Toxic help

[DNoakes]

Originally Posted by whatcaneyedo

I doubt this is causing your problem but I thought I'd mention it anyways. I've read that lava rock is a poor choice for saltwater aquarium rock because it will leach undesirable metals like iron into your water. If I could remember where I read this I'd post a link for you but unfortunately I've forgotten.

Based on the other information you've provided all I can think of is to keep doing water changes, perhaps get a better skimmer (I don't like coralife anything) and give us some more information. For instance, how old is your system? What are your other water chemistry parameters? Do your tanks contain any livestock yet?

I don't like Coralife anymore myself at least not anymore. I do have fish in the system, 10 chromis, 1 imperator,1 manderin goby, 2 purple anthias, 2 clownfish. I have tested the lavarock for leaching of minerals and it came back negative. The system has been running with full loads on it in excess of 50 fish for weeks at a time with no problems and now with a light load on it it crashed hard. Even though I've fought with the skimmer for quite a while the damn thing it has always at least skimmed fairly well for me. Like I say it started frothing a thick white milky substance for a day and then stopped skimming all together. Then the big ammonia strike hit. I'm thinking I have to also switch skimmers. Was thinking about the aqua C 1000 or the Precision Marine Bullet XL. If you know of a better industrial strength skimmer for a reasonable price please let me know.
Thanks
DNoakes

[DNoakes]

Oh yeah I forgot to mention that there are crowds of people around the tanks at different times all day long. The tanks are in my store. I've had lots of fish for many years and never even heard of this problem, but then again I've never had public display tanks before. Only private tanks in my home.

[christyf5]

is there anything in the tank that could have spawned (ie corals/clams/anemones)?

[DNoakes]

Actually now that you said that I've noticed that the nassarius snails have reproduced in the millions. but that was weeks ago. Do you think that could have an affect this much later?

[christyf5]

No I doubt they would do that much damage, especially with that much water volume you're running. Not sure what else to suggest.

[chris121277]

Did you ever find out if some one dumped something in your tanks?

[DNoakes]

No the only thing I found was an empty water bottle with the a small amount of some kind of oil in it.

The only other thing that happened is someone dumped a half a container of beta pellets in one tank. I found the leftover remains of that in the filter and in the protien skimmer. Good thing they work most of the time.