Please Help--tank Crashing

[broomer5]

It sounds like you have a good handle on what needs to be done. I don't have anymore suggestions - except if they do find copper in the tankwater sample - I'd consider buying your own copper test kit. You may need it again soon.
I'm sorry - I don't know if your live sand and live rock will be okay.
Without actually knowing what caused this to happen - me or anyone saying it would be okay would only be a wild guess at this time.
I do HOPE that it's okay.
If it's actually copper that entered the tankwater from the bagged LFS water - it may be possible to use the rock in a FO or FOWLR tank.
If copper is found in the tankwater - and this live rock that you have was exposed to the copper ....... personally I would not use it again in any tank containing inverts.
I think you would be setting yourself up for a dissapointment.
You don't need any more dissapointment right now.
That's just my opinion though.

 

[newreefers]

Thanks for the advise. I'm gonna follow my plan and hope for the best. As bad as I feel for my tank, my hubby feels even worse. He will probably never go near it again. I guess it's time to start over. I'm off to the lfs.

 

[eng50]

If you can track the copper or whatever toxin back to the water from the LFS (small sample of water left in bag, residue, etc), I would be after them for some serious $$. That is a responsibility they should not get away with, especially if your tank has been fine until now.
Just my .02, I feel for you, and if there is anything i can do, I will be glad to...
Bill

 

[coral boy]

Eng50
You can't blame the LFS for what happed you should know not to EVER put there water in your tank I hate to say it but it is Newreefers hubby that did it and i bet he feels real bad for doing it all you can say is live and learn

 

[wrassecal]

I've been following this thread and don't have any good advise, just to say I'm so sorry and keep us posted on what you find out. There are probably several good lessons here for all of us. I hope your hubby isn't feeling too bad and if he is just tell him we have all been guilty of making mistakes in this hobby. Good luck!

 

[jonthefb]

i think broomer has summed it all up very nicely, as always. i wqish you the best of luck, and hope that everyhting comes out of this ok.
good luck
jon

 

[newreefers]

the culprit in this whole mess is nitrite. turns out the lfs's water has no much nitrite in it that in their 100 gal tank it didn't hurt, but the concentration in my 37 put my trites off the chart. I have now transfered this problem to my qt tanks, still losing things. I'm working hard to get all 3 tanks to 0 nitrites. Just lost the fish from the qt tank. and all snails. I guess the bright side is no copper. I hope everyone reads this post and learns not to put lfs water in your tank. My hubby now knows this, but to the tune of $1000.00. Hopefully no one else will have to go through this.

 

[jonthefb]

wow newreefers, definately an expensive lesson, and im sorry that you had to be the brunt end of it. on the bright side, as you said it is a good thing that it wasnt copper, because copper can even leach into the seals onthe tank, makinf the tank harmful as well. just continue doign water changes, and hopefully some of the stuff will turn around. again im sorry to hear of your trouble, but good luck, and i hope all works out for the better!
jon

 

[beefcake]

I don't understand. If the water at the pet store was so darn toxic why arent their fish dropping like flies too ?

 

[newreefers]

water quantity. there tanks 100-200 gal, my tank 37 gallons.

 

[kpogue]

Ouch! BUT, I question this....unless you put at least a half gallon of the LFS bad H20 in the tank, I doubt if it would have caused the whole tank to crash. Even @ 37 gal it should have been able to absorb a qt of really messed up H20. Not saying there wouldn't have been ill effects, but to kill everything? IMO something else happened.

 

[newreefers]

It was a very large bag of water, probably close to 1/2 gallon. Enough to cause my nitrite to go from 0 to I don't know cause my chart doesn't go the high. When I told the lfs they admitted having very high nitrites in the tanks.

 

[newreefers]

the copper test came back negative. I watched him test it and I tested myself. I don't know what could have made my trites go from 0 to over 3.0 (high as my test goes). Is there something else that would cause this??? All other test params are ok. After massive water changes, I have got the trite down to .1 and the ammonia down to .1 (both still too high I know) but I don't think I should do another mass water change for at least 2-3 days.

 

[bonkerzbelle]

Hello out there in fishy land.....I feel really bad for you......and I agree that the amount of water in your tank from the lfs wasnt enough to do the damage your tank took..........I do agree that copper would do it.....you ruled that out...........I would say the massive spike in the nitrites and the amonia was from all the die off in the tank........your biological filter was working on overload.........from what i seen you tested the water right after you first seen the tank crashing and the results werent horrific........then you tested agin later and they had spiked.........when everything is dying off like it had done it produced a massive overload.......I am gonna follow this post just to see what was the cause of the die off to start with...........it is a stumper to me.................I would like to say I am truely sorry for what you are going through..........How old was the tank........????
If I am wrong in any way about the first results of testing then I am sorry.........I thought you said when you got home everything was fine when you tested.........

 

[newreefers]

I am guessing something caused the trites to go sky high, this only happened after lfs water got into tank. tank is 6 years and have never had this happen, although never had lfs water in my tank either. with so many water changes, my tank is now going through a cycle, mass algae, can't really keep anything alive to deal with it. I have added macro algae to compete for food. I guess I am going to have to wait it out. maybe in a few weeks my trites and amonia will be to 0.