disaster strikes!!

[sharelove]

Here's what's happened/happening: Last Friday I was mixing my change water as I do every week (I then let the salt mix and a powerhead do it's thing until monday when I siphon/add the new mix) and this is one of the things I did different: I added Kent's superbuffer straight to this mix instead of first dissolving it in fresh water as the instructions say. I forgot...when I added it on Monday, it was still cloudy. Just before the water change I had done all my tests, everything was in order. Alk was a bit low at 2.7. I received three new fish the week before: flame angel and 2 bangaiis. I acclimated and used paraguard for about 45 minutes everyone was happy put them in. For the first 4-5 days, no probs everyones eating happy curious -especially the flame. Then after the water change everything within the next 48 hours becomes a nightmare. First the flame stops being curious and isn't eating 24 hours later: dead. within 12 hours of that, one of the bangaiis dead. 12 hours after that the other one dies. My kole tang, my biggest fish starts looking greyish everywhere sunken around the eyes loosing color very fast and hanging out near the top as if he/she wants to leave. Open sores start appearing, especially two horizontal lacerations near the tail. Dead 24 hours later. My royal gramma stops eating 12 hours after that. Dead this morning. Of my two clown percs, one is newer than the other and bigger appearing very normal and healthy last night, dead this morning. the only fish I have left are all the original ones I first started with 5 months ago: the smaller clown, a neon goby and 6 green chromis. All my inverts seem to be fine.
What in the devil is going on???? I took an alk reading on thursday and it was a lot higher: 5.8 and I had just added purple up on the monday after the water change. I have 4 corals and a friend gave me the PHyto Feast and that's been newly introduced. I can't think of anything else that's different.
Please help.... sniff sniff sniff...

[seashells]

What is your pH? What measure are you using for alk? (dKH or meq/l) Please list your parameters. Salinity, pH, Alk and Ca. You should be around 2.8 - 3.5 meq/l, pH 7.8 - 8.2, Salinity 1.023-1.025, Ca 380 - 450. Also I have seen some comments relating to purple up possibly causing problems. Also try this chemistry link /url http://home.comcast.net/~jdieck1/chem_calc3.html /url

Doug

[Jason McK]

High Alk will not harm fish or corals. The resulting PH problems will however.

What is the PH of the tank

J

[Beverly]

Sorry to hear about your losses

For starters, are you using Kent salt? If so, you might have gotten a bad batch of salt where alk measures less than 1 dKH. To find out if this is the case, make up a gallon or two of new salt mix. Aerate and heat to tank temp, add the salt, let it mix overnight, then test alk.

Second, don't let your new saltwater mix longer than 36 hours, with 12 to 24 hours being a better amount of time for it to mix. If left too long mixing, you will find white stuff stuck to the sides and bottom in your mixing container, which means something has precipitated out of the new mix. Also, make sure your water is already aerated and heated to tank temp before adding salt to the water.

Third, don't add anything to the new saltwater. Your new saltwater should not require additives as it should already be close in Ca, Mg, alk, pH as seawater. Adding additives to the salt mix could result in precipitation of some elements. If you have deficiencies in your tank, add the additives to your tank after testing to determine what the deficiencies are. Always keep records of when you test, what you test for, test results and what you add to make up for deficiencies.

I, too, would like to know if the alk in your tank is in dKH or meq/L.

[marie]

Originally Posted by Beverly

...

Second, don't let your new saltwater mix longer than 36 hours, with 12 to 24 hours being a better amount of time for it to mix. If left too long mixing, you will find white stuff stuck to the sides and bottom in your mixing container, which means something has precipitated out of the new mix. Also, make sure your water is already aerated and heated to tank temp before adding salt to the water....

Are you sure? This has never happened to me and I've had water heated and aerating in a tub for up to 2 weeks with never any problems

[Ruth]

Whenever you mix up salt with water I believe that you should heat the water first before adding salt and a powerhead to mix the salt. You should always test a new bucket or bag of salt for Calcium, Alk/Dkh and Magnesium. It is not uncommon for these measurements to change from bucket to bucket although they should be close or else you should think about changing salt mixes. It is also not uncommon for salt to be a bit low in magnesium. The reason I have been told when I asked was that it takes a whole lot of magnesium suppliment and it really comes down to $ to suppliment. Once the salt is added to the water and has a chance to mix for a couple of hours you should test for salinity (or SG as most of us do), PH and temperature. It may be necessary to add a buffer or other means of adjusting PH if it is not the same as your tank water. I disagree with Bev on the amount of time you can leave salt water mixing and airating but that is another discussion. I have from time to time added Magnesium to my newly mixed up salt water if I need to to bring that batch of water up to an acceptable reading. If it is your tank that is low on a particular suppliment such as Mg, Ca etc. you should mix it up with tank water and add it preferable to your sump but if you are sumpless then obviously directly to the tank.
I would hazard a guess that in your situation you may have had some wild PH swings that effected your livestock or something else that caused the oxygen in the water to be severly depleted causing stress to your fish. Give us your tank parimeters and I am sure everyone will try and help you figure out what happened.

[Brandoser]

Get a hold of Kent. I know J&L wasn't selling it for awhile because they received a large bad batch. I'm not sure if they use production dates or not but there was definitely a very large batch of bad salt.

[Beverly]

Originally Posted by marie

Are you sure? This has never happened to me and I've had water heated and aerating in a tub for up to 2 weeks with never any problems

Precipitation has happened in our mixing containers over the years when water ready to go into the tank has been mixing for over 36 hours. Containers have been Rubbermaid garbage cans as well as glass aquariums. Have never gone to the trouble of figuring out what has precipitated, though.

[untamed]

Originally Posted by sharelove

...when I added it on Monday, it was still cloudy. Just before the water change I had done all my tests, everything was in order. Alk was a bit low at 2.7.....

.... I took an alk reading on thursday and it was a lot higher: 5.8 .

That's the part that struck me. Still cloudy sounds like super high Alk content. I suspect the SW or mistake on the additive caused a dramatic pH swing.

I dug out my Holmes/Farley info on the Alk/pH relationship. At equilibrium in normal SW, there is a set relationship between Alk and pH. Using this relationship as a starting guide, that Alk reading of 5.8 is right off his chart, but might equate to a pH of 8.6. Given that the system spent a few days re-equalizing, I bet it was a lot worse than that had you measured it immediately following the water change.