Help! Charcoal dust everywhere!

[htz100]

I am working at a lab at Penn State where we have a large tank to keep cold water corals. This morning when I came in to feed them the water was black with charcoal dust, almost no visibility at all.

Details:

About 500 gallon tank/sump

A pump (IWAKI Magnet Pump MD-55RLT) pumps water from the sump into the X100 Filter Housing (filled with charcoal) after which it passes through the Smart UV sterilizer. The skimmer is separately connected to the sump.

This set up has worked fine for weeks but all of a sudden it leaked the charcoal overnight. Yesterday I fed them and turned the pump on/off as I always have.

Some weeks ago there was some charcoal dust in the water, but I thought the reason was the sump had gotten too low and the pump intake wasnt fully submerged. This caused the pressure in the filter to flop around and maybe caused the dust to leak into the water. This morning the pressure in the filter was stable and at normal level.

So my questions: what could cause this? How should I fix it? (A full water change would be a giant nightmare, I can only fill about 40 gal of water or so per day) And any ideas how hazardous this is to corals and a couple crabs?


What Ive done is remove the filter housing bag, which is intact and all the charcoal from the bag. Ive put in some filter fiber to hopefully absorb some of the cycling dust. It doesnt look like the bag burst open, im flummoxed as to what could of caused this.

thanks!

 

[bjohanson1234]

When I use carbon, I always rinsed it to remove any dust that was in it.

I beleive that you did the right thing in putting the filter floss in. It should help. I dont think the dust itself is toxic to the animals but it could irritate them.

Good luck, keep us posted, and welcome to the site

 

[daugherty]

i would change as much water as you can. and as for why it did that i have no idea unless the carbon was added without rinsing it first. man that sucks i hope it all clears up for you

 

[htz100]

Id agree about the carbon being added without rinsing, but the carbons been in there for months, why now should the dust suddenly show up?

Someone else was in charge of the tank until two months ago, I havent changed anything in the filter since.

 

[daugherty]

could anything have stired it up in the canister?

 

[htz100]

The charcoal has been in the filter for months, untouched. I cant think why this would happen all of a sudden now. There is nothing else in the filter to stir it up, the only other thing I could think of as a possibility is if the pump started stuttering and caused the pressure in the filter housing to jump around. But if thats the case, I should be able to hear if the pump was having problems. And the water flow back into the main tank is as strong and stable as ever.

 

[daugherty]

that could be it but i just dont know. i whish i could help more. maybe somebody else will have some ideas.

 

[dcantucson]

To me it sounds like some of the carbon got loose and got ground up by the return and sprayed into the tank.

 

[project5k]

maybe a power outage/blink or series of blinks, caused some back flow that moved the carbon around, and or depending on what the carbon is in, perhaps that started leaking, ie the bag got torn? something along thoes lines???

 

[ccCapt]

I know 3 of the professors at PSU who take care of the 500g reef tank in the Hub center. Get in touch with Sanjay Joshi (Engineering Dept), Ken Feldman (Chemistry Dept), or D. Scott Bennett (History Dept). I'm sure they can tell you what happened and what to do about it.