Crashed both of my tanks

[Bretts05jeep]

About three weeks ago I used flat worm exit on my 150 reef tank. I used 4lbs of carbon (3 lbs of marineland 1lb of kent reef carbon) to remove the toxins from the flat worms dieing as the instructions said and after about 3 hours I did a 40 gallon water change. about 6 hours or so after I noticed that my soft corals were starting to wilt and my lps tissue was reseading. I ended up losing almost all my coral and inverts but not one fish. Figured I waited to long to do a water change or there were to many worms and could not remove toxins fast enough.

I have a 37 tall that had a pipe fish carb about 5 snails and to sea fans It has a fluval 205 canaster filter and a cpr back pack skimmer. Two days ago I did a 10 gallon water change and cleaned the canister filter and put about a pound or more of the kent reef carbon in the filter. Next day everything in the tank was dead except the pipe fish and the sea fans. I moved the pipe to the reef tank cause he looked stressed and he died today. Also today I see lots of dead pods and spaghetti worms and the coral have lost almost all there tissue.

When I got home I rembered reading about the carbon recall I checked my bucked agin and the experation on mine does not match what they have listed as recalled.

Should I have lost fish with the flat worm toxins?

Should the fish have been affected by the heavy metals in the carbon if that was the problms?

Any suggestions on what else to do?

 

[Toadally]

May have been the carbon that was the culprit. Kent carbon has effectively crashed many tanks in the past few weeks. There was an issue because it contained copper. How long have you had the carbon? They recalled the suspect carbon a few weeks ago.

 

[jose7878]

Wow. So sorry to hear about your tanks. I don't know what I would do if something occurred to my tank.

 

[Yogre]

I know you checked and your Kent carbon was not the recalled lot, but it sure does seem like you have heavy metal contamination.

I'd discontinue the use of the Kent carbon, and get some Polyfilter. Run that for a while. If it turns blue, you've got copper in your tank.

 

[Dave & Monica]

I've used heavy FWE (2-3x the recommended dose) and tried to get as many dead flat worms out, but never lost a singe coral. inverts like shrimp hid for a few days, but even they died. Suggest doing 20-30% water change again.

 

[Bretts05jeep]

May have been the carbon that was the culprit. Kent carbon has effectively crashed many tanks in the past few weeks. There was an issue because it contained copper. How long have you had the carbon? They recalled the suspect carbon a few weeks ago.

I got it about a week befor use, so I have had it about four weeks.

 

[Bretts05jeep]

I'd discontinue the use of the Kent carbon, and get some Polyfilter. Run that for a while. If it turns blue, you've got copper in your tank.

Every thing that survived in the big tank looks ok, I did a 40 gallon water change every other day for about two weeks so if there was something in the water it should be gone now.

Since every thing died in the 37 gallon I'm not going to do a water change until I try that polyfilter

 

[bertoni]

I'm not sure what caused the deaths. Does the tank get 40g water changes fairly regularly? What's the ammonia level?

 

[shlesnik]

I had a bad batch of kent carbon in one of my tanks, it killed all the corals but NO FISH. It wouldn't be a copper problem if it killed your fish. I would do a another big water change and but a heavy dose of stress zyme in, and get some high grade carbon, I like the bulk reef supply ultra fine premium grade carbon, and change it out every few days, then check your water parameters. Everytime I have problems, the stress zyme and carbon usually take care of it.

 

[bertoni]

I agree that a good grade of carbon might help. I'd be careful about the large water changes, personally.

 

[Bretts05jeep]

I'm not sure what caused the deaths. Does the tank get 40g water changes fairly regularly? What's the ammonia level?

I usually do 25 gallons every two or three weeks.
I have two 40 gallon containers one fresh and one salt, so I was mixing salt letting it sit for a day and changing the water.

The ammonia hit between .5 and 1 ppm on my api test kit two days after. Thats when removed all the large corals that were dieing and poluting the water.

 

[Bretts05jeep]

I agree that a good grade of carbon might help. I'd be careful about the large water changes, personally.

Ya watching everything in my tank die pushed me to very angry place.
I was expecting the worst.

I think im still a little numb caust the second tank didnt hurt as bad.

 

[bertoni]

Okay, well, it seems to be one of the cascading failures scenarios. I suspect the ammonia set off more deaths. If it's elevated at all, I'd keep dosing Prime or Amquel.

 

[tmz]

I know of several seasoned aquarists who have lost many corals,mainly sps , within a day of FWE treatments even after heavy pre siphoning and carbon use. Fish seem fine in these cases. In most cases the standard dose or a greater dose was used. Maybe with a large infestation it just kills too many at once and too many toxins are released or something in the product is causing some kind reaction. Don't know what's in it.

 

[tmz]

A further observation,fyi..
I've used FWE several times without killing anything other than flatworms but I siphon out as thoroughly as I can before starting, keep flow going in the tank during treatment and siphon them out as they die via hand held siphon and a canister filter hooked up temporarily during the process. I take out abut 5 gallons by hand siphon and relplace it as I go. GAC is added after about an hour.
The tanks I've treated are sps frag tanks of about 60 gallons which are intergrated to a 600 gallon system ,so when the treatment is over( about 2 hours in my case) the return valve is opened and the tank gets a huge water change. They tend to come back in lower numbers even after two treatments though. I have some meleagris and halachoeres wrasses in the display tanks and no flatworms there even though they are integrated with the frag tanks. I've added a six line wrasse and a pair of green spoted madarins to the frag tanks and they seem to be keeping the flatworms in check.

 

[bertoni]

I have use FWE without losses, too, but I did a lot of siphoning and I also removed flatworms as they died, using a net. I'm not sure how much that helped, though.

 

[tmz]

Didn't think of net. I bet a brine shrimp net would do well.

 

[bertoni]

That's what I used.

 

[Bretts05jeep]

Im not sure which of the two caused my problems. Im leaning towards the carbon cause of the other tank crashing. I can say I will not be using eather product again.

Im thinking about stopping the use of carbon all togather.

 

[bertoni]

Stopping all the GAC shouldn't be necessary, honestly, but I understand your point of view. I honestly am not sure what happened, but I might lean to the flatworm toxin, if the bad Kent carbon isn't involved.