Disaster

[marwes]

Wow, where do I start! I made a mistake by adding some live rock to my refugium which is downstairs in by loop to my 105 upstairs. It started to lower my ORP and I noticed some of my corals dying off. I put some PolyOx in to help keep it at a safe level until it would level off. It didn't seem to want to respond. It was going down to 100 and sometimes below. I finally decided to get an ozome generator. At first it didn't seem to even help, so I put two on the skimmer. This is when I started loosing some of my fish over about a weeks time. First I lost my Potter's Angel, then my cleaner shrimp, green chromis, six line wrasse, yellow eye kole tang, blue hippo tang, Koran angel, peppermint shrimp(several), emerald crabs, sailfin tang, and numerous corals.
At times like this I just want to hang it up. I realized my mistake too late that I didn't use carbon on the output of the skimmer to filter the toxins out of the ozonated water. My fish in the upstairs tank were almost all dead when the ones in the refugium were all doing fine. Even the leaf fish were doing great! The toxins were out by the time the water returned to the refugium. Well, I am depressed and will NOT ADD ANYTHING for awhile until I KNOW everything is fine with the water.

I am waiting for my 225 gallon stand to be built so I can start up the acrylic tank Marcus built for me. Not too excited at this point to get that going.

Sorry for whining. I know I'll get over it. I do enjoy this hobby too much to through in the towel.

 

[MBX5]

Man that is bad! Sorry to hear that. Not sure if it would matter that much but did you jump the ORP up fast? How much rock did you add? Was it cured? That could have made a BIG spike from die off. From what I have seen when I got my ozone unit you don't want to bring it up fast. I was going from about 330 to 345 in a week then I would bump it up about 15 more for a week. I have seen a few posts with people saying they don't use carbon so not sure that alone would do it but maybe that and going up to fast did them in? I know for me I would not run without carbon just to have piece of mind to get the ozone out before it goes back to the tank.

 

[murfman]

ozone is disspersed in about 20-30 seconds of exposure to agitated water. This is why it is important to put it in via the skimmer. I run a small bag of carbon on my skimmer output. I had to run my Ozone generator constantly for about 5 weeks to get my ORP up into the high 300s to 400s. I have it set at 370 and it stays above 420 on its own now.

sorry to hear about your losses. Fish will die from o3 toxicity because of inflamation to their gill linings. Are you sure it was from the ozone?

 

[marwes]

They were all breathing very labored before they died. Yes MBX5, I could have also raised it too much too fast. I put 3-4 large pieces of live rock in the refugium that had sat out and dried. In retrospect, it was a big mistake to put them in and have all of that dead material on the rock fall off and contaminate the water. It was lace rock that had been in a reef for a long time.

Murfman, I do have it set up just as you are describing. I will have to be patient now and just look at a very quiet and still tank for a while.

 

["Umm fish?"]

Have you checked the ORP probe? If that was giving you a false low reading you might have raised the ORP way high when you started adding O3.

 

[marwes]

How would you recommend to check the ORP probe?

 

["Umm fish?"]

I would note your current reading, soak the probe in vinegar (clean it), and note the new reading. ORP seems pretty variable to me, but I would think that a change of several hundred points when the probe is back in the same place would tell you that was the problem. The same place is key, though. I have an ORP monitor in my display and a controller on the O3 down in the sump. They are routinely a couple of hundred points off of each other. I assume because (I am told) ORP readings are quite variable with local conditions (lights, flow, etc.).

 

[marwes]

I did notice the same thing by placing it in different places in my system. I decided to put it by the overflow in the display tank since that would be the water used by that tank going down to be "refreshed". I will try the vinegar trick.

 

[Trex420]

Well not too much I can offer in help but you do have my condolences. Sorry for your loss. I'd be happy to toss in some frags to help get going again when you are ready. Good luck. :eek1:

 

[marwes]

Thanks Trex

 

[ktani]

Many variables here, but certainly could be a problem with the ozone. Murf makes IMO some very good points on a good way to run ozone.

