Emergency every invertibrate in the tank is dying

Laura and Jim will be hosting the May meeting this Saturday the 12th and it will be the usual of food, drinks, raffle and fun.
 
Doors will be open at 6:00 pm for social talk and the meeting will start at 7:00.  Parking gets a little tight and the city says you can't park on 4th but there is a parking lot a block away.   Meeting is usually held in the backyard so feel free to bring your favorite lawn chair, weather permitting of course.

If you need address/directions, contact a club member.

Best if you park at Mini Mall (where the spaghetti establishment use to be)
 
You will get to see his new frag tank set up in the making.
 
Hope to see you there!

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[Kylem]

Hope I can get some quick responses tonight.  I put a new protein skimmer or tried to put one in and then the next two days all the invertibrates including sea aneomes closed up shop and are dying.  The anemomes are even trying to relocate.  I put some brass gate valves in my new skimmer to control the flow because they did not have any pvc ones available.  My water is all good any the only thing I can think of is the gate valves.  They may contain Lead traces.  How does Pb affect Invertbrates.  What can I do to find out and cure the problem before I loose my hole tank.
I have already done a 25% water change yesterday and one today.
No changes.

 :cry:

[Les]

Kyle,
The brass is what is causing it. Most brass valves are in fact bronze which is an alloy of brass and copper. The copper will kill all inverts. The only way to save the tank is to remove all the dead or dying creatures and then start in with massive water changes. You can also use carbon to help with the removall of copper.
I have gone through this before, the way I fixed things was to remove the source of copper and then do 25 gallon water changes every day for a week. ( on the old 175 system). When you get to to point of checking for the copper levels in the tank then I have a test kit for it. You are more than welcome to borrow it if needed.

[Rico]

Kyle,

Les is correct, the brass is your problem.  I would get a second quarantine tank setup ASAP and move the animals and corals into it.  the water changes are mandatory and must be done quickly.  If not the copper will get adsorbed into the live rock and any sand you may have, then it becomes very difficult to remove without replacing the rock.  I have a 20 gal tank you can use for a quarantine tank.  Let me know.  you can call me at 521-1761 if needed.

Rick

[Kylem]

Okay thanks guys....I called and talked to Mojoreef (Mike).  He and I determined right away that it was the valve because it has brass on the outside and bare copper on the inside.  I remove it and replaced it with a PVC ball valve.  Filling another tub of water to make some more salt.  I need to buy some more I am almost out.
There also might be some cleaning agent or solvents in the valve as well so he suggested to get a Polypad to pull the chemicals out with the resins inside it.

I will do another water change in the morning and night for 1 week.
I have a 10 gal quarantine tank so I will set that up tonight. Thanks guys.
I just hope I didn't lose everything or I will be starting over.

[Ed]

Kyle,
   I am working OT today but if you need something I have give me a call.    I have a little bit of Oceanic Salt, charcoal.   I also have some water made up in a trash can ready to go.  
sorry for your loss.  
Ed

[Nate C.]

If you have a petsmart near by, go to their website, print off the pricing for Instant Ocean, take it in and get the 160 gallon pail, they will honor the web price at the store...way cheaper and they don't include the shipping charge you would pay to get it off the net.

I've done this twice at the one here in Tri-Cities...worked both times.

[Kylem]

Well I lost all my hard corals.  My softies are still hanging in there...barely.
Loss most of my brittle stars.  Man I had alot of baby brittle stars.  Lost my Clam.  Lost many snails...no crabs lost yet.  Getting alot of die-off.
Added tripple the charcoal to each of my tanks...the smell is bad.  I know it was the copper now for sure because the water had a copper taste to it when I was doing water changes.   Water changes don't seem to be having much effect removing the copper.

It's going to be pretty much saving the rock if I can when it comes down to it.. I hope I didn't loose the rock...that stuff is a big investment.

[angelscrx]

Man I am sorry that this happened to you!  I will be back in town on Saturday let me know if there is anything I can do to help?  I would take everything out, dip in clean RO/DI water and then stick it in a tub with SW and a Skimmer.  Dump all the water in the tank and if you have sand you may want to get rid of it.  If you lost all the corals and almost everything else sounds like your tank is on it's last leg.  Save what you can.

[Kylem]

Ok Today is going much better.  The stuff I put into the tank for absorbing copper and heavy metals is working.  The Recordias started to open more today.  The soft corals seemed to survive the hit but with some dammage.   All the Sea Anenomes are still alive.   Lost a few...make that found a few more dead snails...mostly large ones.  I actually have a few baby brittle stars left and the serpent star survived.  The little asteria stars did not seem effected.   The coraline algae to a hit...lost 25% of it...turned brown and flaked off.  I still have alot of snails left supprisingly.
I started my new skimmer up again today..works great but I have to make a few adjustements about cup drainage and seal leak at the o-ring.

I put some stuff back in the main tank since the main tank is doing better than the other little ones.  I only had enough copper remove for the main tank until today.  I couple more days and we should be back to normal but I think the copepod population to a hit amoung others.

I may need some new live rock to get the life back again...I need a few more pieces anyway.

I am going to need some donations of corals to repopulate my tank....looks pretty scarce right now...was starting to  fill in a bit before the big OOPS!

Maybe I will see you guys tommorow at the meeting.

[angelscrx]

I am sure we can come up with something.

[Kylem]

Well guys today my tanks is cleaner and my copper finaly is down to zero.
My starburst polyps started opening today...just a few.  Good sign its still alive  but I have that brown bacteria growing all over the rocks and corals.

[angelscrx]

Well guys today my tanks is cleaner and my copper finaly is down to zero.
My starburst polyps started opening today...just a few.  Good sign its still alive  but I have that brown bacteria growing all over the rocks and corals.

That brown stuff will go away eventually.  Glad to hear that your tank is on the road to recovery.