Coincidence?

[Aquarian]

Carbon dioxide? Oxygen depletion?
What else is common to the tanks? Calcium additive? Salt? Air born pesticides, or hairspray? There has to be a common ingredient.

 

[Marinne13]

Carbon dioxide? Oxygen depletion?
What else is common to the tanks? Calcium additive? Salt? Air born pesticides, or hairspray? There has to be a common ingredient.

wouldn't you think all of these would harm coral though? mine get pissed when I light a candle

 

[Aquarian]

You would think but you have to eliminate all of the possible. You never know something is affecting the fish.

 

[FishyReef]

Environmental is unlikely, because the tanks are across 2 different locations - the 90g is at my office and the others are at home, so it shouldn't be something in the air. I wondered about oxygen depletion, but all tanks are getting good air exchange across the water and I don't see any fish acting like they can't get oxygen (i.e., breathing heavy at the top of the water). I also don't think its carbon dioxide build-up because at least at home I've still had windows open. Salt mix is possible, but I have used two different containers of salt bought from different stores at different times (but same brand) so it seems unlikely it would have come from the same lot.

I do wonder about stray voltage. All of my pumps are koralias and in 2 of the tanks are two years old. Though I thought stray voltage would seriously affect inverts before fish? At least the fish in the 90g have started to act like they are being bullied (even though I haven't seen anything prior to them acting this way), and I did read somewhere that low levels of stray voltage can lead fish like wrasses to think they are being bullied.

The guys from the LFS came last night to do the water change - their comment was "everything looks healthy" - and therein lies my dilema! Everything looks fine until a fish up and dies, and with 7 in 2 weeks something isn't right! A few things they did find were that my phosphates were really high and my alk was low. Not sure if either of those would kill off fish without harming corals/inverts, but the large water change should have helped with that. Changing the media in my reactor and changing my dosing schedule should also help.

In the mean time I'm watching the rest of the fish closely and keeping my fingers crossed.

Rob, I wish I could send you a sample of my water to run through the mass spec - that would be fascinating! There is a guy in my local club who works at a lab, I should see if he could run it through at his lab.

 

[mariobrothersleeve]

High phoshates and low alk should affect corals first, not fish. Stray voltage is a simple check, you said you moved. Doesn't take much besides a bent cord.

 

[ReeferRob]

Corals are MUCH tougher than people give them credit for. When, every 6 hours, you're thrust out of the water, sometimes in the blazing tropical sun, you adapt or die. You don't have the ability to move so you're at the mercy of where you landed. Fish, on the other hand, can move out of a bad situation.

As other have said, it could be stray voltage. I'm not much with electricity so I'll defer to those who know electricity better than do I. You might want to try a grounding rod of some sort. Do you have the same type/ batch of Korallia pumps in both tanks? That could be your common denominator.

 

[mariobrothersleeve]

Corals are MUCH tougher than people give them credit for. When, every 6 hours, you're thrust out of the water, sometimes in the blazing tropical sun, you adapt or die. You don't have the ability to move so you're at the mercy of where you landed. Fish, on the other hand, can move out of a bad situation.

As other have said, it could be stray voltage. I'm not much with electricity so I'll defer to those who know electricity better than do I. You might want to try a grounding rod of some sort. Do you have the same type/ batch of Korallia pumps in both tanks? That could be your common denominator.

haha, you said thrust

 

[ReeferRob]

haha, you said thrust

Shut up Bevis!