Jon Lazar
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Posts posted by Jon Lazar
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Just a public service announcement to check your tank and sump for electrical devices that might fall into it!
I used to use a 6" fan to cool my frag tank through evaporation. I thought I was being careful by attaching it securely to a 2x4, making sure the gooseneck was tight, and minimizing slack in the power cable so there'd be no way it could end up in the tank. Well, last week the plastic clamp broke in half at some point during the night, allowing the fan to fall partly into the tank. The fan was plugged into an Apex Energy Bar and didn't trip any circuit breakers, so the current just kept flowing. This resulted in the copper in the wires and fan dissolving from electrolysis, effectively dosing the tank with copper.
When I saw the frag tank in the morning, the water was completely clouded over and had that dead coral stench. I immediately used all the mixed saltwater I had on hand to do water changes. I drained and refilled the tank (100% water change), then did another ~50% water change. I also added a couple of Poly Filters in the tank to absorb any last traces of copper.
The losses were heartbreaking. All the small acro frags were dead within a day. The birdsnest and larger acros hung on a few more days, but within a week almost all of them were dead too. The worst part was that most of the acro frags were newly acquired specimens, waiting to go into the display tank. So now I don't have any of those corals at all. At least my zoas, acans, and LPS corals came through ok.
Learn from my misfortune!
- Take a look at your own setup and see if something similar might happen to you. Light fixtures, frayed powerhead cords, things like that. Maybe even battery-power autofeeders?
- The electrolysis and copper poisoning happened pretty fast. The fan fell in the water sometime after 1500, and I saw the wreckage the next morning at 0730.
- Keep saltwater on hand for emergencies. If I didn't have enough to do a complete water change, I could've filled a bucket with clean saltwater and dumped all my frag tank corals into the bucket. Better a jumbled pile of frags than letting them sit in a toxic bath of copper. I'd even mix up new saltwater with dechlorinated tapwater, rather than leave the corals in copper. While the sps died despite the water changes, the other corals pulled through ok.
- Keep Poly Filters in inventory and ready to use. I knew exactly where mine were so I didn't have to search everywhere for them.
- Consider keeping your frag tank on separate plumbing and water than your display tank. My approach is for the frag tank to be an ark so I'd have a replacement frag if a display tank coral RTNed. But if my frag tank had been plumbed to the display, I would've lost all those colonies too.
- Not sure yet whether a grounding probe would've tripped a house circuit breaker, stopping the electrolysis.
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You're right; we're way behind on updates! The tank is making good progress, with the usual ups and downs over time. I'll work on getting some pics for a proper update.
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IIRC fenbendazole kills xenia and some other softies like gorgonians, clove polyps, and green star polyps. Zoanthids and frogspawn are safe. Not sure about leather corals.
I've had great success with using bandage gauze to remove xenia. Take a 1" x 2" piece of gauze and fold it in half between your index finger and thumb. Then pinch the xenia and tear it off the rock. The gauze allows you to grip the xenia and remove nearly all of it. Scrape any remaining scraps off with a toothbrush. I got the idea when a dentist did this to my tongue (gripping it, not the tearing it out!) while doing his routine check for mouth cancer.
Regardless of whether you use fenbendazole, I would try manual removal first to knock it back to manageable levels.
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Over time all your wet rock will turn dark with coralline and other algae. But the piece of rock that sits above the waterline will stay bleached white. You might find that to look unnatural.
I would find a piece of live rock that looks weathered and use that instead. Or, they make live rock that has a more natural look, marketed as "Real Reef Rock" and "Life Rock".
There may be pictures online on what a mature tank looks like with above-water rock.
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I'd try tightening it some, but I would also have an extra bulkhead on hand if you don't already. I've had more than one ABS bulkhead or nut crack. And then your next post will be, Help, it's 10pm and I need a bulkhead!
When you took it apart before, did you happen to check the flange for plastic flashing left behind from the manufacturing process?
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I run a beananimal return into my sump. How do you arrange the siphon drain and overflow plumbing so that the beananimal process restarts properly if you restart the return pump?
