Obsessive Compulsion + Lack of Sleep = 500$ Worth of Live Stock
 

Hi I have been working on my first reef tank before I get my larger tank going.

I just learned the most expensive lesson of so far.

I've been having a troublesome time with Bryopsis and hair algae running rampart in my tank until I found a wonderful link with using Tech M to elevate Magnesium levels. The treament went well and I had all kinds of algae dying. One downside is that I had 1 Coral Die from the treament. The coral was probably 30$ so I figured it was a small price to pay for having no algae in the tank.

So Last night around 12am I figured it was time to do a water exchange and get the water parameters back to normal. Everything by the book. All is well....

Until I noticed 95% of my livestock dead the following morning. I couldn't figure out what went wrong until I realized that it was zero oxygenation. So the livestock practically suffocated to death.

I was relying soley on my Deltec M600 skimmer to provide oxygenation. I found for the size of my tank that It was adequate and put away the airstones that I was using with an old Prism skimmer.

One important characteristic of this skimmer is that sometimes when you plug it in the motor won't spin properly and won't pump. Im not an electrical engineer but their manual explains it as something to do with the type of motor they are using.

Well other times I've been careful to check this but last night I missed it. Well the inevitable happened and I had no oxygen in my tank. approx 500$ worth of livestock. Gone. Sucks big time.

The sailfin tang almost single handedly erradiacated my valonia outbreak and I was especially happy for that. Let alone it was my prized fish. I think I'll miss that fish the most.

Moving forward I see algae making a comeback. By the way the only fish that survived were a couple mollies I purchased to help keep the algae levels down. There is also one zebra striped damsel that is alive, at least for now (not looking too good). I think they were the only ones that reacted appropriately by coming up and sucking air at the surface.

Here's the body count from most prized downwards:
Sailfin Tang
Yellow Tang
1 Rabbitfish
2 Oscelaris Clowns
1 lobster
1 Cinimmon Clown
1 lawnmower blenny
1 goby (the white one with pink/orange spots)
1 Yellow tail damsel
2 emerald crabs
3 shrip

I think want to concentrate on buying livestock that will keep the algae down. I'll probably buy another sailfin but later down the road. I'm thinking replacing the blenny and goby should be the first thing to do.

Also considering the results. I might just add a whole bunch of mollies until the large tank is up and running. Any suggestions?

I suspect your diagnoses is incorrect. How much water did you change?

What kind of water did you use ofr your change? What about salt, which brand and what level of salinity did you aim for?

I replaced 30%

I did change from Instant Ocean to Red Sea Coral Pro. I use tap water and aquaclear for declhorination. I used 1.023 b/c I don't have a auto top off and typically top it off myself after I get home from work.

According to Delbeck and Sprung Skimmer contribute little to the O2 levels in the tank. Surface tension is where most O2 comes from

J

Its very sad about your losses. Reintroduce new livestock slowly. It looks like you are on the right track ensuring the longevity of your next inhabitants.
Kevin

Maybe, however I found this not to be the case in my tank. I usually have lots of bubbles mixing into my tank water. The fish also seemed to have calmer breathing than my last setup.

Did you double check the salinity of both tank and new water?

Yep I have 1.023 in the tank right now.

Yes very sad indeed :( I'll be heading out to find a blenny and goby this afternoon. I might try a pleco but im not sure how effective they will be.

thanks. Yeah my first instinct is to replace everything but then im alittle gunshy after loosing so much $ and fish. I'm planning to buy a blennnie and goby this afternoon. I'm considering a pleco, but I'm not too sure how effective they will be.

Aren't Plecos freshwater fish?

Sorry for your losses. Restock slowly. As well, before you spend a mint in new livestock, I would invest in an RO/DI unit. That may solve most of your algae issues.

Hmm good point. I'll look into that. how much would a decent set cost?

http://www.reefsolution.com/catalog/...roducts_id=393
I've been using this unit for 2 years now, changed the media once and it's still great, plus if you buy a bit more and you get your order to hit $200.00 you get free shipping!:mrgreen:

Thanks! I've tried just about everything else but this.

