Help, what happened?

[gjuarez]

Guys, I need help answering a question. Earlier this week I lost a couple of frags and a fish. My blue tip tenius acro RTNed and so did my orange cap that I got from Tim. My coral beauty also passed on to a better life and all this happened over night. While inspecting my tank I noticed that there was an oily substance in the surface. I do have a pump breaking the surface so that is not the norm in my tank.

I quickly checked all of the pumps and they were all working fine. I did do something different that day though, I added a used Maxijet for more flow. I cleaned the pump very good before I added it but did not soak it in vinegar. Do you guys think the maxijet was what caused my corals and fish to die? Where could the oily substance come from? I am confused. HELP.
Jerry

[jaded]

what are your water perams, temp, ph... any new additions to the tank (livestock, etc...)

[gjuarez]

No new additions, except for the couple of frags that I got from the Fin-addict meeting. My parameters are normal and constant. Temperature is at 82 degrees and ph is around 8.2-8.3. What about the oily substance? I had never had that and I think that may be the cause of it.

[jaded]

Sorry to hear of your losses...

I assume you don't have an overflow and your pulling water into filters/sump from under the surface? Do you have an external pump or any other type of pump that may have seals that have broken down? I only ask because PH's dont have lubricant. I always had an oil slick on top of my 46, but it was just enough to show a rainbow of color and wasn't thick in any way (I didnt have a pump on the surface). If its thick enough to build up even with a ph breaking the water surface then I'd say you're on the right track for finding out what happened.

Are you absolutely sure that you or someone else didn't put dirty hands, detergent or something else in there? If you can't find a dirty hand or pump thats breaking down then I cant help much. If your sand bed (or anything else) was crashing then you would see that in the params.

[gjuarez]

I have a bare bottom tank, no sandbed. I have been home alone for the past three weeks so I doubt there was any dirty hands inside my tank. I do have an overflow and a sump in the bottom. i just dont know where all this stuff came from.

[CD]

How's your skimmer been producing?

W.

[Thunderkat]

How much of the oily stuff was there?

Can you give us a complete list of the types of fish and inverts you have in your tank?

I know some fish and inverts secrete toxins when stressed but don't know what you have in there.

[Tim Marvin]

Sounds like a pump to me.. Is the new pump still running? This is pretty common for a Rio pump.

[gjuarez]

Yeah Tim, all the pumps are still running and working fine. As far as fish, I only had a coral beauty and she died. My skimmer has been consistent with the amount of gunk it is producing. Even though this happend, it is not producing more or less gunk. Kind of a weird situation.

There is one more possibility to this problem. Two days before the incidnet the lights went out because of a thunder storm and I lit a candle. I didn't think it could affect my tank so I went ahead with it. You guys think this could be the answer to my problem?

[christerrell2k3]

wait, did all of the power go out 2 days before the indcident or just your lights?

[gjuarez]

All the power went out, but not for two days, maybe for like an hour and a half or two.

[fx300]

You should first remove the pump to see if that takes care of the problem. Secondly, do a water change doing these two things can give you an idea if it was the pump or not.

Fabian
Brownsville

[gjuarez]

Yeah, I did a water change. There is no more oily stuff. I will try removing pumpps one by one and check them thoroughly.

[GaryP]

Oily waste is often organic waste that builds up on the surface if you don't have adequate surface skimming of the tank. The reason most reef tanks have some sort of surface skimming overflow is to remove this material and send it to the skimmer. If the water going to your skimmer is from below the surface then it allows this waste layer to build up.

We often have to much suface agitation in a typical tank and it disrupts this layer and it does not get skimmed efficiently. What type of overflow do you have on your tank? The oily layer may have simply been the result of the dead material in your tank releasing it as a by-product of decay.

[gjuarez]

I have a standard U-tube overflow. Gary, I have a powerhead agitating the surface. Maybe it is disrupting it like you said and it is not getting skimmed efficiently. Should I remove it and see what happens? I had never had this problem before, I still think that the oily substance came from an external factor, maybe even a pump. I was home alone for three weeks so that confuses me even more. What about the candle I lit, could that have caused it? It is an unsolved mistery.

[GaryP]

Just re-direct the flow on the pump downward so the surface is not heavily agitated. This may have been something besides waste, but in either case you want it going to the skimmer so that it will remove it. That's the whole idea behind surface skimming with your overflow. You want these oily compounds such as fats and proteins to form a layer on top that is being sent to your protein skimmer for removal.

[gjuarez]

Oh, cool. I didnt know that, i learn something new every day. I will give it a try and see what happends. I will post pics as soon as possible. Thanks Gary.

[GaryP]

Gerry,

You might want to read some of the stuff that Anthony Calfo has written on this subject. This is the idea behind a Calfo overflow. To skim a very thin layer of water across the whole surface of the tank so that you are getting the most concentrated organic layer going to the skimmer. I plan on putting a Calfo overflow into my next tank. I have a 24" wide HOB overflow on it now.

[gjuarez]

I was actually thinking of that the other day. I saw Pete's tank and I really liked it. I am not to far from upgrading to a 75g tank so i will probably do it to that one. Thanks for the suggestion Gary.

[brewercm]

Just curious, but I had this problem happen before with my 75 qand my hang on overflow.
In my case there was a sponge prefilter in the back of the overflow and it was basically getting too clogged. You can tell if you are getting a good flow through the box by looking at the water level at the overflow box.
If the level of the water inside the box (gong throught the teeth) is not below the tank level you are not getting the skimming effect Gary is talking about. Check that and see if you need to adjust your overflow or clean out any pre-filters if they exist, that oily residue will happen very fast (and is natural) and in my case it caused an algae bloom almost instantly because of the lighting affect it had on the tank.

[gjuarez]

You know, I havent cleaned that sponge filter in a very long time. I will do that today. Thanks Brewer