Protein Skimmer Power Bar Failure Death Toll....

[ensquire]

And I might add that the day before everything was looking very healthy.
I didn't do any tests but HONESTLY are there not days you just look at your tank and say "OH YEAH"

[daniella3d]

the oxygen depletion from the algae must not be that bad because I have tons of macroalgae in my tank and I shut down my skimmer at night. No problem what so ever. I really have lots of caulerpa. When it goes sexual all my water become cloudy white and sometime I wake up to a very cloudy tank but nothing seem affected. I start the skimmer and it goes away in few hours. My coral seem to even like the spores.

My temperature is 76F though, so I guess that surely help to keep a good level of oxygen in my tank. Bioload in 75 gallons: kole tang, niger trigger, copperband butterfly, clownfish, 3 pajama cardinal, green mandarin.

Maybe it was a combinaison of a few things?

Originally Posted by kien

Nitrifying bacteria and algaes will consume oxygen as well. Further, at night (when this skimmer died incidentally), some algaes will breath and consume oxygen contributing to the oxygen depletion.
Occam's Razor.

[Aquattro]

The thing with oxygen is not adding it, but removing CO2. any water surface movement should off gas the CO2 in the system, making the water absorb more O2. If the power heads were causing any type of water surface movement, you should have been fine. Lots of tanks run without a skimmer at all, and do just fine. Not sure what to look for, but I can't see this being from the skimmer turning off.

[Megalodon]

Originally Posted by ensquire

And I might add that the day before everything was looking very healthy.
I didn't do any tests but HONESTLY are there not days you just look at your tank and say "OH YEAH"

When things die I usually test the water.

[pscott99]

I do agree with all that's been said.....BUT....if a power bar shorts out could it have not sent an electrical shock to the tank ? Electricity plus water equals death. Are your power bars etc safely away from the floor. Surprised the skimmer is still working and didn't short out the pump. Check for a proper ground on your power ? I'm not an electrician but...

[daniella3d]

Well if the skimmer is still working that mean that there was no short circuit in the tank. Most power bar have a circuit breaker to prevent this.

Probably a short circuit and electricity leaking in the tank would have killed everything at once. I don't see how a fish can survive this, nor corals. I have read about heaters craking and causing electrocution of the tank and everything was totaly dead..corals, fishes and all.

Originally Posted by pscott99

I do agree with all that's been said.....BUT....if a power bar shorts out could it have not sent an electrical shock to the tank ? Electricity plus water equals death. Are your power bars etc safely away from the floor. Surprised the skimmer is still working and didn't short out the pump. Check for a proper ground on your power ? I'm not an electrician but...

[kien]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

The thing with oxygen is not adding it, but removing CO2. any water surface movement should off gas the CO2 in the system, making the water absorb more O2. If the power heads were causing any type of water surface movement, you should have been fine. Lots of tanks run without a skimmer at all, and do just fine. Not sure what to look for, but I can't see this being from the skimmer turning off.

I have a skimmerless tank too and ya it has done just fine. Thankfully it is not my primary source of oxygen or surface agitation on that tank tho and there aren't a lot of fish in there. But, what if a tank had it's powerheads pointing down and there was little to no surface agitation? It looked to me like the skimmer was the only thing agitating the surface and as you said, CO2 needs to exhaust from the tank as well. Loss off primary oxygen source and surface agitation to expel excess CO2 to me spells doom. I don't see why the loss of a skimmer CAN'T be the cause. Sure, there MAY have been some other cause but given the facts we know, the skimmer seems to me to be the most likely culprit by making the least number of add assumptions. Fish are perfectly fine one day, then skimmer dies over night, fish dead the next day.. No, can't be the skimmer??

I realize that a lot of people, myself included run skimmerless just fine but I don't see that being the point here. My skimmerless tank and your skimmerless tank is not the same as this skimmerless tank. We all know perfectly well that every single tank is different. Two people could be running the exact same setup but still get different results. Just because you are successful without a skimmer doesn't mean another tank without a skimmer will be equally successful. The same applies to pretty much everything in this hobby, biopellets, zeovit, salt brands, RO water vs tap water, etc..

[Aquattro]

Kien, I can't really disagree with you, as it does seem that obviously that was the deciding factor. I can't tell why, but the skimmer appears to have been the "last straw", indicating some other factor in play. My point, I guess, was that it "shouldn't" have been the skimmer, as lots of skimmerless tanks don't have powerheads pointing at the surface, or other forms of noticeable surface agitation. Maybe a too heavily stocked tank, high CO2 content in the room, etc. Lots of factors could have contributed, with the skimmer being the buffer. No skimmer, tank crossed the boundary into this situation.
It's always tough to diagnose something like this online. I'll revise my comment to be " while it's obvious the skimmer was the major contributor, it shouldn't have been", meaning I think there was a secondary cause.

[kien]

Being in Yellowknife your house must be fairly sealed up for a good portion of the year. Curious, what form of ventilation do you have? This is yet another variable that is different from some other people. Not too many reefers in Yellowknife I dont think. There is typically a major in house CO2 spike during the winter months especially for cold weather climates. The skimmer could have been keeping O2 and CO2 in the tank in a fragile balance, but once it was gone, the scale tipped in the wrong direction.

Sure, a lot of people can get away with not using a skimmer or not having to point their powerheads at the surface, but those same people may not have the same environmental challenges that your tank might be faced with being in Yellowknife. Again, there are so many variables from one tank to the other that you can't always say, "hey, well, Fred over there has the exact same tank as me and he doesn't use a skimmer, so I'll be perfectly fine without one too". "And hey, Joe over there doesn't point his power heads at the water surface, so why should I??" We all know the hobby doesn't work that way. It may very well be that your tank needs more aggressive oxygenation and gas exhaust than other tanks.

[daniella3d]

+1, That's what I meant as well. Not that it did not cause the death of fish, but rather it shouldn't have caused the death of all these fishes.

There is some real problems with that tank that must be addressed before this happen again, skimmer or no skimmer.

Originally Posted by Aquattro

My point, I guess, was that it "shouldn't" have been the skimmer, as lots of skimmerless tanks don't have powerheads pointing at the surface, or other forms of noticeable surface agitation.