So I woke up today and my yellow watchman died, along with one of my snails. I have a 2.5 gallon mb that had a ywg, pistol shrimp, 2 snails, 2 hermits, some xenia, and a mushroom coral. The pistol, one snail, and both hermits are doing fine. The xenia looks ###ed (I think it's a goner) and the mushroom coral looks a little agitated (but much better than the xenia). I can't figure it out because everything was doing fine (even the xenia grew into two new colonies on the glass and filter and the mushroom sprouted 3 new buds). When I found the fish he looked like he suffocated because his gills were wide open and his mouth was open. The tank levels were fine as far as I know and the tank has been set up and doing fine since Thanksgiving 2005. The only thing I can think of is I might have gotten some windex in the tank while I was cleaning the glass. Assuming it was the windex, is it safe to use the tank again (I'm going to start it up again) if I remove everything and clean it out with a sponge and water (no soap)? Or should I get a new tank and live rock? I have pictures of the xenia and mushroom if someone can host them. Any advice on starting again? My main concern is residual chemicals, since I always cleaned the glass with windex. Thanks.
Tank crashed...
- Thread starter jong
- Start date
Mikeeal
Same avatar since '05
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6836906#post6836906 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Mikeeal
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=531326
Dude, WINDEX???
So...does that mean not using windex is like a huge no brainer eveyone knew about but me? :eek1: I am not 100% that is what did it but it's the only thing that really comes to mind. Here are the pictures:
The xenia started looking like this right after I cleaned the tank. The mushroom looks much better now. Before it looked like a messed up anemone...all swolen with water and contracted. Let me know what you think. Thanks.
Thanks that's what I'm leaning towards. The plan right now is to take everything out of the tank, add anew sand bed (I don't like the crushed coral that's in there now) then put the same live rock back in after I rinse out the tank. I'm planning on restocking it with either a clown goby, neon goby, or hector's goby and taking out the pistol shrimp. I'm also planning on adding another astrea to replace the one that died and two nassarius snails for the sand bed. After I see how they do I'll start back with the corals. Thinking some green star polyps, zoo's, a leather, and trying an lps like a hammer coral up top near the return. I'd also like either a cleaner or fire shrimp, or maybe a porcelain crab. How's that sound to you?
aural
New member
never ever ever use ANY cleaning chemicals near your tank.
next time you want to clean the exterior glass, use this:
http://www.marinedepot.com/md_searc...=coralife glass&action=view&idProduct=ES01207
next time you want to clean the exterior glass, use this:
http://www.marinedepot.com/md_searc...=coralife glass&action=view&idProduct=ES01207
Kogo
In Memoriam
windex is amonia. its a very effective glass cleaner, but horrible for your tank. with a 2.5, some misdirected spray could cause an amonia spike... kill some fish .... and be filtered out before you ever knew what happened.
assuming you only used windex to clean the outside of the glass, you may want to switch to using white vinagar and water. cleans glass very well and is non toxic. it will lower PH if you get it in the water, but used outside it is fine. just wet a cloth and then use it on the outside glass. never spray directly on the tank... a 2.5 is just too small a target and you will likely contaminate the water.
as for tearing it down and starting over....
test your water first, you may not have to do a major water change and further stress your corals. some cardon and a standard water change scedule (10% - 20% a week) may be all you need.
good luck.
assuming you only used windex to clean the outside of the glass, you may want to switch to using white vinagar and water. cleans glass very well and is non toxic. it will lower PH if you get it in the water, but used outside it is fine. just wet a cloth and then use it on the outside glass. never spray directly on the tank... a 2.5 is just too small a target and you will likely contaminate the water.
as for tearing it down and starting over....
test your water first, you may not have to do a major water change and further stress your corals. some cardon and a standard water change scedule (10% - 20% a week) may be all you need.
good luck.
Hmmm. I'm now wondering if that's what happened to my 18 gal Via Aqua...It was doing great for 8 months then took a nose dive all of a sudden.Thought it was due to a coral that died first but now I remember my wifey helping out by cleaning the glass. Never told her not to use Windex .... the logical thing for someone to clean glass with is what...hmmmm.....especially if you know nothing about reef tanks other than they look nice. Wound up tearing down the tank and gonna sell it cause I've outgrown it and with 2 new kittens , I need a fully enclosed tank
I feel your pain man....i just lost 2 tanks due to an idiot plumber. We had the water line that goes to our washer get plugges up and the plumber came out and shot muratic acid down the line to unclog it. It worked great but the acid seems to have leached out into all the other pipes and when i did my water changes within an hour i had lost everything .
I guess I just had no idea that windex could be so toxic. I am always careful to spray onto the towel and try not to get anything into the tank, but I guess I wasn't careful enough this time. Oh well, lesson learned.
@ aural: Thanks for that link--I'll be sure to either pick up some vinegar or a bottle of that stuff.
