Floyd R Turbo
Aquarium Advice Addict
I was helping someone do a major cleaning on his semi-reef tank just today, I have posted a couple thread about this guy's tank, we cleaned the sump today and took apart the power head and gave it a good cleaning. The shutoff valve wouldn't close all the way, once we got it out of the tank and he wrenched on it he snapped off one of the handles. One trip to Home Depot later, new valve and we're all good.
He came back out with it cleaned and reassembled and told me that he put a dab of Vaseline on the inside ball. I don't really know why he thought this was OK since it's a petroleum product, so I nicely informed him that this was probably not the best idea, he told me it was a really small amount. I think his logic led him to think that this would somehow prevent the brand new shutoff valve from sticking again in the future.
Now if it was me, I would have used Aquaphor, because I know that's a water-based lubricant and much safer (I put it on the inside of my nasal passages why dry). But what's done is done. It took us 3 hours to clean everything and get it up and running, and I didn't have the heart or the energy to tell him to go get a new one, plus my wife was ready to kill me as it was for making her late meeting up with a girlfriend.
So my question is, exactly how worried should I be? Is this going to be something that will kill off all the corals, live rock, fish, etc? Is there a remedy? Did he just intercourse his tank right in the behind???
Info on tank, 125 acrylic, Oceanic Sump 3 / 15 gal, well established (2-3 years or more), tons of LR, very little corals due to poor maintenance (very high Nitrates) and lighting issues, but they're just starting to come back, medium bio-load.
He came back out with it cleaned and reassembled and told me that he put a dab of Vaseline on the inside ball. I don't really know why he thought this was OK since it's a petroleum product, so I nicely informed him that this was probably not the best idea, he told me it was a really small amount. I think his logic led him to think that this would somehow prevent the brand new shutoff valve from sticking again in the future.
Now if it was me, I would have used Aquaphor, because I know that's a water-based lubricant and much safer (I put it on the inside of my nasal passages why dry). But what's done is done. It took us 3 hours to clean everything and get it up and running, and I didn't have the heart or the energy to tell him to go get a new one, plus my wife was ready to kill me as it was for making her late meeting up with a girlfriend.
So my question is, exactly how worried should I be? Is this going to be something that will kill off all the corals, live rock, fish, etc? Is there a remedy? Did he just intercourse his tank right in the behind???
Info on tank, 125 acrylic, Oceanic Sump 3 / 15 gal, well established (2-3 years or more), tons of LR, very little corals due to poor maintenance (very high Nitrates) and lighting issues, but they're just starting to come back, medium bio-load.
