Months of struggles (high res pictures, sorry long)
- Thread starter javisaman
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For completeness' sake, I unplugged my UV sterilizer, disconnected its plumbing, and opened it up. The internal part of the quartz sleeve is bone dry.
I used this PVC cement:
This primer:
This thread sealant:
And this O-ring grease:
I used this PVC cement:
Oatey 8 oz. Regular Clear PVC Cement 310133 - The Home Depot
Oatey PVC Regular Bodied Fast Set Clear Cement is recommended for DWV, pressure pipe, potable water and electrical applications. It is easy to apply with included in-lid dauber and its clear color provides
www.homedepot.com
This primer:
Oatey 8 oz. Purple CPVC and PVC Primer 3075633 - The Home Depot
The Oatey 8 oz. PVC and CPVC Purple Primer, made from a mixture of solvents, is designed to remove surface dirt, oils and other contaminants from the surface of PVC or CPVC piping. Not recommended for
www.homedepot.com
This thread sealant:
And this O-ring grease:
ChrisOFL
Active Member
It seems to me that either the sealant or the grease released toxins into your tank. The PVC glue and primer should have no effect when fully dry. It's unfortunate but there is no reason for all your fish and corals to die from UV, it doesn't interact with water in that way. Ammonia from things dieing off would make the problem worse but nothing stands out to me for the cause of death other than those products.
Thanks for the reply. All of the things I listed are what I believe others have used here. The rectorseal 5 (here) and silicone grease (here) are both non-toxic for potable water. I did use both when I built the tank and it was fine for the first year.
I think me posting every possible thing sometimes could turn out to be a red herring. But I hope when someone does look at this thread sometime in the future that they understand what to look out for.
I think me posting every possible thing sometimes could turn out to be a red herring. But I hope when someone does look at this thread sometime in the future that they understand what to look out for.
ChrisOFL
Active Member
If it's been that long then I'll rule those out then too. But something about your UV sterilizer put or created toxins in the tank, I can't see any other reason why your fish and corals would all react so negatively and then die from overnight. UV filters do not destroy biological filtration as that is primarily on the rocks and physical surfaces not the water column.
That's my understanding of it too. However, I'll say that the tank wasn't in the best shape before I started using UV. Something as simple as blowing the rocks would cause the livestock to act negatively. I did put the feed pump (vectra S2) directly into the tank and the extra flow might have stirred things up causing a chain reaction of sorts. This is all speculation of course. Either way at this point it's all behind me now and I have to look at ways of starting over.
If there is any interest in my aquabiomics report--here it is. Too late to really matter, but everything is dead except for a few corals (in another tank now) and the clean-up crew. My biodiversity awful (Vibro took over), and there was apparently some bacterial fish pathogen too. I emailed aquabiomics, hopefully they'll send me an eDNA report on the dinoflagellates (if I really had them).
Sorry about your coral and fish loss. I just came across your thread and was going to ask about the biodiversity of your bacteria.
I am thinking of also doing an aquabiomics bacteria test, but due to Covid turnaround time seem to be much longer?
Can I ask if you did the auabiomics test before or after adding Microbacter7?
I sent after my first major die-off. They received my samples on April 26th and I got the results yesterday. The samples were taken after adding microbacter7 for a few days for a couple of weeks before. However, there may have been some time between the last dose and when I sent in the sample. The scientist in me, says that if there is a carbon source in the microbacter7 maybe the vibrio is better and consuming it than the strains of bacteria in the bottle. Or maybe the strains were dead and I was just pumping the bad bacteria. Keep in mind that they didn't find any of the known coral damaging strains of bacteria, however. I orded the aquabiomics test because they told me that they would include an "eDNA test" that could identify dinoflagelletes, however, that wasn't in the report.
When I think about your current reef sceniorio, I think about two things:
1. Is it the dinoflagelletes that are somehow effecting your corals from being healthy? (Do you have or still have problems with dino's in your tank now?)
From an article in NCBI , Coral Holoboint defined as: coral holobiont is comprised of the coral animal and its associated microorganisms consisting of bacteria, archaea, fungi, viruses, and protists including the dinoflagellate algae Symbiodinium (Rohwer et al., 2002).
2. Somehow your coral holobiont associated with zooxanthella health within your corals were greatly reduced after your filter sock incident. I wonder if even after a couple months, the bacteria and whatever is neceassary for a healthy coral holobiont is still at sub-healthy levels?
If there were no known coral damaging strains of bacteria; have you tried any new tester corals to see if they remain healthy or slowly degrade over time?
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