Tank may be in danger? MAY be

[dan203]

i may just be being over protective..LOL...but my clown seems to be breathing very hard. I was putting some hanging hooks over the tank and some sheetrock dust got in the tank and IM VERY WORRIED itmay be affecting the fish...my torch seems to be mad too. I took my skimmer off and have my airstone in a bucket with new fish. What do i do? I have no RO water on me, but i could do an emergency 5 gallon water change in my 10. My yellow scroal coral polyps are out though and the xenia is pulsing. the lights are currently off with a moon light on. what do i do?

[MikeDeL]

I would say hook the skimmer back up toss in a bag of carbon and in the morning run out and get some RO for a water change.


HTH
Mike

[dan203]

does sheetrock affect the water though?

[MikeDeL]

I dont know if sheet rock is inert or not, but I wouldnt want any in my tank. There is probably god knows what in it. If the fish just started acting like this, then my first guess would be the sheetrock. How much sheet rock are we talking about? A couple flakes or a big clump?


Mike

[dan203]

specks, will wait to see how they are in morning

[blueboy]

sheetrock is made entirely of gypsum, with a little bit of fiber for reinforcement. i don't think either should affect your chemistry, esspecially in a small amount.

[DaveJohnson]

When I was remodeling my kitchen I got quite a bit of sheetrock dust in my 100 gal. tank. Didn't seem to cause any problems for me, though I'd not make a habit of adding it. :)

If you're worried, try carbon as suggested above.

Cheers,
Dave Johnson

[Tim Marvin]

I've gotten lots of sheetrock dust in mine also with no problems.

[JeffCo]

me too, but I would still do a water change. It's always good!

[StephenA]

When I hung my lights I got sheet rock in the tank and had no issues.

[GaryP]

Sheet rock is mainly Calcium Sulfate. Its chemicaly inert, and no its not going to raise you calcium levels. Its insoluble in water. It may just had some suspended solids to your water and that is what your corals are reacting to, the same way they would if you stirred up your sand bed. Some sort of physical filtration should remove it. Carbon will remove any chemical additives that may be present from the sheetrock manufacturing process, but we are talking very low levels there. The carbon will also remove the very small particles present in the water.

Gary

[dan203]

everything is now perfect, thanks for the concern.