@Kogo: Ya windex is bogus haha! And you have a good point with such a small amount of water/chemical volume it could be in and out. That could explain why only certain things died. As far as tearing it down, I want to get rid of the pistol shrimp since the goby died. He digs too much anyway. I also want to rearrange the rockwork (maybe ditch some rock--it's getting crowded in there and I need room to add more rock attached to the coral). I really hate the crushed coral too- I want something finer like aragonite or oolitic sand or whatever it's called. I'll probably go with a 1.5-2" sand bed this time--just the finer stuff. So I figure while I'm doing all that I might as well rinse the tank out, clean the equipment off, and start "fresh." It would only take a few minutes so the impact on the things that are left should be minimal. The xenia doesn't look any better today so I think it's pretty much a goner anyway.
@vyger: That definitely sounds like it could be what happened. It was fine and then all of a sudden **** went downill. Come to think of it-- that might have happened to my 30 gallon when I was a kid! When I got back from break everything had died. It was like the tank did a complete 180 and I couldn't even keep snails alive. The people who took care of the tank didn't know why. Although it seemed like whatever did it persisted because I could never use that tank again.
@Docbones: I'm real sorry to hear about that! Talk about a bad day. My tank isn't so bad since some stuff still lived and it was way small to begin with. It is always kind of fun to start the tank again though. To me it's just as much fun as keeping it.
Anyway, I should get all of this done in a few days, and the plan is to order a corallife mini pc fixture (with the 2 9 watt PC bulbs) to replace the 20w screw in I've got now. Should be able to keep a nice variety of coral that way.
Oh-- I will test that water but my test kit kind of sucks. The ammonia always read high even when it was actually at 0 ppm (confirmed by LFS). And the nitrates read high too--always have even when everything was doing really well. I'll start a new thread when everything is back up and running and show y'all some pictures. Thanks for the help.
@ aural: Thanks for that link--I'll be sure to either pick up some vinegar or a bottle of that stuff.
@Kogo: Ya windex is bogus haha! And you have a good point with such a small amount of water/chemical volume it could be in and out. That could explain why only certain things died. As far as tearing it down, I want to get rid of the pistol shrimp since the goby died. He digs too much anyway. I also want to rearrange the rockwork (maybe ditch some rock--it's getting crowded in there and I need room to add more rock attached to the coral). I really hate the crushed coral too- I want something finer like aragonite or oolitic sand or whatever it's called. I'll probably go with a 1.5-2" sand bed this time--just the finer stuff. So I figure while I'm doing all that I might as well rinse the tank out, clean the equipment off, and start "fresh." It would only take a few minutes so the impact on the things that are left should be minimal. The xenia doesn't look any better today so I think it's pretty much a goner anyway.
@vyger: That definitely sounds like it could be what happened. It was fine and then all of a sudden **** went downill. Come to think of it-- that might have happened to my 30 gallon when I was a kid! When I got back from break everything had died. It was like the tank did a complete 180 and I couldn't even keep snails alive. The people who took care of the tank didn't know why. Although it seemed like whatever did it persisted because I could never use that tank again.
@Docbones: I'm real sorry to hear about that! Talk about a bad day. My tank isn't so bad since some stuff still lived and it was way small to begin with. It is always kind of fun to start the tank again though. To me it's just as much fun as keeping it.
Anyway, I should get all of this done in a few days, and the plan is to order a corallife mini pc fixture (with the 2 9 watt PC bulbs) to replace the 20w screw in I've got now. Should be able to keep a nice variety of coral that way.
Oh-- I will test that water but my test kit kind of sucks. The ammonia always read high even when it was actually at 0 ppm (confirmed by LFS). And the nitrates read high too--always have even when everything was doing really well. I'll start a new thread when everything is back up and running and show y'all some pictures. Thanks for the help.
Cutiewitbooty
New member
hmmmm i have always used windex..maybe i should not do that anymore lol
schristi69
Master of Space and Time
Never use any aerosol or chemical with a lot of VOC in it in your tank room. I would run Chemi-pur in your tank for a while and do lots of water changes. They may come back
cutsupremetrib
In Memoriam
you people are really brave and just well I wont say it personally i use damp with water washcloth then wipe it dry with a clean papertowel i never use any chemicals near my tank i wont even let my g/f use air freshners in the same room as my tank lol
rjwilson37
New member
It should recover, run carbon for a week or two and change it out every 2-3 days. Windex is very bad to use around tanks, especially if you have an open top or fans that blow air into the canopy.
mr pink floyd
New member
i used it once, but i stopped, cuz a little got caught i na fan blow, and floated into he tank, i dropped the bottle, grabebd a cup and starting skimmign off the water, put in some ammonia remover and monitored it, but it was all good... PHEW
this was 2 weekas ago
this was 2 weekas ago
darcitananda
Premium Member
Sorry to hear of your losses. I use plain white vinegar in a spray bottle to clean my glass. It works great and if a little bit gets in nothing big is going to happen.
