Something has gone terribly wrong!

[Quigley]

Thanks for your help.

Something has gone terribly wrong with our reef tank. And it may be my fault.

Yesterday I hooked up a new chiller to our 90g reef tank. The tank temp was 77 degrees. I wanted to test the chiller so I set the chiller to 74 degrees. Over the next hour or so the tank temp dropped from 77 to 73 (the chiller turns off at 1 degree lower than its setting). Shortly thereafter our large anemone looked very sick; the tentacles looked stiff and dark rather than light and wavy. I re-set the chiller temp to 76. Last night our fish all looked fine and our tank temp was 75.x throughout the night.

This morning our Angle and Tang were both lying on their sides. I did a water change thinking that’s always a good idea. We have a larger black/yellow clown fish whose yellow stripes have turned dark and look more gray than yellow. Our other small fish are more or less healthy and unhealthy looking. The Tang is looking better throughout the day but the Angle is looking worse. The large anemone is now looking better, and the small anemone seemed unaffected by the whole thing.

Our water quality tests good and has tested good for the past couple of weeks.

We have 3 starter coral frags, and they look unchanged.

Did the sudden drop in water temp yesterday cause all this?

My other concern is that I used automotive heater hose to connect the chiller into our sump return system. The heater hose is rated for Marine use, but I think that might mean marine engines and not necessarily marine life.

Lastly, I did not flush the chiller or new hose before installing, could this have caused the problem?

I'll be much more careful in the future, but is there anything we can do to help our current situation?

Thanks for all your help!
Randy & Deanne Graves

 

[jezzeaepi]

"Lastly, I did not flush the chiller or new hose before installing, could this have caused the problem?"

I always soak anyting new in vinegar and water. It is certainly possible that some chemicals from manufaturing were still on the hose. Look up "poly filter". Your going to want one of those to filter out possible chemicals.

The drop in temp could have done that as well. Dont drop your tank 4 degrees in an hour next time! It may be fine in the coean where the creatures are used to huge temp swings every day, but in your tank they havent expereinced something like that for a long time.

 

[Krish]

Sorry to hear that Randy:doubt: Depending on how quick the temp dropped and then how fast it went back up, it could have caused your fish a bit of shock, but not necessarily death. It is quite possible that the hose could be leaching something into the water as well, but couldn't say for sure. Don (DonW) would probably be able to answer that as he is a mechanic. As it stands, I'd wait for some more feedback and also, try and keep the temp within a reasonable range. Also, are you running any carbon? If not, it may be a good idea to run some just incase there is something in the water that is causing a problem that the carbon may be able to absorb.

Sorry again to hear your troubles. Hope you get things sorted out soon

Oh..I forgot to mention...It is strange that your corals weren't affected by anything as corals tend to be more sensitive to changes etc. Kinda makes it all the more confusing as to what is going on...

 

[balogh03]

Sorry to hear that. Hope you can figure everything out, and i am sure that there are poeple that will know how to help you.
good luck

-augustus

 

[gman0526]

I agree with Krish on this. First unhook the chiller and get some aquarium hoses, you can get them at HD or Lowe's. Run a hefty amount of carbon too. Have you checked the water parameters at all?

Take it easy and don't panic trying to do 100 things at once, stick to the basic stuff first then we'll try and help you with the rest.

 

[coil1002]

Dilution is the solution

I would do water changes and keep the temps steady hopefully it will help. Donw needs to chime in on the hose but I would think black rubber hose would not be good some of them have metal braiding on the inside to handle more heat and pressure

What type of chiller is this? Was it brand new? How are your other parameters?

 

[auqua man]

I also added a chiller this year I did not have the temp problem you did but the lfs did not tell me the chiller adds 4` head pressure to the return pump.
The extra head pressure cut my gph on the return pump by 2/3.
The clear plastic tubing is available at the Home depo. One time I was considering buying a garden hose to do water changes and was wondering if this would be a problem. The garden hose was less than half the price and would have hooked up very easy. Then I remember on hot summer days getting a drink from the hose and the tasting the rubber yuck!! I would not want my fish to live in water like that. I am not sure about the hose you are using, but I would not take a chance. I hope things come around for you quickly.

 

[Quigley]

Friends,

Thanks for your prompt replies and helpful information.

- We've placed a large carbon bag from a HOB filters into the waters path in our refuge.

- for the time being I've turned off the recirculating pump that returns water through the chiller (new Artica 1/5 hp) and black automotive heater hose. There is a 2nd pump that returns water also, and it is still running.

- This automotive heater hose does not have any metal braid, it is rubber only (almost positive).

- We are collecting RO water and should have enough for another 25% water change in the morning.

- Water quality continues to test as "very good".

- My wife (who has better eyes than I) does see that a few, very few, of the little critters that grow on the corals have died.

Our Tang died, and things are looking pretty bad for our Angle. But the large Clowns color has improved, and the Anemone is looking better!

Thanks again for your help, and please keep passing-on all the helpful suggestions and comments. We sincerely appreciate it.

Randy & Deanne

 

[Krish]

Well, good luck guys! I will see if I can get Don to chime in on the hose. He's not online right now, but I'll send him a pm. As for the chiller, despite all the troubles, it sounds like you got a really nice one for it to be able to drop the temp that easily if the need ever arises. We'll see if we can help you figure out for sure what caused the deaths in your tank and get things running smoothly again.

