tank crash

[block head]

Just got a call. my friends 18o just crashed in less than 2 hours. He fed and added bionic .two hours later his fish are dead and coral is dead or dying. I'm heading over to offer whatever help i can. He added 5 chromis last night. Otherwise his tank was looking better than ever. He's dosed for years don't even want imagine what went wrong.

 

[mr86mister]

Geez. Check for stray voltage, possibility of bleach in system, where the food was prepared, did anyone spray lysol in the air in the room, glass cleaner anywhere in the room, temperatures. That's all I can think of at the moment for stuff that might effect it so quickly.

 

[jfl14609]

how olds the tank 5 chromis added to a 18 gallon is alott of fish

 

[NirvanaFan]

I'm guessing it is supposed to be 180 gallon.

 

[jfl14609]

good point haha thats better! does he dose manually or with a doser

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

exactly

exactly

what (and how much) was fed?

Alk/pH spike coupled with large feeding can be deadly IME.

 

[block head]

Ugh , what a mess. All fish dead within 2 hrs. Nems,snails, and hermits alive but cranky. He had people cleaning the furnace when this went down. Guy replaced a motor in the duct directly over the tank. They claim nothing sprayed. Shop vac and hand tools only. His coral looks ****ed,but alive. His lg millie acually had nice pe extension. His skimmer was blowing up. 3 inches of foam in the sump. Food was tablespoon frozen mix. Fish fed the same mix ( different tank) are fine. Nothing noticeable
in the filter sock. We checked heaters,pumps,temp. All seemed fine. He had some green algae on the glass. Afterwards zero algae. Fish looked perfect but dead. Bionic was manual. 100ml. Kalk reactor is controlled by apex. Ph probe 8.14. Nice modern basement 7 yrs old?. He just did a 30 g water change and replaced his carbon. He's making more ro and plans on doing several more wc. It appears fish were rapidly poisoned or o2 was compromised somehow. His tank went from fantastic to dead in two hours or less. Really sad. He had alot of really nice veteran fish.

 

[jfl14609]

What kind of motor did they change? I wonder if they had to cut a a/c line

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

frozen food, eh?

frozen food, eh?

just as I suspected.
IME heavy feeding + rapid rise in pH/alk can = suffocation

what frozen food? was alk/pH spiked in the other tank as well?

I'm sorry but this doesn't sound like it was the duct cleaner's fault.

 

[block head]

Ac line might be a possibility. His 55 is covered w glass tops. Don't want throw stones. Tanks been up for a few years now. It , has a low coral load. Lots of rock. I don't like coincidences. The fact that every fish died within ahour of work being done makes me suspicious. If he used the spoon he normally uses it,more likely a teaspoon. I've feed his tank twice that amount for weeks without incident. Food is gone in 1-2 minutes. His tank tends to be really stable. Open top with gary screens,dual mp 40,asm,nice sized return pump. Same routine he's done for over a year now without a hitch.last night he was telling me his tank looked better than ever. He fed ,dosed,and payed extra attn to the new chromis he added the night before.maybe a swing, i don't know. The skimmer was going nuts. Ive never seen that much foam in a tank.

 

[block head]

Food was a mix of mysis,ova,spiralina brine, krill, usually has reef mix in the batch. Usually a blend of 5 to 7 different foods. He can be aheavy feeder. His fish are always super heathy fat.

 

[Lostinthedark]

Did he use Kent Marine carbon? I heard that is reeking havoc on reef tanks.

 

[jfl14609]

There is only one problem with the heating guy theory. I am a plumber but have a ton of hvac experience, the only motors in a heating system are in the furnace and in the compressor outside. which would mean a. he needs a new heating guy cause they ripped him off. haha or b. they did something else.. the only motor i can think of in a duct system could be a booster fan (similar to our fans in canopy) or a simple damper motor. either way they don't have chemicals. Now here is what i would ask does he keep this area perfectly clean or are there bottle of say b ionic or anything that maybe one of the workers could have knocked in on accident. Either way i would pull anything alive and get it out till you figure it out. Another thing that just occurred to me is he didn't by chance dump the water that came in with the chromis did he? I know some stores add copper etc to water this could kill of corals causing toxins to be released to kill everything once the cycle starts its fast (this happened in my first tank Thanks PETCO)

 

[tmz]

I don't know how alk would contribute to oxygen depletion. Dying/dead fish might. Fish where in the tank overnight. Velvet can kill like that when it swarms.

 

[block head]

Booster damper sounds right. About 20 feet away inside the return duct.his six inch duct is aout 5 feet away from the front of the tank. He had a sensor cleaned and a motor replaced. The crazy foam in the sump\skimmer makes me think something may have been sprayed.. his setup is well organised with good separation from chem storage. He did another lg water change at 2am. Fish were from a tank breakdown. Not sure how much water was used. The tang in a closed55 is super healthy in appearance. Maybe a weird algae die off triggered some kid of o2 shortage? I'm at a loss.

 

[block head]

My understanding is the purple tang and 5 lg chromis rode in the same bucket from buffalo. The tang went in his 55. Chromis went to 180 dt. Fish looked perfect. Didn't see anything that looked like velvet. Fish weren't floating. They all died on the bottom of the tank. He was happy that chromis were all out and eating aggressively before he left for work

 

[jfl14609]

there wouldnt be anything sprayed to replace a fan

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

I caused a similar fish kill many years ago. There was no HVAC repairman in my case. I suspected tainted foods for a long time.

 

[tmz]

Didn't he feed the same food to his other fish, though? Vibrio bacteria in frozen foods is quite common according to a study published in Coral Magazine several years ago. I follow their recommendations to thaw it in chlorinated tap water , pass it through a sieve( in my case a brine shrimp net), add ro water ;refrigerate and use it up within 2 days.

BTW, I think I see where you were going with the akl /ph thing. It is true that O2 is less soluble with more charged solutes in the water( acid/ or base) . More charged solutes in the water push out some of the non polar O2. However, both acids or bases do this and higher ph would indicate more acid was neutralized , likely off setting any effect the extra base from alkalinity would have. I think Alk would have to be quite high to make a significant difference .

The kent carbon is killing inverts including coral; not fish for the most part. Seems to be copper cantamination.

 

[jfl14609]

The kent carbon is killing inverts including coral; not fish for the most part. Seems to be copper cantamination.

Thats what I was wondering about with copper in the water when fish were transferred. Tom if this were the case the rock itself would be contaminated right?