What did you raise your magnesium up to? What is it at now?

I actually went for 1600 ( I followed the 100/day as the thread described) and left it like that for about a week. The fish didn't have any ill affects. However I lost a coral and my snails seemed to be affected. The Bryopsis turned pale to white and I pulled out as much as I can during the treatment. The Hair algae didn't seem to be affected but I pulled those as much of that out too.

I"ll have to check what it is now but I assume that it would be much lower. The fish also wern't exhibiting deteriorating charachteristics. It was like they were totally fine one day and a few hours into the next day they were dead :(

I am also skeptical that it was oxygen that caused it, which is why I asked about the magnesium. I'm wondering if you caused a big change in magnesium when you did the 30% waterchange which then may have been the culprit...?

You did say that you just changed salt. Is this the first waterchange you've used it on? Maybe it's a dud pail...

Yep I switched from Instant Ocean to Red Sea Salt. This is my second time using the salt. I did a 30% water change with the new salt before the Magnesium treatment. I didn't realize that the salt can be bad. I did exactly what I did the other times I've replaced the water. before the Magnesium treatment I was doing 30% water changes every two weeks.
If its not the oxygen levles, then I'm completely stumped, aside from the salt and the skimmer not powering up right there really isn't much different that I normally do.

Its not common for fish to die when using elevated magnesium to treat bryopsis. I strongly doubt it was magnesium.

I figure your problem is either in oxygenation, or water chemistry. Can you post your full parameters? Ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, Ca, dKH, Mg, etc. please?

I thought plecos are brakish fish I'll have to double check that

Plecos are freshwater, Also I see in your signature that you are using 3 fluval 404's, what media do you have in them???I have found that canister filters to be Nitrate factories unless you change half the media at least once a week....Also I see that you had a lot of fish in your system which would result in a lot of organic material in your water column and when your skimmer stopped running you could have possibly had to many toxins in the water!!

When you pulled the dead fish out of the water where their mouths wide open, cause thats a sign that they died from not enough oxygen!

No it's not, but it is common for fish to die when the magnesium level has a big sudden swing.

sorry for you're losses, but what are you're water parameters corrently? such as nitrate,nitrite, ammonia? also if you were dealing with that magnitude of a microalgae outbreak, I'd imagine you're dissolved oxygen level to be quite low, from all the activity of the microalgae.

To me, this story sounds a lot similar to the demise of Steve Weast's Tank in Oregon. In his case, his skimmer pumped out too much water. No problem...but he needed to replace a lot of water in a hurry. Because he couldn't make that much RODI water, he decided to replace water using some dechlorinator that he had kicking around...and we've all heard the result.

My conclusion...Either the dechlorinater didn't work...or became a killer in of itself. I think that is your culprit...Chlorine or bad dechlorinator. Don't forget, Chlorine is absolutely deadly...that is why they put it in there.

the first thing that caught my eye aside from the microalgae was using aquaplus, isn't that aloe based? could've been a crappy dechlorinator like untame mentioned, just my 2 cents tho

I have 3 fluval 404's with the sponges and those cylindical filter media, other than that I have a phosphate media bag in one 404 and carbon in the other The third one has the fine mesh polishing filter.

Interesting point of the bioload and toxins. when my coral died, I left it inthere four a couple days to see if it would recover. I wonder if that may have caused it but then again I only lost them after the water change which would be odd. Good point of the fish well the sail fin had its mouth wide open but I didn't notice it on the other fishes. Maybe I was still in shock about the sailfin tang. I'm going to check the water parameters again to see whats going on.

Wow interesting insight I think we might have something here. I usually make my water reaplacement the day before but when I changed it last night I made the batch of water and put it in right away. I think I was pretty careful though b/c I mixed the water for a good 5 minutes and started out with slightly warmer water (to catalize the mixing) before cooling it down to 78 and into the tank. I've never checked if the aquaplus has to be refrigerated. Maybe it went bad!?!?