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I did something very similar where a connection leaked current into saltwater. I think it was a MJ1200 running in a 5 gallon bucket to mix saltwater, and the cord was frayed where it entered the body of the MJ. This probably ran several hours before I noticed it, and the water was shockingly bright blue. Not just fresh-saltwater blue or slightly-tinted blue. I expect the electricity dissolved the braided copper wires in the power cord.
So some copper ion, like copper hydroxide or some such, almost certainly ended up in your container. I would think that a good cleaning will be sufficient, but I would still proceed very cautiously both for freshwater and saltwater. Do you have access to a low-range copper test kit to verify there's no detectable copper? Or a Poly-pad that you could use prophylactically?
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What exactly is noisy? Waterfall into the overflow box? Running water sound in your secondary drain? Gurgling/flushing sounds from the overflow creating siphon and then breaking it? Splash into the sump?
Several little things can change the flow balance of a BA. The drain and return pipes get coated with bacterial slime and sponges, which can either increase or decrease flow. Starts and stops can dislodge little sponges or other critters in the pipes that used to block flow slightly. Debris or sponges can partially block your gate valve opening (which are often mostly closed) then get blown clear by starts and stops. But all of this should be fixable by tweaking the gate valve to rebalance the flow. Can't you adjust the gate valve to make it quiet again?
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While it's possible to do this, it's certainly not optimal. I don't think the air temperature matters per se, so long as the water temperature stays within reasonable limits. One could use heaters and a chiller to keep things safe for the inhabitants.
But if there's an equipment or sensing failure, they're going to have real problems because the water will seek equilibrium with the ambient air temperature. 86 is too hot, and 71 is too cold. A single excursion may not kill the corals, but it will hurt them.
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There's nothing wrong IMO with rehoming a fish that's grown too large, so long as the aquarist knows what they're doing. I've used a large Lee's specimen container to gently corner many, many fish to move them from one tank to another. Usually between hospital tanks or QTs, but also in smaller reefs. It works great and usually doesn't scare the fish.
If you've never caught a fish and don't have a specific plan on how you'd do it, you probably shouldn't buy a fish that's going to outgrow your tank.
Also, I think our tanks are less stressful in some ways than many people think. Remember, most fish in the ocean get eaten by other fish and are constantly looking over their "shoulder." Fish in the ocean are constantly trying to defend their territory, and compete for mates. Much of these competition pressures are reduced in our tanks when we only stock one of each species.
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So what was the answer?
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Depending on your requirements for diameter and length, you could look at the nylon bolts and nuts used for toilet seats. They make long ones up to about 4".
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Bullseye Snapping Shrimp (Alpheus soror) over 8 years
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Be careful though because PVC fittings have tapered sockets. If you cut too much of the fitting away, the interior diameter may be too small to fit the pipe into. Try it and you'll see what I mean. I have experience with this...
You might be able to get around this by also beveling the edge of the pipe so that you can wedge the pipe into the socket.
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I agree with jhOU: both ich and an infection.
Lots of times you can let an otherwise healthy tank ride out a few ich spots. In this case I would pull that fish out and treat for the infection and the ich.
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They're prolific and persistent. I've had some success keeping them in check by reaching into the tank and cutting the disks off, or tearing them off with forceps. Then put an aggressive sweeper nearby like euphylia or galaxia. But that just slows them down; it doesn't eradicate them because they leave a little bit of tissue behind and rise like a phoenix,
If you can remove the rock, that's by far the best solution.
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18 hours ago, AHarp said:
What do people do with the waste water? Just run it down the drain? I was considering using it with my freshwater tanks, but the thought of giving them waste water is weird.
Drain, irrigation, and laundry are three good options. I tried using waste water for fish only tanks but my waste water contained too much ammonia to be safe.
18 hours ago, AHarp said:Do the systems use electricity to run or just water pressure?
Some units have options like a booster pump, a shutoff solenoid, and automatic flush valves. These options require AC power.
18 hours ago, AHarp said:What's the easiest way to let a system run but not overflow the reservoir?
