got ethical husbandry?

210 gallon Dream tank

Random thoughts:
Did you rinse the rock ahead of time?

I honestly didn't rinse it off. It seemd dry and clean for the most part. I thought about rinsing it but didn't wanna risk adding anything from tap water to tank.

Including did you by any chance rinse teh rock right before adding? If rinsed, was it RO or fresh or salt?

Neither

How much rock did you remove?

I took out the small to medium size structures probably 30 lbs total.
Everything taken out was man made completely epoxy covered rock, that was 100% water proof equal to being like pvc. Zero % porous if that makes it more plain.

Enough to majorly change the overall surface area?

I had to add an addtional 15gallon of salter water taken from frag tank system that was already heated, and just mixed a few days proir to cover the rocks.

Did you stir up the sand bed while doing these changes? If so, how deep is the sand bed and how old? Sand bed stir up + reduction in bacteria population + high bio load could cause weirdness.

No sand this tank had tons crushed coral. For substrate. Maybe your question here points out another potential issue. I didn't add any of the crushed coral from the 65gallon tank to the stock tank. It could have in fact been the main bio filter for the 65gallon tank. Threre was about 20 lbs of live rock in the sump that I added to the stock tank as well.

Are you sure inverts weren't affected?

None seemed to ve effected I took out all that I could find and put them into the frag tank. After I saw the ammonia was high. I didn't find any dead crabs or snails. Not claiming there couldn't have been any I saw no dead ones when I took the rocks out to remove fish.

No previous fish issues?

So to be more detailed.

Melanurus wrasse
1 pj cardinal
Lemon peel angel
Tomini tang.
I had these fish since I started the 65gallon tank several months no issues.

3 pj cardinals
Yellow foxface fish all came from same bar memeber who had them for several years.

Purple tang was picked up at the last frag swap.

The fish were added to the 65gallon tank they were all fine than I added them to the stock tank.

The magnificant foxface fish also came from the same member however I got it about 2 -3 days later. After I had already had stock tank going for about a week. So it never went into the 65gallon tank.

You'd mentioned a lot of work you're doing to your place, including with all the tanks going on and painting and possibly floor rip ups.

Not possible they were in my garage the stock tank. Alll this work has happened only recently. And no work preformed in the garage at all. Fish were dead and floors were ripped up last night. Painting the day before.

How were you storing this rock? Was it in a location that would've been near the other work you were doing, such that other stuff could've gotten on it and unfortunately made it into the tank?

Rock was in a table in my garage. Never entered house and nothing could have been added to it.

How closely to the time of the die off was the work you're doing in the house/area to the tank? If you pretend for a minute that it was for sure not the rock change, what else could've occurred?

Totally different areas. I don't know lack of biological filtration could have really played a part. The 65gallon tank killed most of my hammers I put in it. You can check out that journal to see the last issues I had with that tank. Only 4 hammers are still alive out of 20 plus I put in that tank.

Are you sure there's no other weird things going on in the tank, eg while doing the rock change did you while-you're-at-it change anything else like filters or clean something or maybe a heater got bumped and a current is making it into the tank and ...?

Nothing was changed running a inkbird in the tank. And had a protein skimmer running on it at alm times.

It wasn't mentioned. However there was at least 80-100 lbs of live rock that was also in the stock tank from the 210gallon tank. That i added the 20/25 lbs of live rock from the 65gallon tank to. In addtion to those 3 smaller crappy rock structures I took out. What was taken out was less than 20 precent of what was in the stock tank.

The dry rock I added was probably 4 times the amount I took out hence having to add 15 extra gallons of saltwater to cover them.

@richiev
 
@derek_SR
And it produced SO much ammonia that a tank full of live rock couldn’t process it?

