Activated carbon killed my yellow tangs

[i3oosted]

I changed my carbon out and soon after my 2 little yellow tangs startd to breath heavy and became lethargic. This is the carbon that I used:

Specifically states for salt and freshwater aquariums.

I began to do water changes right away, stopped my filter from circulating the carbon'ed water, and put my powerheads to the surface for some major water agitation in case they needed more oxygen. They got worse, so I made a 5g bucket of fresh salt water, heated, and put them in there. They did not last.

I have an adult yellow tang that was not phased by this, but when he was their size he was once when I did a change out of the activated carbon, using same brand. He pulled through as I did the same thing, water changes, etc. I slowly added the carbon filtered water and everything was OK after that.

All my other fish were fine, pair of clowns, pair of banggais, wrasses, shrimps, snails, dart fish, gobies, blennies, coral, anemones, etc.

It only effected yellow tangs, both times.

I can not understand WHY activated carbon affected my yellow tangs this way.

Just passing on the info to others, maybe someone can shed some light on this.

 

[Titans_Reef]

Whats your water parameters now and when your tangs died? I use that carbon in my sump from time to time inside of a media bag. I never had any issues with it or any carbon at all before which I have a naso, hippo, and a yellow tang in my 125g. The largest is the naso but its 6". Also, how big is your tank and whats your bioload? They may have been stung by the anemone but its a slim chance both were stung or even one. Ive seen my cleaner wrasse get stung by my RTBA when I feed it silversides or krill but it swims like "it got shot in the buttox" lol and is fine after.

 

[Pny]

Where was probably nothing wrong with the activated carbon. Activated carbon is known to be detrimental to the health of certain genus of tangs. Maybe you got dust from the carbon in your tank? Did you use it in some kind of upflow reactor or filter?

 

[OrionN]

.....They got worse, so I made a 5g bucket of fresh salt water, heated, and put them in there. They did not last.....

You are between a rock and a hard plate but this is likely the wrong thing to do. Fresh mix salt water is very toxic to animals. Your tangs is likely have better with the tank water, even though the tank water is toxic. Newly mix salt water will kill fish every time.
I am sorry for your lost.

 

[thenewguy997]

Sry to hear about your fish

 

[o2manyfish]

I like the label - #1 choice for professionals for 45 years --- Where do they get that. I have been keeping fish tanks for 40+ years and don't ever recall hearing of this brand.

I don't think "Carbon" is your culprit. I am quite confident with the 11 yellow tangs in my system there is no ill effects by using Carbon. I run carbon 24/7 in a large fluidized reactor- and have been doing so for decades.

Perhaps it wasn't rinsed thoroughly. Perhaps you had residual soap or disinfectant on your hands from washing up before working on the tank. There are so many things that could have affected your fish's health. But saying carbon killed them, when the rest of your fish are still swimming around, is a pretty rogue statement.

Luckily the loss was limited to just the two fish, but I don't think blaming "Carbon" is really the answer to what caused your loss.

 

[ca1ore]

I like the label - #1 choice for professionals for 45 years --- Where do they get that. I have been keeping fish tanks for 40+ years and don't ever recall hearing of this brand.

That's because you're an amateur, at least I assume you are! :lol: I am, never having run my own business. Not sure selling a few frags or a rehomed fish really counts.

Agree, BTW, that the OP should look elsewhere for the loss of the two fish.

 

[Hzuiel]

Fresh mix salt water is very toxic to animals. Your tangs is likely have better with the tank water, even though the tank water is toxic. Newly mix salt water will kill fish every time.

Since when? The only thing i was aware of is that it will not have good bacteria built up and could BECOME toxic if ammonia builds up, but initially it should not be toxic in any way.

 

[SteveDColorado]

Mike Paletta and few others have stated that in their experience newly mixed salt water can be lethal because of the caustic nature of the mix.

I can't state the reasons why but when trusted people with that much experience state their opinion I tend to take it as fact.

Carbon dust while problematic shouldn't have caused this. I have seen it cause lateral line and fin issues in large 1,000g+ systems that I help maintain.

I agree I would look at other possibilities. You had 3 yellow tangs including a larger one, aggression could be the issue.

 

[OrionN]

You can test it if you want. It is lethal to animals until it have a chance to settle for a while. I learned this when I first start keeping salt water fish. This was confirmed by many experienced marine aquarium keepers. I never have the need to test this again. It likely have something to do with kelation of some of the toxic ions in the mix and detoxify them. 24 hrs is fine. Maybe sooner but I don't thing anybody intentionally kill fish to test this. The time may be different for different salt mix also.

 

[griseum]

There are quite a few other reasons that could explain this, but would require you to answer some questions:
The size of the system and the sump, if thats your type of setup.
Was the carbon in a reactor or in a media bag?
How much carbon (grams) and how big a media bag?
How long had it been in use? Was it well-exhausted? Did you use it to remove any medications previously?
What was disturbed in the Sump(?) while you did the change?
And more...

Even so, when there were problems with large batches of Activated Carbon with Kent, the damages it caused were not isolated to a single fish species. It was an All-or-Nothing situation.

If you have a large yellow tang, and had 2 small yellow tangs, I'm guessing/hoping you have a very large tank. Try Seachem Matrix Carbon or Seachem SeaGel. It'll be more expensive than that stuff, but it also doesn't exhaust as fast, needs very limited rinsing, and is pelletized for better fluidizing. I think Acurel is a low-end, Petco brand, and that's not to say that its bad, inherently.