Poisoned my main with old dry RO membrane

[reefette44]

unbelievable. I finally reached the suggested milestone of waiting a year before corals. why now am i making huge mistakes that have me almost starting over again! I assumed that I had changed out the membrane when I opened the new one. It would have taken 2 seconds to double check.
I did a 30 % H2o change and went to bed. At breakfast I was feeding 2 fish, one emerald, one cleaner (who died next day) and various hermits, turbos.
The 2 who survived somehow are my perfect Naso Tang, Ru Paul and a Blue Dev dam, Charger. Everyone else was on the substrate.
A Foxface, 2 gladiators, 6 red striped cards, 7 bluegreen chromis', lawnmower, midas blenny, tabacco bass, convict tang, yell clown goby,
I absolutely dropped to my knees in front of the tank and bawled. Any sane person would admit defeat and move on, save lives! It is 100% the definition of insanity when we just keep re trying! It has only been 14 months now and I have 3 tanks somehow.
My question is, before I put the survivors back in their home from the QT, do I need to swap my live rock out? I keep a big blue bin out back with some LR but not nearly enough to 're rock' the main. Whatever leeched out of the RO, is it in my rock? Substrate?

 

[carmodpg]

I’m sorry to hear about that. It certainly stinks, but don’t give up! I don’t think that there should be a huge issue with leaching and live rock. I think we can assume the die offs were caused by bad water quality (ie old membrane). Take it slow, ensure parameters are back to normal and I think you’ll be fine. Just monitor closely and be ready to return to QT if you see major issues.

 

[01xp]

You can always place a bag of carbon in the sump

 

[DaneGer21]

An old membrane will not do this. Or at least I’ve never heard of this before. Worst case it would irritate some corals with poor water quality, which you don’t have yet.

What else was changed? What was your salinity? Did you also forget to add salt?

 

[Leslie Tabor]

Can you take your water in or do some serious testing for parameters. I agree with the above that something else must be way off. Temp? Salinity?

 

[DaneGer21]

An old membrane will not do this. Or at least I’ve never heard of this before. Worst case it would irritate some corals with poor water quality, which you don’t have yet.

What else was changed? What was your salinity? Did you also forget to add salt?

Unless you left that membrane in the canister for multiple years not using it with no water flow; then maybe I could see it happening.

 

[reefette44]

I had a guy from my LFS come over and he found that my RO was also leaking so basically only a small portion of the water was properly filtered so I gave 40 gallons of San Diego yuck water to my babies.

 

[DaneGer21]

I had a guy from my LFS come over and he found that my RO was also leaking so basically only a small portion of the water was properly filtered so I gave 40 gallons of San Diego yuck water to my babies.

Unfortunately this will also not kill. There are many who don’t use RO/DI at all. Unless you have some seriously nasty and dangerous water, it shouldn’t be killing things....if that’s the case. Do you shower in this water? Do you drink this water? I would be reconsidering if that’s the case...

 

[zalick]

Yes,please post your other parameters.

Why did you change the RO membrane after only a year? What brand? Are you measuring TDS before and after? Was there an event that caused you to change the membrane?

 

[zalick]

So you think 40 gallons of untreated chlorinated tapwater went in your tank?

 

[Billdogg]

I used Columbus, Ohio Tap water for 20+ years without any real issues other than late summer algae blooms when the farm fields were full of fertilizer and we'd get a big rain. I have to agree that it wasn't the ro membrane (or lack thereof) that caused your losses. In any case - run some carbon (preferably in a reactor for maximum effectiveness) and perhaps some polyfilter. If there are any contaminates in your water the two will go a long way in taking care of them.

I would suspect disease first. Have you added anything recently? As others have asked - what are your parameters? And tell us more about your tank - any detail you can think of so that we can better help you solve the problem!

 

[DeniseAndy]

I am so sorry.
You can get a water report from your water supplier if you want to see if what you may have introduced. May help decide next steps.
Tap water can certainly kill fish. I lived in an area where I could not use the tap water even if I treated it. Not filtered it, treated. It was actually a known issue in the area. Wish I had known then. (This was over 25yrs ago.)