Help appreciated.
 

My wife and I left friday night to go to our acreage for the weekend. We were called back saturday morning and among a huge list of damage we found someone had poured a 1/2 a bottle of port liqueur into my 30g fowler and 33 g reef. Both tanks are extremely cloudy and I have done 20% water change in each as that was all the salt water I had already made up and cleaned out the skimmers as they were going nuts and had a film on the inside. All my corals are closed in the 33 and the fish seem fine in the 30 but you can't see through the fowler tank as it is so cloudy. I am waiting for the r/o to make more water and have salt mixing in another pail right now and am doing water changes as soon as the salinity and temp are up. Any Suggestions????

Kevin

Who the hell would pour booze in your tank??

Dont wait for RO - Mix up some temporary w/c water with tap water, start doing some big water changes... Make sure you're running fresh carbon, and if you've got some Prime - start dosing it at the recommended rates for neutralizing ammonia...

However the damage is already done - best you can do now is to try to keep down the ammonia spikes and keep everyone as comfortable as possible.

There's actually a fair bit of info out there on alcohol (vodka) in reefs, might be worth a read to see prognosis etc.

:eek: All I can suggest is to do a large water change.
It is probably a bacterial bloom that is making the water cloudy and the skimmer go nuts (isn't that the theory behind dosing vodka?)

Kevin

Let me know if you need anything at all. I can start my RO right now for you and pump out some water. I can also house some stuff if you want untill it gets worked out. Just let me know i can be over there to help in 10 min.
Pm'D you my number

There is approx 50 gal total volume each setup. My initial change was 10 g each. I noticed my fish were doing good not hyperventilating or acting strange. My reef now all my corals and clams are completely withdrawn so I have done an additional 20 g water change on it and thanks andyl I used 10 g of tap water. I have another 5g r/o nearly done and another 5g salt and temp nearly done. You can see the liqueur residue on the inside glass. I am going to try and wipe that out with paper towel.
kevin

I would put carbon on, indeed, forget about RO, tap water is fine.

Did someone break in and vandalize your place? I'm really sorry to hear this, good luck sorting it out. :neutral:

It's entirely possible that the film is bacterial. People actually do dose vodka into their reefs as it's a carbon source for bacteria to metabolize nitrates and phosphates, and it's a common occurence that if they overdose, that the bacteria forms a white film and the tanks are literally cloudy. But the usual prognosis is that it clears in a day or two and the nitrates and phosphates have disappeared. Soooo ... I've got my fingers crossed for you.

You can see through my fowler now but my fish are starting to stress with the water changes. I have a fluval 205 I am going to try and set up with carbon and wait a couple of hours on any more changes. When I wiped the inside glass it was like an out break of cyano. In my reef my feather dusters come out for a second to test and then close up again. I will continue water changes in the reef but will slow down. I dislike salt mixing in the tank so I will mix and heat again for 1 hour.
Thanks all for the help it has been a horrible day and I hope to possibly explain later.
Kevin

On second thought...

Major issue besides the initial die-off from the overdose, is the bacterial bloom - and the resulting ammonia spike when it ends... May be worth considering dosing some vodka in order to prolong the bloom - and "weening" the system off the carbon, so the bloom doesn't have a mass die off - to reduce associated carbon spike...

You should try your hardest to match the temperature and salinities of the incoming and outgoing water, that will help ease your fish a little.

Also, fresh salt is quite caustic. Do let it mix before using it.

In an emergency, the best way to mix salt in a hurry is use a drill and a paint mixer attachment. This method of mixing salt oxygenates it or oxidizes it (or something - there's some in depth article about it you can read one day if you're interested, but for now don't worry about the theory). Anyhow with this method, mix for a couple minutes and then your water can be used right away. I don't know where you live but if you're in the south you're welcome to borrow one of mine, I have 2 that I use for just this purpose (emergency saltwater making) - they have never touched paint in their life.