Fish in trouble?

[csababubbles]

My 220 gallon fowlr tank had an issue yesterday afternoon. While the lights were off, I noticed the water was very dirty. I turned on the lights and the water was very murky, dirty looking. I immediately checked on a pink sea cucumber that I have temporarily in my sump and it seemed completely normal and feeding in the water column as it usually does in the dark. I know they could get stressed if caught in a pump intake, etc. but he was all right upon a visual check. I immediately did a 80 gallon water change, re-filled my carbon reactor, cleaned the skimmer, and replaced the filter sock. Water began to look much better. What could have caused this, what can I do about this to prevent this?

Inhabitants: Regal Angel, Potter Angel, cardinal group, Mozambique Fang Blenny, black mollie, personifer angel, mccoskers wrasse, 18" pink sea cucumber (Euapta godeffroyi).

Only thing that I could think of that I did to the tank before this was the night before I added two things. One was the fang blenny from another tank. And the other was a maxijet that I had in a storage box that I added to the tank. I took the maxijet out of the tank when I saw it was all polluted with something just to make sure if it was leaking anything into the water. It seemed fine but ill do a test in a bucket later today.

The personifer angel, wrasse, and sea cucumber are living in one of the sumps and all the fish look and act fine so if it was the cucumber poisoning I am sure they would have been the first to go since they are right there with the sea cucumber in a slow moving sump.

Anyone have any ideas or advice?

 

[ronj]

could your skimmer have overflowed???

 

[LakeEd]

Is it possible this was more a "milky" look to the water, vice a dirty look? If so, its possible your cucumber or another invert went through a spawning.

In either case, the steps you have taken seem appropriate...water change, fresh carbon, fresh filter-floss and cleaning your skimmer. Just have to continue watching for a few days now, and hope everything is good.

 

[csababubbles]

skimmer did not overflow, Ronj

Laked, water was def. not milky. very brown and dirty. i have no inverts or algae so spawning event is unlikely. the only thing that could have spawned was cucumber but it was a brown murky color, not white at all like i have seen some tanks. just checked tank, everything seems fine so far. that sea cucumber is making me so nervous. cant wait to move him. any other suggestions as to what happened?

 

[leebca]

If the water is truly brown, then that would usually indicate an organic release. This can be from dead or dying marine life forms, excess foods, malfunctioning skimmer, saturated carbon, etc.

 

[csababubbles]

ooooh lee that reminds me of something. This past weekend I added an additional 4500 gph worth of internal powerheads to my paltry 6000 gph. So I almost doubled the internal water flow. I also pointed the powerheads at all the rockwork and blew up incredible amounts of detritus, algae, and whatever junk was hiding between and under the rockwork. I kept up this underwater storm for the entire day so that I could catch as much of this crap in the filter socks and skimmer. Could this have triggered that organic release? seems to make sense.

 

[britany_shelton]

sounds like that may have been it. Good Idea though. Pressure wash all the rocks. LOL

 

[leebca]

I think you have discovered the source of the brown water.