Not A Great Start To The Day

[Zach]

Yesterday I lost my yellow tang. Found him in the morning having a hard time breathing laying on the rocks. Had a huge gash on its side near it's tail and a bunch of his fins missing. I have no idea what could have done it. But. I tried to save him. Isolated. Added a bubbler. Low flow. And added meds to stop bacterial infections. No surprise I came home from work to find it dead.

The surprise is that every fish in my tank is dead this morning!

I've been battling hair algae ever since I set the tank up so I tried some phosphate rx on the recommendation of a member here. I was very light on the dosing. Starting at about 20% of the recommended dose and moving up from there. My tank crashed on the third day of dosing. All corals or pissed and all the algae started turning brown and putting out a ton of air bubble. I immediately started doing 10%/day water changes and stopped dosing. 5 days later. Tank is dead.

My only guess is that something died that nuked my tank. Ammonia maybe 0.2 (higher than I'd like but not surprising with all my algae dying) nitrate and nitrite are 0.

Soo..... this makes 3 tank wipes since I got back into the hobby. 1 was an ich wipe from the stress of having to change tanks quickly when my tank sprung a leak. 1 was another ich wipe because apparently it takes longer than 4 weeks and a bunch of 20% water changes to get rid of ich. And now a third because.....I honestly don't even know.

So unless this starts getting easier quicker, there might be a 120g on the market right shortly.

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[Zach]

Yesterday I lost my yellow tang. Found him in the morning having a hard time breathing laying on the rocks. Had a huge gash on its side near it's tail and a bunch of his fins missing. I have no idea what could have done it. But. I tried to save him. Isolated. Added a bubbler. Low flow. And added meds to stop bacterial infections. No surprise I came home from work to find it dead.

The surprise is that every fish in my tank is dead this morning!

I've been battling hair algae ever since I set the tank up so I tried some phosphate rx on the recommendation of a member here. I was very light on the dosing. Starting at about 20% of the recommended dose and moving up from there. My tank crashed on the third day of dosing. All corals or pissed and all the algae started turning brown and putting out a ton of air bubble. I immediately started doing 10%/day water changes and stopped dosing. 5 days later. Tank is dead.

My only guess is that something died that nuked my tank. Ammonia maybe 0.2 (higher than I'd like but not surprising with all my algae dying) nitrate and nitrite are 0.

Soo..... this makes 3 tank wipes since I got back into the hobby. 1 was an ich wipe from the stress of having to change tanks quickly when my tank sprung a leak. 1 was another ich wipe because apparently it takes longer than 4 weeks and a bunch of 20% water changes to get rid of ich. And now a third because.....I honestly don't even know.

So unless this starts getting easier quicker, there might be a 120g on the market right shortly.

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[Poseidon]

crappp sorry to here this zach!
if your reading ammonia at all then your tank has kicked into a mini cycle, most likely from die-off after the phosphate rx? i am not familar with this product so i cant comment to much.
The tang having a wound doesnt add up though, any idea what attacked him?

is anything alive ? corals, snails?
if the tank did a full crash, they would be the first too go and then the fish

 

[Hong]

Sorry for your loss man. This hobby can be brutal sometimes.

 

[Zach]

crappp sorry to here this zach!
if your reading ammonia at all then your tank has kicked into a mini cycle, most likely from die-off after the phosphate rx? i am not familar with this product so i cant comment to much.
The tang having a wound doesnt add up though, any idea what attacked him?

is anything alive ? corals, snails?
if the tank did a full crash, they would be the first too go and then the fish

Coral is alive but very pissed. Few snails still crawling around but not looking great. Shrimp all dead. Hermits MIA.

Figured it might be a mini cycle so I had been dropping a little prime in the tank every day to try and take the edge off. I'm more shocked at everything going all at once in one night.

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[Zach]

I should also say. My nice big nem crawled into a hole and disappeared right at the start of the tank crash. Really wondering if that's what got my tang

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[kapelan]

would do 50% water change + a lot of carbon
Something poisoned the water: probably ammonia from dead fish or dying coral released a poison.

 

[Nick James]

Phosphate Rx is lanthanum chloride. If it gets in your tank it can do some damage. I know it can be used safely if you were to dose it in an overflow and have very fine micron socks (5 or less) to pick up the precipitate that occurs..

Beananimal actually wrote on his site about the apparent danger to zebrasoma tangs (ie your yellow tang)

I encourage you to read it, it sounds eerily similar to your situation.

http://www.beananimal.com/articles/lanthanum-chloride-and-tangs.aspx

It was why I decided to go alternative routes when I was also encouraged to use phosphaterx.

 

[AdInfinitum]

Phosphate Rx is lanthanum chloride. If it gets in your tank it can do some damage. I know it can be used safely if you were to dose it in an overflow and have very fine micron socks (5 or less) to pick up the precipitate that occurs..

Beananimal actually wrote on his site about the apparent danger to zebrasoma tangs (ie your yellow tang)

I encourage you to read it, it sounds eerily similar to your situation.

http://www.beananimal.com/articles/lanthanum-chloride-and-tangs.aspx

It was why I decided to go alternative routes when I was also encouraged to use phosphaterx.

Please tell us that you didn't dose Lanthanum directly into the tank!!!

I and others here have posted a few warnings about the safe use of Lanthanum Chloride and the (IMO) irresponsible manufacturers instructions to just add the product directly into reef systems.

Obviously we have no proof that it caused this problem but it's potential for toxic reactions when used directly are known.

