Tank problem! Help!

[dt204]

Hey everyone, I came home to a very unhappy tank today. The story:

Tank has been doing great! Went to a frag swap about an hour away yesterday. Came home, and wouldn't you know it, my main return pump died (Jebao 12000) while I was gone. Obviously has to happen on a Sunday evening right? Luckily I have a backup pump from an old freshwater setup, but I didn't have the right plumbing! Luckily I have a plumber friend who owns a business, and let me get some parts quick. I had to use a brass fitting to make it work on short notice. Can't get a new pump until Friday.

Everything was running fine when I went to bed. Today I got home at supper time, and my whole tank is closed up. Euphyllia. SPS. Zoa's. Blastos. Like everything.

What happened?!?!

A) the brass(metal) fitting very quickly leached into the water

B) some freshwater residue of some kind in my backup pump got into the water. Or the pump itself.

C) the corals I brought home from the frag swap. Chemical warfare? Palytoxins?

D) ??

Tonight I have:
Done a small water change of what I had on hand (argh. This is why you should always have enough on hand for emergencies.)
Replaced purigen.
Hooked up dual reactor with new carbon and GFO.
Replaced the metal fitting with a plastic one.
Added some Prime to help detoxify heavy metals.

I am currently making saltwater and will do a large water change before work tmrw morning.

Does anyone have any ideas what could have happened, and if I can do anything else to remedy the situation?

Let me know if you have any questions for me to clarify any of this!! I posted a pic of the tank and the state it is in.

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[James404]

My guess would be the brass fitting, brass contains copper which is lethal to corals. I would get it out ASAP and maybe try running some cuprisorb.

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[thomas.torode]

@James404
+1

and do a fat water change.

 

[mcgyvr]

I vote D

 

[dt204]

I vote D

Ha! Thanks

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[dt204]

Doing water change now. I work out of town today and won't be back until supper time. I'm hoping things look better when I get back. I will run into the city when I get back to try to find some cuprisorb!

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[mcgyvr]

polyfilter if you can't find cuprisorb

 

[dt204]

So, I did water changes. Also put cuprisorb in last night.

Every thing looks better! Some of LPS and zoa's look like nothing ever happened. Euphyllia are still fairly closed but looking way better.
The SPS took the worst of it. Lost color, bad PE. They do look better than the first day at least!

Hopefully things can progress and everything recovers. This was a learning experience, one many of us could learn from!

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[James404]

So, I did water changes. Also put cuprisorb in last night.

Every thing looks better! Some of LPS and zoa's look like nothing ever happened. Euphyllia are still fairly closed but looking way better.
The SPS took the worst of it. Lost color, bad PE. They do look better than the first day at least!

Hopefully things can progress and everything recovers. This was a learning experience, one many of us could learn from!

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Glad to hear things are turning around!

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[mcgyvr]

Did the cuprisorb change color?

 

[dt204]

Good question. I have it in a sock to max flow through it. I'll have a look. I guess if it's blue we have a culprit eh

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[Yellow_donkey]

Ohh my goodness! Pleaee remember no metal nowhere anytime. If I drop a small tiny screw ontop of my cover, not even in the water I panic. Remember you are dealing with SALTWATER, not fresh. Take a piece of sheet metal and set it on the beach. Even the salty air will rust the sheet up in a day.

Saltwater is very harsh and broke that metal plumbing fixture down from the first instant of contact. Even traces of this metal in your water will impede longtime health.

I would filter with PolyFilter, stuff works food and run carbon. Carbon wont do much but its best. Then change water like crazy. Start with 50% in a day then do another 50 next. That will leave you with 25% contaminated. Best bet is to keep doing 50 until you can get that original water below 5 I would guess. Or just do 100% and do fresh saltwater dips of all coral and liverock before they go back in.

Any case its like dosing a reef tank with copper. Uptake has begun and its bad.

I would rather dose bottled ammonia then place any metal in my system. Hipe it all works out!

Also, in an emergency , your system can go about 2 to 3 days away from the sump and skimmer. 3 maybe pushing it. Keep a bag of mefia in your sump and then you can move that bag to the display when sump is down. As long as you keep water moving in display via powerheads and arerated with an airstone you are ok.

