Happy Birthday! - Your Fish Are Dead

[Will]

Wow.. Sorry to hear. Every day is a new adventure in this hobby. I would imagine whatever the cause, it was not from anything you were doing prior to the plumbing problem. That would be quite the coincidence. Unless this was the stressor that pushed the fish over the top.(doubtfully)

74 deg may not be cold but it could be if it rapidly dropped from 78 or 80.

I would guess the fact that the wavemakers were running helped preserve the corals because of flow NOT because of oxygenation since they are more concerned with light UNLESS the wave makers are really close to the surface and cause surface agitation. Plus since this was at night the corals were retracted and somewhat protected.

Sounds like you were fortunate that some things survived. Sometimes the question is... Why is this still living??? And not why did this die?

I have caused severe parameter problems in the ... Not so distant past... Everything was exposed BUT not everything died. Why? Who knows. Just is.

I would guess the pH dropped quick and the CO2 rose.

Origami may have something for us to think about... You shouldn't put plastic in the microwave so maybe during the dry run heat up it released a chemical in the water affecting the fish.

As far as the missing fish... I'd love to know! It has happened to me... And with a Sea Hare!! Where did that big thing go?? Here one day.. Gone the next. ugh!

Anyway, just interesting, so I wanted to throw my minus 2 cents in.

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[AlanM]

Seems unlikely to be the cause, but do you have GFCI together with your grounding probe?

 

According to BeanAnimal both are necessary if you have one or the other. Check out his Example 2 in the Ground Probes section:

 

http://www.beananima...the-reefer.aspx

Edited February 26, 2013 by AlanM

[LCDRDATA]

Well, I'm home and just fed the various tanks.The verdict seems to be that I have the leopard wrasse, shrimp goby, and engineer goby left (in terms of fish) - which means the bodies of a clown, YT damsel, 2xgreen chromis, and a Kole tang are now beginning to decompose somewhere in the nooks and crannies of my DT . "Can you say 'nitrate spike'? - I knew you could."

 

I haven't taken the pumps apart to check them out yet, although I'll do that this evening (probably as soon as I finish dinner). I do have a GFCI along with the grounding probe. All in all, this really sucks - although it could have been much worse (for example, if the DT had the leak).

[countryboy]

Bummer! Sorry for your losses

[Jan]

Nitrate? but I thought it was zero when the frst clown died? How's the ammonia and nitrite now?

 

Well, I'm home and just fed the various tanks.The verdict seems to be that I have the leopard wrasse, shrimp goby, and engineer goby left (in terms of fish) - which means the bodies of a clown, YT damsel, 2xgreen chromis, and a Kole tang are now beginning to decompose somewhere in the nooks and crannies of my DT . "Can you say 'nitrate spike'? - I knew you could."

 

I haven't taken the pumps apart to check them out yet, although I'll do that this evening (probably as soon as I finish dinner). I do have a GFCI along with the grounding probe. All in all, this really sucks - although it could have been much worse (for example, if the DT had the leak).

[LCDRDATA]

Nitrate? but I thought it was zero when the frst clown died? How's the ammonia and nitrite now?

 

I'll test after I check the pumps, but I meant that comment as projecting forward (especially if I can't locate the corpses).

 

The temperature is back to 77 now, even with the fans still running. I'll be checking the pumps as soon as I take my wife a piece of my cake - unlike the fish, she prefers chocolate to your Reef Blend .

 

-- UPDATE -- add one YT damsel to the "survivor" column, I just spotted it in a "cave" moving under its own power.

Edited February 27, 2013 by LCDRDATA

[LCDRDATA]

Well, checking the pumps took longer than I thought, but at least they got a good cleaning . There appeared to be a little bit of wear on the skimmer pump impeller magnet (striations around the circumference), but they weren't severe and may be normal wear & tear as opposed to anything from running dry. The other pumps appear normal as well; there doesn't seem to be any sign that anything "burned up" to where it would release something toxic.

 

My wife wondered if perhaps one of the corals might have excreted something toxic because it was unhappy, although that would seem to have been somewhat selective in what it did (and didn't) kill. No sign of the bodies of the missing fish, and I think tearing apart my entire aquascape in search of them might be more damaging than decomposition, provided I monitor, do the water changes, etc. I took the opportunity to tune up my biopellet reactor, so it should be in peak operation now. I didn't get a chance to check nitrates tonight but I have a Seachem ammonia monitor and it's still showing no/negligible ammonia. And it's well past my bedtime, so I'll take another look at this in the morning.

