So I had the weekend off so I figured it would get my sump hooked up. The sump worked beautifully and before I went to bed the new skimmer was pulling skimmate. I woke up this morning and my yellow tang and purple firefish were dead. My other fish all looked ill as well. My clownfish was on its side in the substrate, some of the fish would jerk around then float in the water column before floating again. Everythings color looked off, more so than when they are just normally stressed. It almost looks like their slime coats are coming off.
My corals also don't look well, my zoas didn't open all day, my mushrooms didn't open up either, my leathers are the dark grey they were the first week I introduced them into the tank, and my frogspawn has a slime coming off of it (expelling zooxanthellae?)
Oddly enough all of my inverts are doing great. Crabs, cleaner shrimp, snails and all have shown zero signs of illness.
So obviously I poisoned the tank somehow. I pulled all of the remaining fish and put them into my quarantine tank this morning and they seem to be doing a little better being in clean water.
The silicone I used building the sump was 100% silicone with no additives and no anti-fungal of any sort. The silicone was allowed to dry for a week before water was added, and everything was well rinsed before being hooked up to the tank.
Which leads me to believe the source has something to do with the PVC piping/cement/solvent. I had read from numerous sources that PVC cement and solvent could be used without issue, i used the potable water type and allowed it close to 24 hours to cure before rinsing out the pipes, but i'm still convinced it's the culprit.
I'm going to have to just watch and see how the inverts and corals fair. I have my in sump protein skimmer and my old HOB protein skimmer both running along with some carbon media that I added to the sump today in a high flow area. Then I did a 25% water change this morning and another 25% tonight.
Would doing any more water changes be overdoing it? On one side of the coin I want to get whatever is poisoning my livestock out of the tank, but on the other side I'm afraid too many water changes might be doing more damage than good.
How much is too much when it comes to water changes?
If I got some sort of harmful chemical in the tank would my current course of aggressive skimming, carbon filtration, and water changes be enough to make the system safe to put livestock back in?
I really want tearing down the tank to be the last option, is there anything else I can do to clean up the water?
My corals also don't look well, my zoas didn't open all day, my mushrooms didn't open up either, my leathers are the dark grey they were the first week I introduced them into the tank, and my frogspawn has a slime coming off of it (expelling zooxanthellae?)
Oddly enough all of my inverts are doing great. Crabs, cleaner shrimp, snails and all have shown zero signs of illness.
So obviously I poisoned the tank somehow. I pulled all of the remaining fish and put them into my quarantine tank this morning and they seem to be doing a little better being in clean water.
The silicone I used building the sump was 100% silicone with no additives and no anti-fungal of any sort. The silicone was allowed to dry for a week before water was added, and everything was well rinsed before being hooked up to the tank.
Which leads me to believe the source has something to do with the PVC piping/cement/solvent. I had read from numerous sources that PVC cement and solvent could be used without issue, i used the potable water type and allowed it close to 24 hours to cure before rinsing out the pipes, but i'm still convinced it's the culprit.
I'm going to have to just watch and see how the inverts and corals fair. I have my in sump protein skimmer and my old HOB protein skimmer both running along with some carbon media that I added to the sump today in a high flow area. Then I did a 25% water change this morning and another 25% tonight.
Would doing any more water changes be overdoing it? On one side of the coin I want to get whatever is poisoning my livestock out of the tank, but on the other side I'm afraid too many water changes might be doing more damage than good.
How much is too much when it comes to water changes?
If I got some sort of harmful chemical in the tank would my current course of aggressive skimming, carbon filtration, and water changes be enough to make the system safe to put livestock back in?
I really want tearing down the tank to be the last option, is there anything else I can do to clean up the water?