Yesterday I hooked up a new chiller to our 90g reef tank. The tank temp was 77 degrees. I wanted to test the chiller so I set the chiller to 74 degrees. Over the next hour or so the tank temp dropped from 77 to 73 (the chiller turns off at 1 degree lower than its setting)

 

[DonW]

Automotive heater hose will have solvents and oils as release agents. It also has nylon cord for the ply braiding. I dont think its anything carbon wont take care of. Sounds more like a temp flux issue.
Also I would not use clear hose on a chiller, usually its exposed to light. I wouldnt want algae growing on my chiller inlet.

Don

 

[Quigley]

Don, Krish, Friends,

Thanks for the continual help!

Last night I replaced the automotive heater hose with some aquarium safe clear vinyl plastic tubing. I wanted to do something and was feeling helpless watching our fish die. The Home Improvement store had a quick reference guide on plastic tubing. According to the guide only their clear vinyl and reinforced PVC tubing are aquarium safe. Don makes a good point regarding the clear; the aquarium-safe PVC is opaque and would be a better choice. I'll replace the clear with the opaque later today. I'll also order some Poly Filter; sounds like good stuff to have on hand.

Our tank seems to have stabilized, we lost our two biggest fish but the others seem to be coming out of it. Whew....

Thinking all this through raises a couple of other questions. We have a 30g poly tank that we use to mix up and preheat our saltwater for water changes. We use a powerhead to stir the mix. The powerhead has a brass quick-release hose fitting that I added for convenience. It looks like the brass fitting has left some "rust" spots on the bottom of the poly tank. This doesn't seem good. I'll replace the brass fitting with a plastic one.

Could the brass fitting have leached something toxic into our mix?

Also, I’ve been using a 50 ft industrial garden hose with nickel fittings to drain and fill our tank. The hose is only used for this purpose.

Is it bad practice to use a garden hose for anything related to an aquarium?

Thankful with gratitude for all your help,
Randy & Deanne

 

[DonW]

If you have a long run, a garden hose is fine. You can buy a drinking water safe garden hose just swap out the ends with plastic ones. You can also get a python, they come with a very long safe hose. As far as metal goes if its not Titanium I dont use it for my tank.

Good Luck
Don

 

[Krish]

Don makes a good point regarding the clear; the aquarium-safe PVC is opaque and would be a better choice. I'll replace the clear with the opaque later today

You can also just get some of that air condition black insulation and put over the clear hose if you don't want to change it

 

[balogh03]

The insulation foam would also keep a better temp going back to the tank

-augustus

 

[ecobalance]

sounds like one of those things that will always be a mystery.if u just set up your tank the best thing to do is just let it be.Wih brand new sand there should be no need for additives or suppliments or even checking parrimaters.Chillers are definatly good things to have for a reef tank,but are notourious for failingto accomplish what u inttended to do in the first place[set up a aquarium and enjoy]you will be suprised at how little a reef tank with ample live rock,circulation,and deep sand,needs as far as outside help.

 

[ecobalance]

skimmer first

imagine t,he skimmer u could of bought for the price of that chiller.Ican ell u from experance that unless that chiller came with a heater built in ,u are just gonna havea constant battle between your heater and chiller.the best way to hook one up is with a timmer believe it or not.,and if itts not a drop in it should only be hooked up when needed.water will just sit in the coils all year untill it gets hott enough that one or too days in august.I ook mine back and bought a big ole ac unit for the window.Cheeper and now im chillen witth my tank.

 

[Quigley]

Thanks everyone for all your help!

Our tank has stabilized and all the surviving fish seem almost back to normal. All-in-all we had a huge scare, and lost our 2 biggest fish, but the situation could have been a lot worse. Deanne and I want to thank everyone for their help.

Besides the things that I learned;
- don't install any new component without first washing/rinsing it.
- don't let the tank temp change rapidly.
- always keep some Poly Filter or equivalent on hand.
- don't expose clear tubing to tank lights or sun light.
- be careful with the tubing you use, while most are OK it is best not to take chances.

With everyone’s advice and input we went through our tank setup looking for any additional problem spots and several were noted.

1- all metal was removed from our mixing tank and water change setup. We replaced everything metal with a plastic equivalent.

2- a clear section of tubing that runs alongside the refuge lights had algae growing inside of it. I've replaced the tubing, and will cover it with pipe insulation to shade it from the lights.

With everything else I think we are OK. The in-line chiller is part of the return water path from one of the refuge pumps and has constant flow. Even with the chillers added head-loss I think our flow rate is still good. We do have a protein skimmer and it seems to be performing well.

Please let us know if anything else comes to mind.

Deanne and I want to wish everyone the very best for 2007!

Randy & Deanne

 

[Krish]

Happy New Year guys! Hope everything runs smoothly from here on in

 

[Damsel13]

Have been following your posts. Funny that you might need a chiller right now until I realized you are in Australia? Do

I feel silly,
Hope things are going better.
Debbie

 

[Damsel13]

ok I am on pre New Year's Eve Day time.

You are in Idaho. Sorry,