Rob A June 29, 2015 June 29, 2015 (edited) Just came home and all the fish in my 220 are dead. All my beautiful tangs and breeding pair of clownfish. The Apex unloaded a whole large bottle of vodka into the tank. There is a white haze in the water and white slime on everything. I don't know about my anemones yet because I can't see in there very well. Yesterday I moved the vodka doser to a new EB4 and copied/pasted the settings... Fallback OFF OSC 000:00/009:05/710:55 Then OFF But it is just running continuously. Is there something in that setting that is wrong? Edited June 29, 2015 by Rob A
BowieReefer84 June 29, 2015 June 29, 2015 My first thought would be not having dosing pumps on relay outlets, but all 4 outlets on EB4 are relay. Only 2 on the EB8 are relay. Very sorry for your loss. Don't get too down.
Origami June 29, 2015 June 29, 2015 I'm really sorry for your loss. The white haze and slime could be a huge bacterial bloom from the heavy carbon dosing. Because you used the "Then OFF" syntax, the statement that you provided above seems to be telling the outlet to run for 710 minutes and 55 seconds and to turn off for 9 minutes and 5 seconds, and to do this twice a day. That is, to be on very nearly continuously. The "Then OFF" syntax tells the controller to interpret the three fields as ON/OFF/ON. Are you sure that when you copied it over, it didn't originally say "Then ON"?
Rob A June 29, 2015 Author June 29, 2015 Thanks. I though we weren't supposed to use the triacs since they don't shut off on low amperage?
Rob A June 29, 2015 Author June 29, 2015 I'm sure it's possible I made a mistake. I copied and pasted with my phone...I don't know if spell check did something or not. It's supposed to run for the 9 minutes then be off.
Rob A June 29, 2015 Author June 29, 2015 I just changed the "Then OFF" to "Then ON" and it shut off. I have no idea how it got switched, unless my phone did some sort of spell check magic.
Origami June 29, 2015 June 29, 2015 I'm sure it's possible I made a mistake. I copied and pasted with my phone...I don't know if spell check did something or not. It's supposed to run for the 9 minutes then be off. That's what I figured. Nobody doses Vodka for nearly 12 hours twice a day. Here's a couple of snippets and how they behave: Case 1: (Then ON syntax) (taken directly from the Apex manual) OSC 0:00/15:00/45:00 Then ON The above will be ON for 15 minutes beginning at midnight, then OFF for 45 minutes. So at 3pm it would be ON from 3pm – 3:15pm then OFF until 4pm and repeats through the day. Case 2: (Then OFF syntax) (modified from the manual slightly for clarity) OSC 0:00/45:00/15:00 Then OFF Starting at midnight, the outlet will be OFF for 45 minutes and then ON for 15 minutes. Think of the three fields, a/b/c as <delay time after midnight during which the outlet is OFF>/<ON time after delay>/<OFF time after on> for the "Then ON" syntax. Think of the three fields, a/b/c as <delay time after midnight during which the outlet is ON>/<OFF time after delay>/<ON time after OFF> for the "Then OFF" syntax.
Origami June 29, 2015 June 29, 2015 Right now, with the huge bacterial bloom, the oxygen level in your tank is depleted. That's why the fish died. When we started experimenting with Vodka dosing years ago, this sort of overdose event was not unheard of. We were just experimenting and learning. Bacterial blooms were part of the risk that we faced when vodka dosing. You can do a large water change to reduce the amount of bioavailable carbon, but your biggest thing right now is to get oxygen into the tank. Keep your skimmer going. Add an airstone to the tank. Open some windows. Did anything survive?
Rob A June 29, 2015 Author June 29, 2015 I saw my engineer goby moving but he disappeared again. I set up a big foam pad filter to clear some debris. The soft corals and a red tree sponge look fine but I'm pulling stuff and moving it to my frag tank. can you or another admin change the name of my post? It's not apex fault. It should read " I nuked my tank with improper apex coding"
Origami June 29, 2015 June 29, 2015 Topic title changed. Still terribly sorry for the loss. If you can find him, get the goby out and into water that's got better oxygen levels.
Rob A June 29, 2015 Author June 29, 2015 Thanks. I had a dr appt I couldn't miss so I had to leave the house. As soon as I get back I'll get back to work on it. I don't know what to do with the water...like how much water change etc. I don't know if my rock and sand is dead etc...any more advice is appreciated.
YHSublime June 29, 2015 June 29, 2015 I would do as big of a water change as you can handle. That sucks. I used my phone once and accidentally left my calcium doses on. Luckily I caught it at around 750-800 level. Sorry about your fish :( I would think all your rock and sand etc is still ok, but I'm no expert. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Origami June 29, 2015 June 29, 2015 It's a classic bacterial bloom from overdosing vodka. All of the bacteria metabolizing the vodka causes the water to be low in oxygen. You can change the water to cut the carbon source (vodka) down, but you should also run an airstone to aerate the water to bring the oxygen levels back up. If you can draw the air from the outside, all the better.
Rob A June 30, 2015 Author June 30, 2015 Thanks for the well wishes. I did a 100 gal water change and tried to clean out as much slime as possible. I saw a couple of deflated anemones that look like they might actually be okay. Lots of hermits that were okay.
sen5241b June 30, 2015 June 30, 2015 Sorry about your fish !!! Need a free GSP frag or mushroom? It might be a good idea to fill these auto dosers with RO water at first and monitor how they dose then when they behave properly replace the water with vodka, kalk, whatever.
Rob A June 30, 2015 Author June 30, 2015 Thanks! We'll see where things stand but my frag tank is pretty well stocked at the moment. I did test originally as the doser had been on another outlet in a different power bar but 2 nights ago I did some moving around of things and moved it to a new outlet. I should have tested it again to be safe. I won't make that mistake again. Something else that sucks was I just got an ip camera and had it set up that same night but not for Web access. If I had set up the Web Access I would have been watching it from work and might have noticed the haze and the fact that no one was swimming...
Rob A July 1, 2015 Author July 1, 2015 Update: (from Tues, 6/30) I started up my UV sterilizer with a new bulb, and made a filter bucket that works on gravity/siphon. I don't know how effective the bucket thing is but the more gunk I can siphon out, the better. I had to clean all the pumps again as they just fill up with gelatinous goo. The skimmer started working again once I cleaned out the pump and as of this morning (7/1) the water was actually a little clearer than it had been and there didn't seem to be as much goo coating everything. During the initial 24 hours it seemed like I could clean off the glass and in a few hours it would be coated again. Here is a video of the bucket thing, I hope...
Rob A July 1, 2015 Author July 1, 2015 (edited) Power head clogged with goo Filter bucket Filter bucket in use Making water, with help from Sheldon Edited July 1, 2015 by Rob A
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