acrylic float switch holder. I don't know if I want to get fancy with all these extra backups. We'll see how I feel down the road. This works for now.
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1248922879

For some reason everybody always like the foam pictures.
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1248923012

And I got an Aqua Controller III so I hooked it up tonight. I love it. I can control my pumps and heaters down in the basement from upstairs. I wasn't gonna get a controller but I picked this one up for cheap with the two DC8's. Endless possibilities. I'm not a computer guy so it took me a little while to program it.
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1248923055

Under the stand:
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1248924173

In the basement:
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1248924245

Other updates. My 40 gallon frag tank is full of fresh salted and heated water, so tomorrow I'll go and get another fish to see if it's the salt that's causing my problems. Enjoy.

I don't think its the 5 year old rock. The rock I got from your cooking tank for my nano has been in there with a tailspot blenny for over 2 weeks and the fish is still going strong. I'd lean more towards bad salt.

Good point Rich, I didn't even think about it that I gave you some of that rock. Well, I got another test fish today and it is not labouring or breathing hard at all and seems well. There is no rock in the tank though. So now I could probably safely put rock in with him. I'm thinking some big water changes and I should be okay. Whatever was leached in there should be diluted somewhat by now. I mean, I used the same water to change half the water in my mantis nano tank at work and the mantis is going strong. We'll see I guess.

:confused:Do you feed your skimmer via the return pump?

Glad to hear this fish is still going strong. I really can't see it being the rock either. Does the tank with the fish in it have the same salt tho?

Sure do.

Yes it does. I used a complete pail of IO salt and I used another bit of a pail of IO salt that I had. And the 40 gallon frag tank has the SAME salt and same RO water as the original fill. I was trying to keep all of the variables consistent. Well, we'll just see from here. I had a bunch of rock in with the fish overnight and the SAME fish seems to be doing just fine without and labouring or hard breathing.

I.M.O. skimmer should get pre-filtered water to get the best of it!
That way you take out of the water not only the d.o.c but also different organic particles, sort of mechanical filtration.
Maybe you want to consider drop feeding it or a separate power head from the first chamber of your sump.

I have a filter sock (200 micron) that will take care of fine particles. Other then that it'll be the same water no matter where I pump from. Thanks for the feedback. All the other baffles are just bubble traps. And even if I pump from the first chamber, the water's going through the filter sock anyway.

ok:biggrin:

Do you roll your salt buckets?....Very cool to meet yous two today....sorry it was soooo busy and I couldnt really chat with you that much.

Glade to meet you today. Nice build, hope to see more.

what do you mean by rolling my salt buckets? I've never heard of this. It was nice meeting you as well.

I think he means to put the bucket on its side and roll it.. I've heard of people doing it every time they use their salt or sometimes.. once or twice every two weeks to make sure that everything (whatever is in it.. I'm no expert).. stays mixed..

Theory is that the different things in the salt stays uniformly mixed... some people just do it the first time they get the bucket. because of shipping things may settle out... personally.. I've never done it..

I think that is why people roll their salt buckets... (am I wrong???)

"Circle gets the square".....you may find that if you dont roll your buckets of salt, the first mix may have say 500 ppm of calcium and the last mix may be 300ppm....obviously not scientific numbers but you get the idea.

Wow never once even read about this. Great idea and I'll do it myself If I ever buy salt.

Well, I used the whole bucket of salt so I guess that didn't matter that time....I will do this in the future I guess. Won't hurt and it doesn't take much effort.

last few buckets of IO I've measured Ca and Alk at the start and about 1/2 full, to get a idea how much to supplement, values end up being the same (without rolling).

Just wondering if things are getting better?

Well, I'm back tonight and we'll see if my test fish is still doing good. I had new saltwater mixed and fish was good. I put some rock from the display in with the fish to see if there were any adverse effects, so far none. We'll see tonight. If everything is good, them I'm going to switch out as much water as possible and just assume that something leached into the tank during my tank build. Sucks, but it's better than a whole tank crash I guess.

Des

looksa good man

Well, after a rough couple of weeks with my fish problems I think that my problems are solved *knock on wood*. I did a 100% water change today - that's right 100%. It was a pain, but worth it. It is now about 8 hours after it's complete and everything seems to be fine. I got some sps frags from a friend yesterday and I'm getting full polyp extension and all the other corals that I acquired from friends are doing well - GSP's, leathers, xenia. The fish that's in my frag system (now hooked up with the main system) is doing well. Ate well after the water change and wasn't shy. I got another 100 lbs of rock yesterday that's well seasoned so there shouldn't be much of a spike, if any. Here's a picture of the tank almost drained.

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1249455630

It was a chore, but all worth it in the end. I will attribute my problems to either a bad batch of salt or something that leached in unknowingly. I am praying that this does the trick as I was ready to throw the towel in.

Great news! Just think of how much your kids would miss the tank at this point =)

Hurray! Good News.

I'll keep my fingers crossed!

I am too.....I just hope that whatever was leached or if it was bad salt is gone with the wind. My "test" fish is doing awesome and feeding from my fingers. So obviously not stressed and he's been in for about a week now and still feeding after 100% water change. Corals are showing polyp extension. So fingers crossed for the next week to see if I have broken the unknown problem barrier!

Good news. It's been a couple of days since the 100% water change. Fish are doing awesome. I bought 3 clownfish and they are doing well and eating. Good polyp extension on whatever frags I had before, so I think whatever problem I had is solved. I have to start raising my calcium though because I tested it and it's only 320 - 340ppm. DKH is good at about 8. I'm surprised reefer's best salt tested so low in calcium. I tested twice just to make sure. Regardless, this is a minor problem.

This is what it looks like now:

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1249602530

From the living room:

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1249602581

Man, I have to start using a camera other than my cellphone. Those pictures suck. Sorry guys.

My cabinetry for the other side should be coming sometime in the next couple of weeks so I added a fan today so that the canopy stays dry. I had this 12V DC fan from 5 years ago. It's adjustable speed so I have it dialed down so that I can't hear it. Just a bit of airflow to keep the canopy dry. The less voltage, the slower the fan goes. I think I got the fans at Princess auto ages ago.

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1249602713

And mounted:

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...g?t=1249602776

Hopefully its smoother sailing from here.

I have been pretty crazy with work and haven't updated the journal in a while. I've hooked up the fan from the basement. Here are the pictures

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/IMG_0903.jpg

Here is where the vent ends up (goes upstairs, up the side of the fish tank and ends at one end - when you place your hand there you can feel the sucking of air so I am pleased with the flow)

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/IMG_0939.jpg

And my fish tank stand/frame skirt from the den side:

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/IMG_0937.jpg

With the canopy open allowing full access which I am enjoying:

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/IMG_0936.jpg

and a crappy picture of my nice fishies:

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/IMG_0941.jpg

Generally things are going really well in the tank. All sps have full sps extension and some of the tips are changing colour indicating growth starting. The tank is almost there. I still have to drill my water change tank and install and plumb it. Right now for calcium I'm just doing the old fashioned "let the kalk sit for a few ours in a 5 gallon pail and drip it in to replace all top-off water". It's annoying but I haven't had the time to hook my kalk reactor and calcium reactor with all the other stuff that is going on. Enjoy.

Wow!!!! the cabinet is just Beautiful. And the fish look great, can't wait to see some more shots.