tank crash

[block head]

The two hour window has me trumped. Fish were more likely dead in an hours span. Crazy foam from the. skimmer doesn't seem disease related. Maybe fish;\coral slime triggered the foam?. Other fish were were feed the same thing. The only difference being a full glass tank cover on the 55. I've heard skimmers going nuts with funky candles,spays etc. I don,t know. He tested alk,calc. Alk was low(red sea) calcium was 400. No big spikes on the apex ph. His tank tends to be really stable. I have a hard time believing two guys working directly over his tank on ladders had no impact. Maybe a freak accident,tool drop,swamp gas,etc. Maybe not.

 

[jfl14609]

Gremlins!

 

[jfl14609]

Seriously I would take a look at other options just to be sure that there wasnt copper in the water or something. Being a service person I really cant even think of anything a hvac guy would have in his tools to do that job that would kill off everything that fast

 

[block head]

I'm torn. Maybe something completely natural occurred exactly when the guys were working. (I cant thinthink of anything). Maybe a freak accident ?. But it happened really fast. Killed fish,not inverts,or nems . Nems seem fine,they remained inthetank.

 

[bboudreaux]

you might want to find out if they cleaned his evaporator coil. alot of times when they come out to work on your system they do this as part of a service. the chemicals they use to clean it are very harsh. maybe the cleaned his duct work. this is all i can think of.

i had a friend of mine lose most of his freshwater fish after he had his evap and ductwork cleaned. ask him if his house smelled differently when he hot home.

 

[block head]

Mmm.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

I provided the correct answer to what happened

 

[GMaquarium]

This very strange. I personally do not have an answer going by information given here. Although the damage is done and fish are dead, i take it figuring out why this happened is important. In order to avoid such disasters from happening again. If dosing two part and feeding fish at the same time was the cause ,this would have been happening often and to many people. Although there is a possibility, I personally do not see how this is the case. I have aquariums that get all of service attention at the same time (feeding frozen, doing water change and dosing with added stress of scraping algae and moving rocks). Huge ph/alk spikes in matter of minutes and have never seen this. Not to mention that the tank owner most likely had a routine and did this same morning feeding/dosing everyday.

All fish dying so fast has to be environmental. If all fish died and not the inverts its got to be oxygen related. Perhaps food is to blame. I am not sure what the duct tech did but that is air related and same time frame I would look into that. Maybe get a hold of the person to ask details.

Gary I am not debating your answer. But being so firm you must have seen this happen before. Perhaps you could explain a bit more.

 

[block head]

Help me gary. I seriously dont get it. Alk ph didnt spike. If anything they were low. Hes been feeding the same way for years. Some days hell feed twice that amount if he's going away. Don't see how that would cause buckets worth of foam. He has a similar fish load as you. And about 200 g with biomedia reactor. He has very little in the way of coral. Open top,high flow,basement setup. Numbers are always very consistent. He fed a measured tablespoon of food to both tanks. The 55 only has two dwarf angels, a file,and a purple tang. Flow is very high in the 55. All food is gone in less than a minute. Majority ends up in the filter sock. You think a tablespoon is a deadly amount? From what I was told, the fish weren't near the top of tank gasping for air. They went straightto the bottom of the tank and were all dead in less than an hour. The workers saw the fish swimming before servicing the furnace. They later noticed all the fish dying and told his wife. Not trying to argue. I respect your opinion and experience. I just don't understand what could trigger a deadly ph alk spike at the exact time they were working. Not sure where the foam comes into play? He basically walked away from his tank thinking it had never looked better. 2 hours later,all his fish are dead. Not trying to blame anyone. Was this preventable? I cant come up with anything that should cause such rapid and devastating loss. His nems, snails,and some corals that werent able to be removed are irritated but alive and well. I'd think his coral or verts would have suffered or reacted to swings before fish?

 

[jfl14609]

was this the guy with the nice controller can you possibly look at the controlers datalog let us know the ph temp and orp for that time period? Also as we all know Gary is always right at the begining we should just start closing threads after his post. Haha Just kidding!

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

to be honest

to be honest

I don't fully understand what happens. Such cases always involve a swing in pH/alk and feedings of frozen foods. Water usually gets cloudy. (Did it?) Fish apparently suffocate. Oftentimes there's a lack of adequate water aeration involved (ie: small skimmer, slow moving water currents in the aquarium, covered tank, etc.) I'm pressed for time right now. Be back later.

 

[SkiFletch]

But the tank was open-topped which makes the whole ph/alk spike theory pretty tough to believe. Something more drastic than feding would have had to happen to get that chain started, especially in winter months with typically already depleted pH due to higher ambient CO2. Furthermore, usually with the whole ph/alk spike theory there's usually cloudy water and elevated pH even after the event. Usually in the 8.4-8.6 range, not 8.1. That's not wierd, especially if the tank usually runs like that? The only thing I can think of is that maybe your friend happened to open all his windows and feed the fish simultaneously? Maybe the blow-off of CO2 spiked the pH and started that chain reaction. Even then I doubt it.

Could it be possible that some nasty dust with some bad chemical (maybe even it was there before, not added by the current crew) in it was knocked down from the ducts into the tank?

Btw, the skimmer going nuts does not necessarily mean anything. It would go nuts just as a result of all the rapid dieoff.

 

[tmz]

A ph spoke wouldn't kill the fish unless it was extremely high and prolonged and then considerable precipitation would be evident..Ph per se doesn't effect oxygen solubility. In any case his wasn't very high .O2 solubility is affected by salinity( which includes charged solutes like bicarbonate) , slightly but not significantly enough to cause rapid fish death and more so by temp increases . Die off,bacterial blooms and ammonia spikes also cause O2 depletion.
The skimmer issue ,3 inches of foam in the sump, could be related to a hydrophobic or amphipathic contaminent from the duct ,cleaning or the new motor . Seems a likely scenario particulary since the work was done directly over an open tank. The skimmer issue might also be part of the problem or the center of it. .

Toxic metals would kill the inverts and corals first.

jfl, Yes , free copper would stick to rocks but if it were high enough to kill fish the anemones and other inverts would be long dead.

Running some poly filter and fresh gac(granulated activated carbon) at this point would be prudent, imo.,though.

 

[block head]

thanks guys. been out today. i know carbon/gfo has been replaced. a series of wc are planned. windows cant be opened(basement) dust ,sounds feasble to me. the ducts run straight down the middle of his tank. ive heard of funky candles ,cleaners, air freshners all causing bad juju. maybe gary nailed it on the head . the way the ducts are,i dont see how dust could have been prevented. come to think of it. they said they used a shop vac. maybe exaust from the vac landed in the sump. fish room is kinda tight. sump is on the ground, the stand is completely open on the fish room side. i know shop vacs can harbor funk for a while. especially if the filter is clogged. long day at the outlet mall, the wife/ weiner kids wore me out. time for whiskey...