Ok just finshed the tests. My Calcium level seems really high for some reason.
If I remember correctly it is a side affect of the magnesium treatment.
I've obviously missed something else rotting the tank. Probably the one shrimp that I couldn't find and assumed dead. Should I do another water change? Man this is all too discouraging at this point in time :(

Salinity 1.024
PH 8.4
Nitrite 0.1 ppm
Nitrate 5 ppm
Ammonia 0.3 ppm
Phosphate 0
Calcium 680 ppm ??
KH 250 ppm

Exactly how old is this tank?

I wouldn't add anything to your tank until you get your water chemistry in line.
You should be showing 0ppm for ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite. Your rock should provide enough natural filtration to bring those levels down. You can also do water changes to speed the process along.

Your calcium is quite high, are you dosing anything for Calcium? You may want to consider stopping. Your dKH or alktalinity is also high, 250ppm translates to 14 dKH which is quite up there. You might want to check out this article for more info on chemistry and the relation between Calcium and Alkalinity.

just wondering if you have check your pH, or alkalinity.

first, i do not think the reason for your losses came from change of salt, skimmer not running or air pump not running.

the most probable cause would be poison, such as from excess use of impure chemicals, like dechorinator, or the elavated Mg might kills invertibraes or other micro-organisms that created a NH3 spike.

Can you give us a brief description of the fishes that were dead? like signs of physical trauma, or certain notable conditions?

you mentioned O2 depletion, did you check this with a reliable test kit?


recommended improvement might be regular testing of water parameters, keep log of these data and create a record of different happenings for your tank. From my experience, i did solved a lot of my tank's problems by checking these valuable logs that i kept over the years.

hope it helps.

FYI: KH or dKH = alkalinity

KH=250/18.9 = 13.22dKh

1 other question, do you dose any other kind of chemicals regularly? you seem to have such high levels of Ca and dKh at the same time, it is very abnormal, ususally when you hava an elevated level in either Ca or dKh, the other will be greatly depressed.

also, as mentioned by others before, you have NH3 in your tank, that is not abnormal give the fact the most of your livestock were dead after you do testing.

How much pH flutuations do you have between lights on/off?

I think you have your answer right there. If you have been mixing new SW the day before, that gives the water time to "breath off" the Chlorine. You might check to see if your area uses Chloramine, which is even stronger and more toxic (I think).

Anyway...the Chlorine remover you've been using may not have been working as you think for some time. Or, it might have been removing some CL and 24hrs was doing the rest for you. When you didn't provide that time to vent the Chlorine in the new SW, that poisoned the tank.

Of course, we all know that if you kill enough things quickly, you cause a chain reaction of death.

I think this is what happened then. Probably combination of chlorine and lack of oxygen. Ill probably do another water change but I'll wait until tomorrow for the water to settle in this time.

Thanks for the link!
At this point I'm cosidering tearing the tank down and cooking the live rock. before I tried the Tech M cure, I tried using a method a LFS suggested. They sold me a bottle of aragonite and they told me to dump it all in the water to make the water ultra murky. the aragonite was supposed to cover the algae and reduce photosynthysis. I was to reduce the light levels at the same time. After trying that and it didn't work I did a water change and then slowly started to dose Tech M. I won't tell the store that told me to do that but I'm now boycotting them b/c they cost me a couple cheap bt anemones AI sold me for under 20 bucks I think. I'm actually more ****ed of at myself for listening to them :(

I've never actually tested my ph in that way before. It normally sits around 8.3 to 8.4 and I
I use Kent ph buffer up twice a week (usually drops to 8.1) when I check the ph and its low, I normally use one squirt of cycle every week thats about it. now I'm wondering if dying bryopsis caused an ammonia spike.... but then again the fish still died after the water change...

You seem to add a lot of "stuff" to the tank. I would recommend that you back off and simplify your approach when you restart.

Yep finally decided I'm going to "cook" the existing rocks and maybe buy a new batch of new liverock for the meantime. I'll need help from fellow reefers to temporaily take my remaining livestock until I get reset. Any one willing to lend a hand? I figure I'll need a surrogate home for at least 4-6 weeks. If anyone is able to come tonight that will be preferred. Please PM me.

Thanks

Reggie