Just doesn’t make sense. Even if there was ammonia being produced, an established tank would easily nitrify it. I have a million huge fat tangs in my tank and feed an obscene amount. I could probably pour a liter of ammonia into my tank and it would be gone before it
I don’t know what live rock he already had in the stock tank, I feel like he mentioned it somewhere in the thread, but if it was the rock he had in his 65 it seems like it was dense fake rock and never really established. I think you’re right in the sense something else happened- I think his bio load was already pushing it and then adding that dry rock didn’t help. He already had the stock tank running fine and then he added a rock and fish died. Unless a fish died from other causes and Michael didn’t catch it and it started decomposing leading to an ammonia spike
[/QUOTE]


I missed this as I was working when you sent this. I won't deny the possibility of a fish dying that I didn't notice.

The rock was indeed dense stuff. Also added 20lbs of live rock from 65gallon sump, plus 90-100lbs that cams from the 210gallon tanks sump during it's break down. A full 5 gallon bucket of crushed coral that was in the 65gallon tank was not added. As I intended to bleach it and restart it. With the other crush coral I've for the 210gallon.
 
richiev said:
We just got ours done with very similar looking stuff. Very happy so far. Make sure to do the thing where you randomly stagger them. Does seem to really help.

Are you going to put the tank on it, or have the tank directly on the subfloor? Pros and cons both ways.
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This is press wood from the 60s, even worse than osb definitely don’t want it wet. So flooring under it for sure. This crap gets wets turns into a sponge if your familiar with it at all.
 
My killing method in action
Sun, rain, sun, maybe rain tonight...
 

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First off, I am sorry. I know the gut punch from a big loss like that. Good on you for keeping the project going.

From reading, my gut reaction is something got sprayed onto the rocks that we don't know, like an ammonia based fertilizer or pesticide. The inverts being okay makes me lean towards a fertilizer or something like that. The mature crushed coral/sand bed/live rock should be enough bio filter to process the ammonia. It's hard to visualize the volumes w/out pics, but the descriptions make it seem like enough. My second guess is a bacterial bloom that consumed enough oxygen to hurt the fish, but not the inverts.

Good luck and keep making progress, we are all rooting for you.
 
So the majority of the live rock came from the breakdown of the 210? That was a while ago- how was this rock stored until now?
 
derek_SR said:
So the majority of the live rock came from the breakdown of the 210? That was a while ago- how was this rock stored until now?
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It was in a covered tote with saltwater and a heater. From the day the tank was broken down. It was never dry at anytime in process
 
H2OPlayar said:
First off, I am sorry. I know the gut punch from a big loss like that. Good on you for keeping the project going.

From reading, my gut reaction is something got sprayed onto the rocks that we don't know, like an ammonia based fertilizer or pesticide. The inverts being okay makes me lean towards a fertilizer or something like that. The mature crushed coral/sand bed/live rock should be enough bio filter to process the ammonia. It's hard to visualize the volumes w/out pics, but the descriptions make it seem like enough. My second guess is a bacterial bloom that consumed enough oxygen to hurt the fish, but not the inverts.

Good luck and keep making progress, we are all rooting for you.
Click to expand...
I didn't add the crushed coral, prehaps i should have.
 
RE the responses to mine. TBH I'm still not really following the timeline, but don't feel any obligation to clarify on my behalf. Seems like there was a lot of fish and rock moves between multiple tanks from multiple sources, some of which had different issues going on (coral deaths), and in the end moving everything into a temporary holding tank. If you want to root cause more, might be useful to lay out a timeline view or something for yourself. Date A, did B/C/D. Date X, did Y/Z. Effectively trying to figure write out what went in vs out in a structured format.