Could be that, depending on the rock, could it have been uncured rock or something in that?

Hard to say, just hope it all settles down. When adding additional rock to a tank, I would suggest a holding or qt system first to make sure it is stable.

These are hard and frustrating things to have happen. Part of why the new reefers meetings are being pushed, so we can all learn from each other. I unfortunately have made huge mistakes and subsequent loss of hair.

Sorry to hear it Wes and hope it all stabilizes. Please keep us informed if you determine the root cause.

Kip

 

[marwes]

Thanks for the kind words and encouragement, Kip.

 

[steve.t]

Hey Wess,

Of course I feel really bad considering I sold you the lace rock . I'm still having a hard time with that amount of lace rock added doing all that damage. The tank it came from was not a reef tank it was f/o and hardly any growth on the rock. Let me know when your ready with your new tank, I will help out anyway I can. I have about 20 different fish available and of course plenty of frags. Call me and let me know what you want me to hold on to. I have a few of the fish you lost an I can hang on to the blue carpet anemone for you.

Talk to you soon

Steve

 

["Umm fish?"]

My lovely bride was just telling a friend of ours about this on the phone tonight and it got me thinking again. You put the new live rock in the 'fuge, right? All (or most) of the deaths occurred in the display tank, right? The fish in the 'fuge were not affected or were hardly affected, yes?

Why do we assume from this that it was the rock that killed your animals?

It's possible that the rock in the 'fuge gave you an ammonia spike or some toxins. It's possible that the ammonia spike or toxins killed something in your display that wasn't very hardy and that started a chain reaction of ammonia out of control. (Did you ever check the ammonia levels? Either way they would have been out of control from all that die-off.) But, if it was an ammonia spike bad enough to kill all those animals in the main tank, why didn't it kill anything in the 'fuge?

Do you grow macroalgae in your 'fuge?

'Cause you also mentioned that all of the fish in the main tank were gasping for O2 at the surface. Could it be that you had a very depressed O2 and the fish in the 'fuge were making it by hanging out near a source of new O2? What does ozone do to O2 sat?

 

[marwes]

I don't think the lace rock killed anything, Steve. It only started a chain reaction that started killing other things, which killed other things, and so on. That is what dropped the ORP. I do think that the desparate attempt on my part to get the ORP up and not get the carbon in the output of the skimmer put toxins in the water which killed the fish. I could have also been me raising the ORP too fast like you said before.

Steve, I don't have any hard feeling. It is my own fault for not putting the rock in another tank like Kip said, and let it cure out after it had been out of water and dried out. Like my son told me, "Dad, we can go shopping for fish that you want to change in your tank now". Sometime new beginnings are good.

 

[marwes]

Steve, I will call you when the 225 is up and ready. Thanks!!

 

[MBX5]

Yes I agree I don't think it was the rock. I asked how fast you raised the ORP because I know people that brought it up too fast and had corals bleach and or die. Then on top of maybe raising it too fast you had no carbon so lots of Ozone mad it into the tank. Then again we have fish alive in the sump and not the tank???? I for one am at a loss on this.

 

[herefishyfishy2]

Very sorry for your loss Wes.

I wouldn't blame the ozone though. Its really hard to over-due ozone. Given its short lifespan, probably more like 10 seconds or less before it bonds to something organic its darn near impossible for it to make it into the main display tank if you are injecting it into your skimmer in your sump even with no carbon.

What sounds more likely was a couple fish deaths that "fouled" the water just enough to start a chain reaction. Ozone can dramatically clean your water causing much better light penetration and could have had an affect on the corals along with a fish death.

I have a large Enaly 200mg ozone unit running on my 75 gallon right now. It ran 24x7 like Murfs for a few weeks before my ORP settled into the high 300s/low 400s. The Chem forum guru Randy has a post right now about how maddening ORP can be sometimes. At best it should be used as a "gauge" to judge water quality, but not the bible. My ORP will drop 100 points for hours after merely sticking my hand in the tank for a few seconds. Hang in there Wes.