If your protien skimmer goes out, you can go without for 5 to 7 days. But if you run a cheato ball or scrubber you can go much longer without one.

Just keep water moving and your baterial load is solid for 48 hours, thats plenty of time to fix just about anything.

I know well from experience being through 4 hurricanes.

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[bif24701]

Brass has copper in it. Get it out and water change


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[dt204]

Well, the cuprisorb never changed color. Between all new filtration media and many water changes, everything is back to normal.

My back up pump has been cleaned and put away WITH the proper plumbing this time. I got a new Vectra M1 to run my system now.

Scary situation, and a first for me in the hobby. Lesson learned! I understand a little better now the difference between SPS and other corals. They sure got hit the hardest, and took the longest to recover.

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[Uncle99]

No metal!
But what about the magnetic glass cleaner that many of us keep attached to the glass for easy cleaning. The inside cleaner would contain metal.....should we be keeping this out of our tanks as well?

 

[Rover88]

No metal!
But what about the magnetic glass cleaner that many of us keep attached to the glass for easy cleaning. The inside cleaner would contain metal.....should we be keeping this out of our tanks as well?

Don't liken all metals/alloys to be the same.

Vertex skimmers have titanium screws, and titanium is a metal. Brass is an alloy of zinc and copper. X=/=Y.

Your cleaner probably has something fairly inert inside of it. The problem comes from when the material can dilute into the water by being broken down.

 

[dt204]

Ok. New cause maybe?
I found my exploded heater today.
I got shocked in the water last weekend. Something wasn't right. Noticed my temp was down.
So I pulled the heater and put in a backup. I showed the heater to a friend and noticed it blew up!
Could this have happened a month ago and caused my problem? And continued heating until now?! I dunno, just a thought... But wow. Check it out

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[crawlerman]

Guessing this is problem #2, the brass being problem #1. You can see that rust made it to your tank. I'd keep doing large water changes and running polyfilters.

 

[tjm9331]

wow, that was definitely a problem, probably not the original cause, I'd still think the brass was the original culprit but man I've never seen a heater explode like that.

 

[sde1500]

Ohh my goodness! Pleaee remember no metal nowhere anytime. If I drop a small tiny screw ontop of my cover, not even in the water I panic. Remember you are dealing with SALTWATER, not fresh. Take a piece of sheet metal and set it on the beach. Even the salty air will rust the sheet up in a day.

Saltwater is very harsh and broke that metal plumbing fixture down from the first instant of contact. Even traces of this metal in your water will impede longtime health.

I would filter with PolyFilter, stuff works food and run carbon. Carbon wont do much but its best. Then change water like crazy. Start with 50% in a day then do another 50 next. That will leave you with 25% contaminated. Best bet is to keep doing 50 until you can get that original water below 5 I would guess. Or just do 100% and do fresh saltwater dips of all coral and liverock before they go back in.

Any case its like dosing a reef tank with copper. Uptake has begun and its bad.

I would rather dose bottled ammonia then place any metal in my system. Hipe it all works out!

Also, in an emergency , your system can go about 2 to 3 days away from the sump and skimmer. 3 maybe pushing it. Keep a bag of mefia in your sump and then you can move that bag to the display when sump is down. As long as you keep water moving in display via powerheads and arerated with an airstone you are ok.

If your protien skimmer goes out, you can go without for 5 to 7 days. But if you run a cheato ball or scrubber you can go much longer without one.

Just keep water moving and your baterial load is solid for 48 hours, thats plenty of time to fix just about anything.

I know well from experience being through 4 hurricanes.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

A little over dramatic aren't we? Not all metal is terrible for a tank. If I could find it, Paul B had a pic of a hammer I think it was that he dropped in his tank and just left it. His tank is fine. Plenty of people have dropped a razor blade while fragging and lost it, no harm done.

A system can run indefinitely without a sump and a skimmer, not sure why you chose a 48 hr time frame. And bacteria take WAY longer than 48 hours to die off...