That being said, with all those moves and all the tanks going on and such, it seems like it's going to be pretty hard for you to root cause what happened. At this point, if it were me and I had a bit of time to step back and reset, I would:
  • spend money on some ICP tests of the water from the affected tank, and maybe even one of those bacteria/virus tests. They will cost some money, but be far more beneficial to rule things out than buying a bunch of other aquarium stuff. The value of these tests is to have an idea if anything could've happened, not to try and save water. I still would dump everything (next step).
  • do a full saltwater change of that holding tank, toss in a bag of carbon + one of the heavy metal removers
  • add a secondary temperature gauge to that tank. Inkbirds are known to drift and you need a second check (I use inkbirds myself but with second checks).
    • Also, I'm not sure the timelines, but I think you mentioned all this is in your garage. Did all this happen on the days that the area got super hot? Parts of my place, including my garage, get crazy hot when it's 80°+. I had to have a cooling fan running on my frag tank over the past couple weeks to keep it stable.
  • do no more tank setup except things required to get the new display tank ready. No more fish, no more rocks, no more hoarding corals, nothing. Just get the new display 100% up and running.
  • setup the new tank. Move rocks/substrate/whatever into it after having given them a rinse and/or soak in RO or a vat of fresh saltwater, as appropriate.
  • treat the new tank as if you're starting from scratch. Slowly add basic fish. Do another ICP test after it's been awhile to make sure nothing is leaching.
Succinctly, the safe thing is if the livestock is all dead, simplify and start fresh. It costs money and time to do that, which can be frustrating. However it's likely overall less expensive time/money to do it that way.
 
richiev said:
RE the responses to mine. TBH I'm still not really following the timeline, but don't feel any obligation to clarify on my behalf. Seems like there was a lot of fish and rock moves between multiple tanks from multiple sources, some of which had different issues going on (coral deaths), and in the end moving everything into a temporary holding tank. If you want to root cause more, might be useful to lay out a timeline view or something for yourself. Date A, did B/C/D. Date X, did Y/Z. Effectively trying to figure write out what went in vs out in a structured format.

That being said, with all those moves and all the tanks going on and such, it seems like it's going to be pretty hard for you to root cause what happened. At this point, if it were me and I had a bit of time to step back and reset, I would:
  • spend money on some ICP tests of the water from the affected tank, and maybe even one of those bacteria/virus tests. They will cost some money, but be far more beneficial to rule things out than buying a bunch of other aquarium stuff. The value of these tests is to have an idea if anything could've happened, not to try and save water. I still would dump everything (next step).
  • do a full saltwater change of that holding tank, toss in a bag of carbon + one of the heavy metal removers
  • add a secondary temperature gauge to that tank. Inkbirds are known to drift and you need a second check (I use inkbirds myself but with second checks).
    • Also, I'm not sure the timelines, but I think you mentioned all this is in your garage. Did all this happen on the days that the area got super hot? Parts of my place, including my garage, get crazy hot when it's 80°+. I had to have a cooling fan running on my frag tank over the past couple weeks to keep it stable.
  • do no more tank setup except things required to get the new display tank ready. No more fish, no more rocks, no more hoarding corals, nothing. Just get the new display 100% up and running.
  • setup the new tank. Move rocks/substrate/whatever into it after having given them a rinse and/or soak in RO or a vat of fresh saltwater, as appropriate.
  • treat the new tank as if you're starting from scratch. Slowly add basic fish. Do another ICP test after it's been awhile to make sure nothing is leaching.
Succinctly, the safe thing is if the livestock is all dead, simplify and start fresh. It costs money and time to do that, which can be frustrating. However it's likely overall less expensive time/money to do it that way.
Click to expand...
All the fish being moved into the stock tank happened i a 2 week window as far as precise dates I don't have them but was relatively quick.

Thanks alot for your detailed reaponses and attempt to enlighten me. It's greatly appreciated to make it clear. So is all the feedback from everyone else.

Definitely not planning to add any more fish to the stock tank. Or nothing living for that matter.

It was my thoughts to just let the rocks sit in the water they are already in. In a hopes the ammonia phase pases. If that's a bad idea I could dump the water and start over as you suggest?

I should have just enough salt left to do that without taping into the actual salt I have for my current main tank and the 210gallon tank it's self.

I have 2 baby yellow tangs and a baby blue tang that are in the frag tank. Intended for the 210. But they are happy and healthy, not in any rush to move them anywhere for a good while. The Only other fish I'm curretly considering is a wrasse for the frag tank again not implying intet to rush here.

