Invert paralysis

[Jaymeany]

I have a 29Gal reef tank w/ a sump. I just moved up and transfered my 7 gallon nano to ths set up. I only have 10 Lbs of LR but i'm waiting for more. My problem started with the 7 gallon and followed to the 29. The 7 gallon suddenly lost all the inverts in the tank and a few fish. I thought it was the heat in the summer. Any invert (snails at that point) put into the tank would do fine for 10 min. to a week then fall off the glass and sit still. Not die but just sit and starve. same with hermits. One polyp has survived but pretty much stays closed. amonia trite and trate are all 0.0 temp 77 ish. I just got a brittle star and a kenya tree because it seemed a lot better and I got my sump up and running. both are starting to slowdown and the kenya is closed up after 3 days of being open! Fish are fine and I also got a peppermint shrimp who is fine. snails are slowly dying again and so are hermits! Help Please! I got a biochem filter pack to see if the resins would pick off anything. oh yeah and I do pretty regular water changes with DI water from the market.

[hoffy]

What is your salinity? Where did you get the tank from? How about the sump? Is there any copper based medications getting in the tank? Was the tank ever treated for ich? It sounds to me like something is slowly poisoning your water.

[Jaymeany]

Salinity is right in the proper range. This started in a tank I got from a LFS and was fine for about 4 months. No meds of any kind and have had great health with my fish (knock on wood) the brittle star is still very slow but seems to be living. the peppermint shrimp is fine but still little response from my corals. I did a 20% water change today which seemed to help a little but not much. Thanks for any advice.

[brody98]

Are you using r.o. water or tap? I would run some carbon to clean up the water regardless of water source. If you’re on r.o. are your filters/membrane ok? If tap are you treating it and what with?

[cheerncougar]

sounds like there is something containing copper in your system, i would take a water sample to your LFS and see if they can test it for copper, and if not that buy a copper test, i know fast test is pretty good but it is only good if the copper is chelated copper.

[Jaymeany]

I am going to get a copper test asap. But I don't know where the copper could come from. Is copper readily found in tap water? Is there anything that will remove copper from a system safely? Thanks again for all the help!

[KillBill75]

Straight DI water is esentially deadly to humans!!! If your using DI water alone I can almost bet that is your problem,DI water has an extremely low PH!!!!!!!!! Try using strictly RO water.

[brody98]

There is no "real" evidence that deionized water is harmful to humans. Besides the fact that using straight DI water would be extremely expensive to the order of almost a dollar a gallon. Low ph is not a factor; it is corrected by salt mixes. Tell Spectra pure and Kent that DI water is harmful in any way to fish. Good luck

[Jaymeany]

Once again almost all the inverts I had in the tank have died. the snails are surviving but all else is dying! I went to 2 pet stores and no copper test so I will search more for one. Any ideas how to get my tank back? Starting over is not a great option for me but if I have to I will save up to do it!

[mbeach66]

what kind of lighting you got in there?

[Jaymeany]

2 x 65w PC on Actinic and one 10k.

[cheerncougar]

try running some carbon in your aquarium, put it in a fine mesh bag or pantyhose, and put it in a high flow area for about 48-72 hours, see if that helps, should pull out copper if that is it. At the store i work at we sell RODI water, which does come out with a low PH but we fix it with a buffer or a salt mix. As far as if it is good for human's we do not recomend it because the RODI pulls out any impurity including minerals and things that are good for the body

[cheerncougar]

what temp. is your aquarium running? and is it fluxuating at all?

[brody98]

It's really is starting to sound like you have stray voltage in your tank, did you transfer power heads to your new tank from the old one? Anything electrical that is submersible i.e.: power heads, heaters ect can leak electricity. Do you notice the fish startle a lot for no reason? Inverts are more sensitive to it than fish. Everyone should have a ground probe in the tank anyway, but if you don’t I would get one.

[cheerncougar]

and they are inexpensive

[Jaymeany]

Got a ground and got my water checked. the KH and Calcium were way out of whack! That looks to be it. I think the water I am using has a high KH how do I get it down?

[brody98]

The best way to lower the hardness is to get a ro/di system and use that to process your water, it would be better for your tank in the long run anyway. ro systems remove all the minerals in water that can cause a high hardness. how high was it ?

[Jaymeany]

I'm enbarrased to say that the LFS told me it was up around 21....but i bought a test and now i'm doing water changes and adding more calcium to get it back. Thanks for the advice we'll see how ti goes.

[brody98]

Does your lfs know what they are doing? if your using di or distilled water your hardness shouldn’t be that high unless you are adding way too much buffer, what is your calcium at? if its 400 or more adding anymore will cause a fall out which you don’t want trust me. You need to either cut your water down with ro water or ro/di water that you know is right, the stuff you get at a store could be anything. If you cant get good ro water you will need to cut the hardness down by adding small amounts of carbonated (seltzer) water but you must be very careful because your ph will go down also. you need to follow a very specific method of lowering it or you will cause a lot of stress on anything that is still alive in the tank. You can find info on the net if you want to lower it with the carbonated water.

[Jaymeany]

My tank was 21 and my add water was just on the high side of KH. My calcium is super low but I am bringing it back up. I'm not sure how but I must have o.d.ed the reef builder and under dosed Ca. I have all the tests now so I'm keeping a much closer eye on it. Thanks for all the advice!