[treesprite]

sorry to hear about the fishes dying. My first thought was something died that released a toxin.

[Jon Lazar]

Jim, sorry you lost all these fish. But I think you're overanalyzing this. Most likely your fish died from low oxygen, maybe compounded by your bp reactor being off.

 

But the real problem was that your tank design was not robust enough, and your refugium return line became blocked. Put this energy into rethinking your design. What else is likely to go wrong, and how can you prevent it? If you can't prevent the failure, how can your system alert you that something's wrong?

[Steve175]

My apex with a water sensor as well as a loss of power sensor (both texted to my phone when tripped) has saved my tank (and my marriage) many times.

[LCDRDATA]

...I think you're overanalyzing this. ... the real problem was that your tank design was not robust enough... What else is likely to go wrong, and how can you prevent it? If you can't prevent the failure, how can your system alert you that something's wrong?

 

You have a point, and believe me I've been putting some thought into those aspects as well. I can certainly think of a number of things I'd do differently given the chance; unfortunately the budget won't support that kind of do-over, especially with the upcoming sequester. I will be looking for more immediate alternatives as well.

 

My apex with a water sensor as well as a loss of power sensor (both texted to my phone when tripped) has saved my tank (and my marriage) many times.

 

I've been back and forth on getting a controller, and while that doesn't look likely in the foreseeable future, I'm going to do some trolling online to see about finding some other kind of stand-alone alarm. After a couple of good floods from my RO/DI unit (different part of the house) I got a sensor that both alarms and shuts off the flow, and haven't had a flood since.

 

-- UPDATE -- add one YT damsel to the "survivor" column, I just spotted it in a "cave" moving under its own power.

 

Update to the update -- move the YT damsel back to the "casualty" column. I got home from work and found spotted it in a different "cave" with a brittle star holding it. Not one of the kinds that could have caught it while still alive, though.

 

It also occurs to me that I should probably be running carbon in case there was some kind of toxin (or even unhappy coral secretions) involved. However, I seem to be out, and I'm stuck at home this evening. If there's anyone in or near Springfield that has some to spare -- or better yet, a media reactor I could borrow to go with it -- I would be most grateful and happy to make arrangements to repay. Thanks again, everyone.

[LanglandJoshua]

You know where I live, if you need Carbon just give me a call. Unfortunately I don't have a spare reactor...I am so sorry to hear you have had this happen! I wish you the best of luck in recovering your tank, let me know if I can help!

[LCDRDATA]

You know where I live, if you need Carbon just give me a call. Unfortunately I don't have a spare reactor...I am so sorry to hear you have had this happen! I wish you the best of luck in recovering your tank, let me know if I can help!

 

Thank you for the offer. I have carbon - some in a media bag in my sump - but I think a reactor would be much more effective at this stage.

 

And thanks to everyone who has offered their sympathy, I really appreciate it.

Edited March 2, 2013 by LCDRDATA

[LCDRDATA]

As if losing the fish wasn't bad enough, on top of that I am now fighting some kind of nasty algae(?). Admittedly I was already having some hair algae issues, but this stuff had appeared thick over the GHA by the time I got home the same day as the leak (Monday the 25th), making the "hair" into ugly-colored dreadlocks. I'm posting a couple photos below - the first is a "before" shot taken a few days after the last WAMAS meeting, the "after" shots were taken a few minutes ago. Of note, I spent ~ two hours last night "vacuuming" the tank with a siphon (draining into the sump through a filter sock) and pulling this stuff (whatever it is) and hair algae, so at least as far as the stringy, nasty, bubbly stuff is concerned this is 24 hours' growth.

 

 

 

 

 

I've cut back on the feeding, and done two large water changes. I picked up a Phosban 150 reactor from Quantum Reefs over the weekend (thanks again, Vince!) and am running that with a mixture of carbon, PhosGuard, and Purigen, in addition to the pre-existing BRS bio-pellet reactor I've been running for some time. I've also been dosing nitrifying bacteria - probably one reason my ammonia has stayed at or near 0 despite the fish bodies I could never find. I need to do another round of testing, but so far the parameters are all pretty close to what they were before, except for the predictable Nitrate uptick.

 

So I'm now looking for info on 1) what this stuff is (sort-of looks like cyano, sort-of not); 2) what (if anything) I can do to knock it back/out beyond what I'm already doing; and 3) how long that is likely to take. Any suggestions?