I also agree with how u described things for all i know a fish could have been sick way to many varriants to truely break things down.

If there is no actual merit to waiting before replacing the water, I could go ahead and do that today.

I have carbon and some reactors but not really sure how to set that up. So i will look into it as a add on option after saapping thw water
 
Just let everything cure in that stock tank for a month or so (I'd put the sand or crushed coral in that you plan to use as well). Put some of the live rock I gave you in there too to jumpstart it as well (just smash the vermetids first). Ghost feed cheap flakes once every few days. Patience.

When you're done, just transfer the substrate into the new tank, none of the water. This is how we started tanks for decades, it will work.
 
Sounds good. The reason I personally would do at least one ICP test and I'd consider swapping all the water is there's no proof things died because of ammonia. Things dying also causes ammonia.

In your position I wouldn't know what actually caused the problem, so I'd want to rule things out. Swapping the water clears out anything bad in the water, and I personally would not want all the stuff I'm about to move to my brand new display to spend a month soaking in water that killed all my previous fish (without at least some secondary test showing that water is good and that something sketchy didn't make its way in).

Swapping the water might be overkill, but it wouldn't hurt anything at this point, and removes a question.

However, I'm not strongly advocating for anything, just saying I'd at least do some ICP tests and toss in stuff that removes badness, if not swap a ton of water.

Regarding tapping into the other salt, I'm all on board with trying to be frugal. As someone who also tries to do that, I find it valuable to also make sure I'm not being penny-wise, pound-foolish. Not saying you are, but I find it really easy to try and save little things and then get burned big spends elsewhere. Eg as @Alexander1312 said earlier in a different way, the best way to have this be inexpensive is simplify.

Best of luck, and looking forward to see the floors with the fully setup tank!
 
Darkxerox said:
Just let everything cure in that stock tank for a month or so (I'd put the sand or crushed coral in that you plan to use as well). Put some of the live rock I gave you in there too to jumpstart it as well (just smash the vermetids first). Ghost feed cheap flakes once every few days. Patience.

When you're done, just transfer the substrate into the new tank, none of the water. This is how we started tanks for decades, it will work.
Click to expand...

Didn't crushed the vermatids just dumped some in my frag tanks sump and other in stock tank. Sounds like i should fish them out and hit the vermatids.

I need to bleach the crushed coral i took out of the 65gallon. I took it out and it it sjt jn fresh 2-3 days. It's been dried out for about 2 weeks now. But probably full of dead crap i wouldn't want in tbe tank.

I have more crush coral that wasn't used I could add sooner.
 
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richiev said:
Sounds good. The reason I personally would do at least one ICP test and I'd consider swapping all the water is there's no proof things died because of ammonia. Things dying also causes ammonia.

In your position I wouldn't know what actually caused the problem, so I'd want to rule things out. Swapping the water clears out anything bad in the water, and I personally would not want all the stuff I'm about to move to my brand new display to spend a month soaking in water that killed all my previous fish (without at least some secondary test showing that water is good and that something sketchy didn't make its way in).

Swapping the water might be overkill, but it wouldn't hurt anything at this point, and removes a question.

However, I'm not strongly advocating for anything, just saying I'd at least do some ICP tests and toss in stuff that removes badness, if not swap a ton of water.

Regarding tapping into the other salt, I'm all on board with trying to be frugal. As someone who also tries to do that, I find it valuable to also make sure I'm not being penny-wise, pound-foolish. Not saying you are, but I find it really easy to try and save little things and then get burned big spends elsewhere. Eg as @Alexander1312 said earlier in a different way, the best way to have this be inexpensive is simplify.

Best of luck, and looking forward to see the floors with the fully setup tank!
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Yea all good, will need more salt soon anyway, but kinda had salt put to side to start the tank as item needed to get the tank going checked off lol. If i actually need to use it of course i would. Just implying it's someone reserved for a future purpose.
 
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