signs of heavy metal

[achillesheel]

no this is more serious than motley crue or poison

i think i may have a heavy metal issue with my water. my tank is about 5mo old and in the last month or two, i have lost most of my color and growth has completely stopped. i have completely lost about 9 or 10 small colonies in the last 3 weeks. some pieces bleached and others have just gone brown. the ones i lost all started with recession from the bottom and quickly took over.

i stopped my ozone, keep up with my water changes, all my parameters are ideal. no nitrates,
.02 phosphate, alk 9, calcium 440, temp 80, salinity is 1.026.

well today as was doing some organizing in my sump room i discovered an hole saw that i had apparently left behind one of my display drains on the edge of the sump. it was covered with rust and there was some on the ledge that it was sitting on.

could this misstep be the cause of all my problems? how can i test for other metals besides copper? what are the signs of metals in my water?

and the question i am most afraid of, what do i do if my levels are too high?

thanx for any help

shad

[BLKTANG]

Sorry couldnt resist.

[boxfishpooalot]

That rust is iron oxide. Some may enter the aquarium as dust, but its not the cause of your corals problems. Some of the iron oxide would convert to bioavailable iron and algae and phytoplankton would use it up very quickly. The rest would be a precipitate on the bottom.

Saliferts new kits are off by at least 2dkh or more. Check that out if you purchased a new kit lately. Mine was off.

Keep searching for answers!

[hatfielj]

Could have some stray voltage in your tank coming from a heater or a pump? I would check for that also because that can cause similar problems like you are having.

[achillesheel]

box, well that eases my mind a bit, maybe it was just the ozone. we'll see.

hatfiellj, if it was stray voltage, wouldnt i get a bit of a shock when i put my hand in the tank.

[hatfielj]

It could cause you to get shocked, but not necessarily. If its a small amount of electricity it might not be enough for you to get shocked but might still be enough to stress your tanks inhabitants.
However, it seems like you are using good quality equipment, so it is not as likely that this is the cause. I just thought it might be a remote possibilty.
I know a guy that was using a cheap crappy heater on his tank and had it actually fall apart while in the water. It took him 2 days to realize what was going on, but it ended up frying everything in his tank and almost fried him (he got a really good shock from it and thats how he discovered it)

[Amphiprion]

The problems with various metallic objects is that they have much more than just iron. I would be worried about the other metals, like chromium and zinc. Rusting objects DO cause problems because of this.

[nava405]

how can you check for stray voltage if it's not strong enough to feel it ?

[GreshamH]

Any multimeter will do

[Horace]

What you are describing could be a result of 1000s of different things. I think it would be a good start gettign that hole saw out of there, but I would also start looking long and hard at all sorts of differnt things. I find it unlikely that some stray voltage is doing this, but its possible I suppose. More often than not these types of events occur from swings in KH or salinity.

I would start by doing a number of water changes, running new batch of carbon, and keep everything stable. You might even check your halides (if you ahve them) for cracks which would cause UV burns to the corals.

[ahchung]

I heard that iron based phosphate absorber (ferric oxide) will bind heavy metals. I don't know whether this is true though.

[RichConley]

Originally posted by boxfishpooalot
That rust is iron oxide. Some may enter the aquarium as dust, but its not the cause of your corals problems. Some of the iron oxide would convert to bioavailable iron and algae and phytoplankton would use it up very quickly. The rest would be a precipitate on the bottom.

Saliferts new kits are off by at least 2dkh or more. Check that out if you purchased a new kit lately. Mine was off.

Keep searching for answers!

All of the Salifert kits I've bought lately have been awful.


I second this, check your alkalinity with a different kit.

[magnoliarichj]

how old are your bulbs

[jmaneyapanda]

I have had a similar issue recently as well- here are some of my thoughts. First- the ozone. I ran ozone 24/7, and was losing SPS periodically- usually with burning tips. AT first, I blamed my magnesium additions for messing with the alkalinity, but even after a long "recovery", the sps didnt improved. However, afetr I turned off my ozone and did a good water change, I got much better polyp extension, and things look to be healing. I didnt dose much ozone (25 mg/hr), and had repatitive safety to prevent it getting into the tank, so here is what my current hypothesis is- A variety of things perhaps. First, was the ozone oxidizing the bromine in the water to make Bromic acid? Very possible. Secondly, was it oxidizing other trace elements- ie- iodine, molybdenum, etc? Also, possible. So my reaction was to turn off the ozone, and start dosing a little potassium iodine (1%) and some trace elements. Since, eveything looks much better.

I dont know if this helps, but just my thoughts and efforts.

[achillesheel]

well this is my plan. i shut off the ozone, i replaced the carbon in my reactor and will soon be doing a large water change. one thought a friend had was that something might be leaching into my water change water through my trash cans. they are not brute. they are toter from lowes. so thats gone and by the end of the week i will be getting a 165g plastic recepticle that i know wont leach chemicals. i might even think about replacing my calx media since it was after my last change that i started seeing issues. im using a combination of the large a.r.m. media and rowalith.

unfortunately i added/changed/tweaked a few things just before all these problems. so im just going to try and get everything back to the way it was.

my lights are approximately 4mo old. my salifert kits are about 6-8 mo old. no cracks in the bulbs. the recession on all of the corals that ive lost has started from the base. not in chunks like if it were flatworms but just a straight line of receeding tissue.

oh and i did remove the hole saw.

again guys, thanx for all the help because im terribly frustrated. i dont know what to do now. this hobby can be so humbling.

shad

[Icefire]

GFO and Polyfilter will remove metal.

[hatfielj]

Keep us posted. I sincerely hope things settle down for you and the problems cease. I would hate if this happened to my tank and I can totally understand the frustration you're going through. Keep a positive attitude and you'll pull through it fine.

[ScallopKing]

Check your salinity if you're using an older pinpoint salinity monitor - just realized mine is way off after comparing to a refractometer.

[jmaneyapanda]

Originally posted by Icefire
GFO and Polyfilter will remove metal.

??? GFO = Granular feric oxide = metal. It will almost certainly leach iron INTO the water.