NOOOOO!!!!!! Not my babies!!!!

Eienna · Oct 3, 2013

I'm soooo heartbroken right now...all three of my fish died last night...I made a few mistakes last night but I didn't see the impact until this morning. Found them dead and hoping they're the only things that died....

RIP Spike
RIP Nemo
RIP Lilac

*shuffles off to bedroom, crying*

robbrouse · Oct 3, 2013

Oh man,, thats sucks.. sorry to her this.

goodtimes · Oct 3, 2013

What mistakes did you make?

Rob&Gab · Oct 3, 2013

OH NO! sorry to hear. what happened?

Eienna · Oct 3, 2013

The hermits and snails are okay...and I put in an airstone for more aeration.

Two mistakes in one night. Boy, I must be talented. TT.TT

First, I think my math was off dosing Phosphate RX. It should have been down to 1.5 today. It's down to 0. (!!!)

Second, I dosed Dr. Tim's Waste-Away and Microbe-Lift Special Blend at the same time. Idiot of the year award. *bawls*

Not sure if the corals are alive or not. They're all retracted.

Eienna · Oct 3, 2013

I shouldn't even have dosed Waste-Away and Phosphate RX together, come to think of it. The phosphate rx bottle says not to drop the phosphates more than .5 in a day, and I wasn't thinking about the fact that waste-away drops phosphates somewhat as well.

goodtimes · Oct 3, 2013

What was the reasoning for dosing any of the three products?

Eienna · Oct 3, 2013

goodtimes said:
What was the reasoning for dosing any of the three products?

My phosphate was at 2 from leaching rocks and sand (that's what I get for reusing old stuff...though I could have sworn I soaked them long enough), and it was stressing my corals pretty badly. Having used mostly dead rock, I also needed to establish my denitrifiers (the nitrifiers were already good.)

I moved the rock from my established 20 to the 50 when I upgraded, but was unable to move the sand, leaving me with a deficit of bacteria.

peacetypes6 · Oct 3, 2013

heavy wc wouldve been better than those chemicals...

Eienna · Oct 3, 2013

peacetypes6 said:
heavy wc wouldve been better than those chemicals...

I know, but the person we're renting from would've flipped if I'd used that much water just days after filling the tank.

As a side note, waste-away and special blend are bacterial additives, not chemicals. Only the phosphate rx is a chemical.

peacetypes6 · Oct 3, 2013

understood

frans07 · Oct 3, 2013

I hate dosing w/ chemicals. Sorry for the loss and chalk it up as a lesson learned. I lost a pair of very expensive clowns that way a while back and have never treated phosphate issues w/ chemicals ever since.

Eienna · Oct 3, 2013

frans07 said:
I hate dosing w/ chemicals. Sorry for the loss and chalk it up as a lesson learned. I lost a pair of very expensive clowns that way a while back and have never treated phosphate issues w/ chemicals ever since.

It's my own fault for mixing them.

My Spike in particular, though....it kills me.

goodtimes · Oct 3, 2013

I wonder if the products you used initially lowered the oxygen levels which would have caused your fish loss.

Eienna · Oct 3, 2013

goodtimes said:
I wonder if the products you used initially lowered the oxygen levels which would have caused your fish loss.

I believe that's exactly what happened. I know waste-away can do that if you OD it. Adding the special blend too probably pushed it over the edge. Don't know if the phosphate rx contributed or not, actually, because if my math was right (not sure it was - I've been exceptionally derpy lately) I used the full dose but no more.

cdness · Oct 3, 2013

Phosphate RX is in essence Lanthanum Chloride... It is a highly effective phosphate "binding" agent that removes the soluble phosphate from the water column. Removal of the bound phosphate is done via skimmer or sometimes a low micron filter sock. This makes sure it doesn't enter the main tank where the livestock is.

If it is dosed directly to the tank in an amount large enough to drop the phosphates too quickly, the Lanthanum will precipitate out too much phosphate which can cause the precipitate to get into the fish's gills causing issues or death. Also there is a correlation to zebramosa tang death and the use of Lanthanum... Nothing scientifically proven, but there has been anecdotal evidence that it adversely affects their ability to breathe...

Eienna · Oct 3, 2013

cdness said:
Phosphate RX is in essence Lanthanum Chloride... It is a highly effective phosphate "binding" agent that removes the soluble phosphate from the water column. Removal of the bound phosphate is done via skimmer or sometimes a low micron filter sock. This makes sure it doesn't enter the main tank where the livestock is.

If it is dosed directly to the tank in an amount large enough to drop the phosphates too quickly, the Lanthanum will precipitate out too much phosphate which can cause the precipitate to get into the fish's gills causing issues or death. Also there is a correlation to zebramosa tang death and the use of Lanthanum... Nothing scientifically proven, but there has been anecdotal evidence that it adversely affects their ability to breathe...

Oh....maybe that's why the fish kicked the bucket but the inverts didn't???

Eienna · Oct 3, 2013

My gosh, it makes sense!! I'd been using it over the last couple of days without proper filtration, so most of it settled to the bottom. When I used it yesterday, I kicked up a bunch of stuff to get filtered out. Maybe that's what happened?!