Quick question?

[Diesel]

Been a while we talked but this is spinning my mind, I ran into a dilemma that a hobbyist did a water change of 33% (10gal) on a 40gal tank with to his knowledge has only 30gal of water, it might be more IMO but just go on this.
His saltwater level was he said 1.026.
After the WC his corals and fish acting up, within a few hours few fish died and corals as well and all corals are closed up or either RTN'ing.
The water he used was at 1.008.
Now if you do a 33% WC on 30gal how much really will the 1.026 drop?
IMO there was something else in the water that cause a rapid decline of his tank.

The hobbyist was 2 weeks out for work and got back home, thought he needed to do a WC on the tank but didn't had water ready from his own, went to the store and got 10gal.

 

[Big E]

If my math is right, that takes the tank down to 1.020. This would definitely cause stress in the corals. The bacteria wouldn't like it either, but the results would been seen a few days later, not hours.

The fish might show some short term stress, but it wouldn't kill them.

Any chance a H. magnifica is in the tank? There are many accounts of them getting stressed out badly and releasing nematocysts and killing all the fish quite quickly. Any stressed anemone can do this, but Mags are the worst.

I would think any quick drop in salinity could cause a chain reaction, but it would be measured in days not hours.

The logical cause would be the new water had some unwanted chemicals in it to cause death in hours.

 

[Dr. Reef Verified Sponsor]

If you do a water change with new water at 1.008 in a 30 gal system with only 10 gal. (Starting salinity was 1.026). After water change tank will be at 1.020.
That is not enough to kill fish and corals.
In fact fish can handle lowering salinity just fine it's raising it causes problem.
There has to be something else in water to kill fish and corals.

 

[Martin Kuhn]

Sg 1.026 is about 34.6 psu salinity
Sg 1.008 is only 10.6 psu

Assuming a 66% to 33% mix, he went down to 26 psu salinity. Such a drop in short time is dramatic for some animals

I would suggest to raise the salinity again with dry saltwater mix (not with premixed salt water). Don't do this in one step. A suggestion could be splitting to one week until normal salinity

This is one more example why any reefer should really be able to produce salt water by himself and know about this basics.

Maybe there also even was something in the water that also caused this effects

 

[reefjvillnc]

Been a while we talked but this is spinning mind, I ran into a dilemma that a hobbyist did a water change of 33% (10gal) on a 40gal tank with to his knowledge has only 30gal of water, it might be more IMO but just go on this.
His saltwater level was he said 1.026.
After the WC his corals and fish acting up, within a few hours few fish died and corals as well and all corals are closed up or either RTN'ing.
The water he used was at 1.008.
Now if you do a 33% WC on 30gal how much really will the 1.026 drop?
IMO there was something else in the water that cause a rapid decline of his tank.

The hobbyist was 2 weeks out for work and got back home, thought he needed to do a WC on the tank but didn't had water ready from his own, went to the store and got 10gal.

What kind of corals were in the tank ?

 

[Diesel]

If my math is right, that takes the tank down to 1.020. This would definitely cause stress in the corals. The bacteria wouldn't like it either, but the results would been seen a few days later, not hours.

The fish might show some short term stress, but it wouldn't kill them.

Any chance a H. magnifica is in the tank? There are many accounts of them getting stressed out badly and releasing nematocysts and killing all the fish quite quickly. Any stressed anemone can do this, but Mags are the worst.

I would think any quick drop in salinity could cause a chain reaction, but it would be measured in days not hours.

The logical cause would be the new water had some unwanted chemicals in it to cause death in hours.

That's exactly what I told him that stress on fish can be seen but it takes a while before dead comes in as with the corals too.
Myself never had this failure but I have been doing water changes that my SG was 1.020 which results in closed corals but when SG came back to normal due by short small water changes it was all ok.

If you do a water change with new water at 1.008 in a 30 gal system with only 10 gal. (Starting salinity was 1.026). After water change tank will be at 1.020.
That is not enough to kill fish and corals.
In fact fish can handle lowering salinity just fine it's raising it causes problem.
There has to be something else in water to kill fish and corals.

Suggested to him to take a water sample and send it in to a ICPI lab.

Sg 1.026 is about 34.6 psu salinity
Sg 1.008 is only 10.6 psu

Assuming a 66% to 33% mix, he went down to 26 psu salinity. Such a drop in short time is dramatic for some animals

I would suggest to raise the salinity again with dry saltwater mix (not with premixed salt water). Don't do this in one step. A suggestion could be splitting to one week until normal salinity

This is one more example why any reefer should really be able to produce salt water by himself and know about this basics.

Maybe there also even was something in the water that also caused this effects

Yeah, he made a bigger mistake to move all fish and corals into a frag tank as result a rapid change to higher levels which made it even worse.

What kind of corals were in the tank ?

A mix of softies, LPS, SPS.

 

[reefjvillnc]

That's exactly what I told him that stress on fish can be seen but it takes a while before dead comes in as with the corals too.
Myself never had this failure but I have been doing water changes that my SG was 1.020 which results in closed corals but when SG came back to normal due by short small water changes it was all ok.





Suggested to him to take a water sample and send it in to a ICPI lab.





Yeah, he made a bigger mistake to move all fish and corals into a frag tank as result a rapid change to higher levels which made it even worse.





A mix of softies, LPS, SPS.

Any zoas

 

[Diesel]

Any zoas

A few I think.

 

[reefjvillnc]

A few I think.

That could of been the reason for the fish that died

 

[Diesel]

That could of been the reason for the fish that died

How come?
Make your case?
I don't think it's from the toxicity that zoas have cause that wouldn't have been released by a drop to 1.020.
I did Bayer and fresh water dips on zoas and back in the frag tank after rinsing but no effect on livestock and these were large colonies.

 

[Scott.h]

How come?
Make your case?
I don't think it's from the toxicity that zoas have cause that wouldn't have been released by a drop to 1.020.
I did Bayer and fresh water dips on zoas and back in the frag tank after rinsing but no effect on livestock and these were large colonies.

It may be plausible, especially because of the small water volume and depending an what species he has. I've seen some pretty unexplainable things happen in a tank with lots of Zoes. And ICP doesn't pick anything up.

 

[Diesel]

It may be plausible, especially because of the small water volume and depending an what species he has. I've seen some pretty unexplainable things happen in a tank with lots of Zoes. And ICP doesn't pick anything up.

Correct, ICP doesn't pick it up for what they test for.
A regular lap can test for it.
In the 35+ years I stressed zoas out enough but never seen a bad effect of it other than if you frag them as that is a different situation.
But thanks for the reply.