Tank Crash

[Cheetah]

Sad to report that my grow out tank had a crash this week.

I was away 2 days, and came back to a tank of dead fish. Lost 3 tangs each about a foot long, a baby porc puffer, and a baby radiata lionfish. I've never lost fish before, except for a pair of unhealthy inbred clowns.

I tested the water: Amonia 0.25, Nitrite 0.25, Nitrate 0, Sg 1.024, Temp 75

Not sure why the Amonia and Nitrite are there, I didnt have anyone feeding the fish.

Not sure what happend, had the cleaning lady over, but i've always told her never to use any chemicals on the glass. But even if she sprayed Amonia directly into the tank (open top), I don't think I should have gotten such high a reading?

Moving on, should I drain and clean the tank and basically start over? I head puffers release toxins when they die? Or should I just do a large water change and start over?

 

[mach_six]

If you're unsure what killed them might as well start fresh and clean everything.

I would just advise your cleaning lady to not even touch that tank next time and clean the tank yourself.

 

[sweeTang21]

im sorry to hear about your loss. I do have a few "curiosity" questions.

how large is the tank??
how long has was it setup before the crash?
and
did your cleaning lady understand what NO chemicals means lol??

I would also advise to just dump the water. The only real bummer, aside from the livestock of course, is that if you have rock in there, and chemicals did make it into the tank, the rock is worthless as well. For this i would just replace the rock, vs trying to use it again. Rock can hang on to chemicals for a very long time, and may continue to leach into your tank, causing a repeat.

 

[Cheetah]

It's a custom 280 with two fx5's. The system was up and running for 3 years.

The canisters had biomax, purigen, carbon, and live rock rubble.

I had minimal lr in the tank, just enough for the fish to hide.

I recently removed all carbon and noticed a slight rise in ammonia but nothing major.

I've taught my cleaners to use a microfibre only. She says she didn't spray anything near the tank, and I believe her.

I'll start the drain and removal of all material tomorow.

It's tough to do a fishless cycle on such a large rank though.

 

[sweeTang21]

that is true, i would go to the store and just do the good old cock tail shrimp cycle. It works best and you can control the amount of ammonia to a degree. on a 280 i would do about 16 shrimp. This will give you the best boost of ammonia to cycle the sand, rock and age the water. After cycle do you water change and normal cleaning methods. Stock slowly to avoid another crash.

another question, did any fish come out alive on this??

 

[Cheetah]

that is true, i would go to the store and just do the good old cock tail shrimp cycle. It works best and you can control the amount of ammonia to a degree. on a 280 i would do about 16 shrimp. This will give you the best boost of ammonia to cycle the sand, rock and age the water. After cycle do you water change and normal cleaning methods. Stock slowly to avoid another crash.

another question, did any fish come out alive on this??

While I was removing the live rock 4 firefish jumped out of nowhere (two red and two purple). They weren't breathing heavily and ate as soon as I put them in the hospital tank.

 

[M.Maddox]

Man, I'm sure sorry to hear about that. I'm still pissed from the systems I lost during Ike!

I'm not a fan of canister filters on marine tanks, I like to use Wet/Dry filters, because their capacity for biofiltration is much better. You should never have seen any ammonia when removing carbon with adaquate biological filtration. More live rock would definitely help, as well.

It's good to hear you're not giving up! Contact me if you're looking for more show-sized tangs in the future.

 

[Myteemouse]

There should NEVER be ANY ammonia in a tank..
NOR canister filters in a SW tank..
If your worried about chemicals in your rock,
Go get a bottle of meratic acid and mix one cup to 20 gallons of water and strip the rock of EVERYTHING..
This will help clean out the pores in the rock also..
Rinse the rock well and start over with the cocktail shrimp method..
The only way to be truly safe is start over from scratch...

 

[puffcrusader696]

There should NEVER be ANY ammonia in a tank..
NOR canister filters in a SW tank..
If your worried about chemicals in your rock,
Go get a bottle of meratic acid and mix one cup to 20 gallons of water and strip the rock of EVERYTHING..
This will help clean out the pores in the rock also..
Rinse the rock well and start over with the cocktail shrimp method..
The only way to be truly safe is start over from scratch...

canisters on SW tanks are perfectly fine. Also, its not necessary to strip your rock. let the thing sit for a couple months, maybe longer, and do 50% water changes every other day to let the chemicals offgas into the water and be changed out. That way you don't have to completely cycle the tank over. Don't make it too complicated. and don't kill all the hitchhikers in your rock... you can never get all of them back and that will leave your tank truly unstable.

 

[Ricko]

canisters on SW tanks are perfectly fine. Also, its not necessary to strip your rock. let the thing sit for a couple months, maybe longer, and do 50% water changes every other day to let the chemicals offgas into the water and be changed out. That way you don't have to completely cycle the tank over. Don't make it too complicated. and don't kill all the hitchhikers in your rock... you can never get all of them back and that will leave your tank truly unstable.

I must agree with Myteemouse and M.Maddox,,,
Cannisters are no good (IMO) for bio filtration in sw. Maybe only for carbon or phos remover, etc. Water returned from canisters is poorly oxygenated and much more aerobic bacteria can be generated in a wet/dry system.


Anyhow,,,,very sorry about your loss, and very glad it hasn't turned you off the hobby!