Massive Tank Disaster; Now what?

[FreshwaterJeff]

Well, I had my first large-scale tragedy today. I arrived home from work and noticed my vortex CO2 reactor bubbling like crazy, and then noticed all my fish were dead.

Somehow, the water in my bubble counter had dried up over the course of the day (it had been at a constant level since I started injecting CO2), allowing the CO2 to spill unchecked into my aquarium and causing a severe pH crash. I tested the water, and it was off the charts on the low end (which meant below 6.0). It must have been very, very low because it was irritating my hands as I netted my deceased fish out of the tank. Needless to say, there were no survivors.

Having never dealt with a situation like this, I'm uncertain how to proceed and have several questions:

1. First, is there any chance the bacteria in the tank survived, which would make this more of a recovery effort than a rebuilding one?

2. If so - what steps do I need to take to salvage the tank environment? (If not, I guess that means starting from scratch - which I know how to do.)

3. Are the plants going to survive if I leave them in there? They look good as of right now, but I know it won't last.

As initial steps, I've turned off the CO2 and removed the dead fish from the tank. What else should I be doing?

Thanks for the help. This is a really discouraging feeling - I had finally gotten the stock in the tank the way I wanted it, and it took me a long time to track down the various species I had in there. I almost have the impulse to start over and do something completely different - but I'm not going to make that decision impulsively. For now, I plan on rebuilding the stock of the tank much the way it was (though I'm likely to substitute another dwarf cichlid for the GBR's)...

[Lotus]

Sorry to hear about the problems

1. The bacteria in the tank are probably fine.
2. The plants will probably be fine.
3. Do a large water change, test the water.

4. Install a bubble wand/wall/stone in the tank, to make sure this doesn't happen again.

[MOsborne05]

Awww Jeff that sucks I know how hard you searched for that Leopard Frog, hopefully you will be able to find another.

[FreshwaterJeff]

Thanks for the condolences. I'm pretty bummed out.

I have a bubble wand, but it was only running at night. Had it been on, would it have just made the CO2 release into the air?

If so, that's good to know. Thanks, Lotus.

MO - I'm crossing my fingers that the breeder I got my first L-134 from still has some on hand...

[Lotus]

Adding an airstone will somewhat reduce the CO2 levels, but it's also insurance against disaster for your fish. With a pressurized system, you should increase surface agitation somewhat. The extra loss of CO2 isn't significant, and increased oxygenation will help the fish. It's about increasing oxygen, and you can bump up the CO2 to compensate, if you need to.

While CO2 doesn't displace oxygen, if you don't have enough surface movement, there won't necessarily be enough oxygen in the tank for your fish.

[bigfoot150]

Well before you do anything figure out what caused your CO2 to bubble out of control. A bubble counter will not do this as it doesn't let off excess CO2... it just bubbles. I suspect you have an issue with your needle valve as I have run into this same problem myself. At the time i was using a shoddy valve and one night it opened way up. Luckily i caught it before it killed all my fish but they were still gasping at the surface for air.

[FreshwaterJeff]

bigfoot - Fair enough - it probably is the needle valve. But what would cause the water to evaporate out of the bubble counter? Also, I have one of the Milwaukee MA957 units (eBay: Milwaukee MA957 CO2 Adjustable Flow Pressure Regulator (item 280094645823 end time Mar-22-07 22:02:49 PDT)) - is there a way (as far as you know) to replace the needle valve, or am I stuck with the proposition of buying a whole new unit?

Lotus - I had two Rio 180's running on the surface to create agitation, and the way my plants were pearling, I don't think oxygenation was an issue. I think it was purely the pH crash that caused the deaths.

[papyrus]

Jeff,I can only imagine the shock you must have felt.Hopefully the advice given here will help you trouble shoot the problem.Goodluck ,with a new set-up.I am sincerely sorry for your loss.-D

[FreshwaterJeff]

I had unplugged my CO2 system, but I'm going to plug it back in and keep it running to see whether I can reproduce the malfunction. That will give me a better idea of whether I can trust this piece of equipment or not in the future.

Right now, I'm still in that "sickened feeling" phase where I half-feel like I should just pack it up and give up.

I'm not going to, though.

What I do think I'm going to do is a complete tank rebuild. I realize this may result in needing to re-cycle the tank (but maybe not - luckily, I have a bio-spira source), but I want to get everything how I want it before putting another fish in the tank.

I may even order another bag of eco-complete just to get the substrate depth to where I've always wanted it to be.

This was a big loss, and I'm feeling it. But the silver lining may be the opportunity to completely re-work the tank to a setup I like better.

Just trying to see the bright side. I miss my little guys tremendously, though.

[TheMainer]

Sounds to me like you have experienced an "end of tank dump". This is when the pressure within your Co2 tank equalizes with the pressure outside of the tank. What is the pressure reading on the Co2 tank? Is it lower than normal? How long have you been running the Co2 cylinder and what's its size?

Also, I think I know what happened to the water in your bubble counter. When I first set up my pressurized system, I had filled the bubble counter fill to the top with water. Then when I turned the big nob to release Co2 from the tank (the needle valve was pretty much wide open) a huge rush of Co2 came flying out and guess what... no more water in my bubble counter. I think with the extreme rush of Co2, it was all pushed out of the bubble counter, through the hose and into my tank. If in fact you did have an end of tank dump, this could have happened to you as well.

Just a guess.