Some units will have a float valve and a shutoff valve that work together to stop water flow into the unit when your reservoir is full. This is good, but I still have a backup drain near the top of my reservoir that allows excess water to go down a sink. Sort of like the high-level drain in most bathtubs and sinks.
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If your unit is producing more than 1-2 TDS, then your DI resin is about exhausted. Your RO membrane should reduce your TDS by something like 95%, and the DI resin removes whatever is left. Do you know what your TDS in and out of the actual membrane is? You can remove the DI cannister and run the unit, and measure the output. This will tell you whether your DI is simply exhausted (which I would expect after a year), or whether your RO membrane isn't working right.
Changing the DI resin will definitely lower the TDS of your output water; probably all the way to zero. But that doesn't address the underlying problem if your RO membrane is producing high TDS. In fact you could remove the filter, carbon, and RO membrane and run it with only DI resin. But it will exhaust your DI at least 10x faster and that's expensive.
You should replace your sediment filter when it gets clogged and reduces flow. You should replace your carbon when it starts letting chlorine past, either because its chemically exhausted or because the carbon is clogged from sediment that the filter didn't catch. These things are hard to measure, so most people change them when the prefilter turns color or after some amount of time. Similar to "12 months or 12,000 miles".
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Welcome to the hobby and to WAMAS!
I would get a Seachem ammonia badge for your tank. It enables real-time monitoring of ammonia.
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Depends on the corals and how long it lasted. Did this happen over a long time, or all at once?
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15 hours ago, Lee Chambers said:
I need to move and replace or give away my 125 gallon tank before cold weather
This sort of life event is an opportunity for you to do any change/upgrade in your tank and configuration. That should be a major part of your decision on whether to keep your current setup, keep some parts and change others, or do a total reboot.
Some things are too hard to change on a tank that's running, like the tank size and viewing aspect, overflow and plumbing configuration, stand height and style, and sump/pump/skimmer. But if you've always wished the tank or equipment was different, now's the time to do it.
On the other hand, if you've got a superbly tuned system and you wouldn't change a thing, then keep your equipment and build a catch pan into your stand like ReefdUp mentions.
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14 hours ago, KingOfAll_Tyrants said:
What are people's thoughts of a partial deep seagrass bed? That is, part of the tank (say a half of a 20high) is a DSB with seagrass, the other half is just a normal live rock reef tank? Will I be setting myself up for any problems? It would seem not, since people feed their seagrass systems from their DTs.
If you mix the two environments, you'll need high intensity reef lighting for the corals. Will that fuel nuisance algae growing on the seagrass itself? Especially in a young tank that has to progress through all those early algae plagues?
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6 hours ago, GraffitiSpotCorals said:
If po4 roses i just add some stump remover and bump the carbon dose up if needed and it drops slowly and shaft let back to low numbers.
You can add nitrate to lower your phosphate? Is that because your nitrates are already at zero and in your case, the natural phosphate reduction is nitrate-limited?
My phosphate and nitrate are both already non-zero. If I added nitrate (stump remover) I would expect nitrates to go up and phosphate to stay the same.
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It's hard to tell from the pic, and it's going to take more than a thread here for you to get up to speed on raising clownfish fry. I'm not trying to dissuade you from doing it; it's very rewarding to raise a clutch of eggs past metamorphosis and into teeny fishlets. But there's a lot to it.
For now, I recommend you just watch and enjoy. If she's carrying eggs, she'll lay them and the male will fertilize them. They'll start doing this every ~2 weeks or so. Often it takes the fish a few tries to figure things out and get it right. Eventually they'll hatch, and the fry will all be eaten or swept into your filtration and die. If that doesn't happen, they'll starve in your tank because they need a really high food density and will only eat certain things.
Joyce Wilkerson's book Clownfish is a great one. There's also tons of online info about raising clownfish, including culturing rotifers and baby brine shrimp.
My new coral graveyard...lessons learned
in General Discussion
Thanks everyone for the condolences. Live and learn!