 

[Zach]

Please tell us that you didn't dose Lanthanum directly into the tank!!!

I and others here have posted a few warnings about the safe use of Lanthanum Chloride and the (IMO) irresponsible manufacturers instructions to just add the product directly into reef systems.

Obviously we have no proof that it caused this problem but it's potential for toxic reactions when used directly are known.

Well shit. I put it in the sump.

So basically I just poisoned my tank with something marketed as reef safe

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[Joshbrookkate]

Sorry to hear this.

 

[TORX]

I am with everyone. Sorry for your losses.

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[Josh]

god this is why i am so scared to dose anything that isnt slow release like a carbon/gfo/purigen etc. I almost got talked into dosing iodine and after some thorough reading i decided against it.

On the bright side at least you know why this happened, so many tank crashes people are just left standing there going "what happened"

Good luck with saving the rest of the tank! and also sorry for your loss

 

[Skim]

I have dosed Lanthanum direct into my sump in the past with no ill effects. Not full strength but mixed and dosed with Kent drip doser. I have also heard of many others who have done the same with no ill effect. I have seen Videos where public works staff are using it in large ponds and large manmade Lakes where the Phosphate levels are high and Algae and Weeds are choking the out the very water space. They float out on small Pontoon boat and and blow it out onto the surface with large hoses and as the product sinks it absorbs the Phosphate and settles on the bottom to become part of the substrate. When the Phosphate binds to the product it can never be released and basically becomes an inert product/substance. They apparently have been very successful in doing this with no ill effects to Fish or Wildlife.

 

[Josh]

Yah well i dont know the whole story but they used something similar in Erieau at Rondeau Bay and almost killed the entire lake, I bet @TORX would know more thats his stomping ground.

 

[Skim]

Well just like everything else in this Hobby what one does and makes tank flourish makes someone elses crash and leaves use all going Hmmmmmmmmm or WTF. I have been down that way quite often to go Pickerel and Rainbow fish, never seen any problems in the Lake, in fact it has been some of the best fishing in years. Do you mean in the River/Harbour? It's hard to believe they would have to add anything because of the Zebra Mussels seem to strip the water quite well.

 

[Salty Cracker]

Feel for your loss.

That said, STOP doing quick fixes. I don't know how many times I say this, and how many times I get shit of for saying it, but just leave the tank to itself.


I started an sps tank from scratch 6 months ago. No losses, and everything is fine. Because I don't mess with it. EVERY crash I have EVER had was from "fixing" something. Took me 15 years to figure it out. Just let things work themselves out.

If you have phosphate, get GFO. PERIOD. That's it, nothing else. EVER.

If fish are sick, leave em. They will either make it or not, and if not, dosing a bunch of crap into the tank won't save them, and may take everything else out.

This is a patience game. If you quick fix, you have losses. Just let nature do it's thing, don't add too much livestock, and STOP putting chemicals into the tank. There's a few core guys here that have had really really good success, and NONE of us would say "dose a crapload of stuff into your sump, that'll fix it".

1) We are here for you if you just trust us. HA = Phosphate. Nuking it won't fix your underlying issues.
2) Stability is the key, don't ever do anything drastic.
3) Chemicals are for a pool.


a 120 with sump should be plenty big enough to avoid almost any problem. We should maybe set up a mentor program here at fragtank that's open only to people with a long track record of success and NOTHING TO GAIN BY SELLING PRODUCTS.

I hope you don't give up. I love seeing a successful reef take off.

 

[AdInfinitum]

I have dosed Lanthanum direct into my sump in the past with no ill effects. Not full strength but mixed and dosed with Kent drip doser. I have also heard of many others who have done the same with no ill effect. I have seen Videos where public works staff are using it in large ponds and large manmade Lakes where the Phosphate levels are high and Algae and Weeds are choking the out the very water space. They float out on small Pontoon boat and and blow it out onto the surface with large hoses and as the product sinks it absorbs the Phosphate and settles on the bottom to become part of the substrate. When the Phosphate binds to the product it can never be released and basically becomes an inert product/substance. They apparently have been very successful in doing this with no ill effects to Fish or Wildlife.

Remember that all reactions in SW are significantly different than in FW...

 

[Skim]

Remember that all reactions in SW are significantly different than in FW...

All reactions significantly different from FW. Like what the only other reaction this does from what I understand is it may drop the Akl some as it will also bond to any Phosphate that has bonded to Carbonate so it basicly precipitates some of it. I'm sure it also does this in FW. H2o is H2o and many of the salts found in SW can and do accrue in FW around the world, so then the major difference would be Sodium. As for what happened in this situation I believe the product worked very well and Phos dropped very quickly and stressed the Corals and Inverts which led to the Algae crashing and releasing whatever it may have absorb since being introduced which just started the snowball effect that just kept adding its own little bit and the BioFilter and Skimmer could not keep up and the First fish was lost then it was game over. The second anything dies it starts the decompose and Ammonia will rise, this is one reason some like to run ORP meters as you can not see all your fish/inverts sometimes and ORP reacts very quickly/ almost instantly to changes. .2 Ammonia can stress the fish to the point of death and if it stressing the Fish then you know your Corals are pretty much doomed, I believe the Seneye will sound its alarm at .2 Ammonia.
Bottom line is it is time to start over and do as Salty said and stop chasing numbers and overreacting to. Sometimes it is just best to leave it alone and let it run its course.

 

[[KRAFTIG]]

Wow, sorry for your loss