Issue with Coral Die off when Heat to House is turned on

[DoobDob]

This will be my 2nd winter with my reef tank, I also run a wood stove in the same room as the tank. I can't really blame the algae growth and some corals dying on the season alone, because of the holidays I've some what neglected my tank a bit but i'm back on track and everything seems normal again. I've got some cyano growing on the corner of my tank now, but I think that's more to do with forgetting to plug back in a powerhead.

 

[don_chuwish]

I always have a slight pH drop once the outside temps fall - just because we don't leave the doors open for the dogs as much. If we leave the house for a weekend or whatever, pH goes up. Most definitely CO2 levels in the house - but I haven't noticed any impact on coral. The change is actually pretty small - 7.9ish becomes 7.8ish. I can never seem to get above 8 for any length of time.
I've tried a CO2 scrubber on the skimmer, I've tried running an air line for the skimmer to the crawl space under the house. Didn't really seem to make a difference.
As to the OP - the wood stove would have been pulling air out of the house - which also pulls air into the house. Good for fresh air exchange. I think that is more significant than the oil boiler that isn't even in the house.

 

[fermentedhiker]

I would tend to agree with some of the previous posts. The woodstove has to pull air from the living space which exits up the chimney forcing fresh air to be pulled in through any air leaks in the shell. The proof would be in a PH probe as suggested or just doing a lot of PH tests to graph the tank through the day. If it's PH drop from CO2 then a fresh air line to the skimmer if possible seems like the cheapest fix.

 

[Lousybreed]

I do not have any issues and I live in WI. The winters are long here.

 

[playapixie]

I also have radiant oil heat, and I do experience nominally lower pH once it gets colder out, which I attribute to lack of fresh air circulation inside once the windows are shut for winter, which might be more of an issue in houses without forced air heat. However, I monitor pH continually via Apex, and the difference is only ~0.1. And I don’t experience any die-off related to it.

 

[RtomKinMad]

We also live in WI and have an apex on our 300 gal reef. As soon as we close the windows in either season change our ph drops to 7.6 or 7.8 and our reef doesn’t do well at those levels. This summer we added a CO2 scrubber and an outside airline both and the ph is steady at 8.0 since. And our coral has improved. We also have pets In The house which use up oxygen too. Good topic though. Wish I had read this last year!

 

[Hookster15]

i live in chicago and i had to add a outside line to the skimmer, and ph is perfect, never any fluctuation.

 

[ADAM]

A condition caused with indoor heating is lessened Oxygen. Ever heard the saying “the house is so dry because the gas, oil, wood heat is so warm it burns off the moisture”? This statement is inaccurate the moisture (humidity) isn’t burned off, it’s pushed outside. As the air in the house is heated it expands. Think of your car tire pressures on cold mornings when the “Low Tire Pressure” warning comes on but as you drive the warning goes away. As the tire, and the air inside, warms up from friction on the road the pressure inside the tire rises turning the alarm off. Did you add air, no. The air expanded due to the heat of friction and the tire pressure goes up. This holds true with out homes too. As we heat the air it inside it expands and we loose some air to the outside world, therefore when our humidity in the air is 40% and the heat cycles a few times the humidity is 38% not because the heat burned it off but we pushed some of that moisture outside during heating (expanding) of the air. Now as the heat cycles off and the house becomes a more stagnant pressure the humidity outside is generally lower during the winter and that humidity isn’t replenished with outside air infiltration. So with the thinner air the ratio of CO (or other contaminants) to oxygen is greater. An outdoor line to the skimmer and/or CO scrubber would help if the CO levels were elevated, however any other airborne VOCs could have a greater impact on the system as their ratio to oxygen is also greater.

Now with that said, if you have a fossil fuel furnace or wood stove connected to the living space (other than by ductwork), I would make sure it it has fresh outside air for the combustion air. Most house by now would, but if you furnace or drive is in the living space if the home and inadequate combustion air isn’t available it will burn the oxygen from the living space which is not good for your tank and most importantly You! As we make our homes more efficient over the years with better doors, windows, weather stripping, and the such this condition would be worsened from the heat using up the indoor air for fire and outside air not being able to come in as easily. A gas fired appliance should have one square inch for every 1,000 BTU of input. So a 100k BTU input furnace should have a minimum unrestricted fresh air openeing of 100 square inches or 10”x 10” opening. However if a grille or grate is used on the opening the hole would have to be larger to accommodate for the area taken up by the grille. On average most return air grilles take up 20% of the opening, so a 20x20 return grille only has a free air opening of 320 square inches.

So one situation has your CO (or VOC) - Ox ratio as a possible culprit, and the other has low indoor Ox as the other. Also if the problem seems to begin with the use of the wood stove and then worsen with the oil burner it may be particulate ash making its way into the inside air, thus into the tank and dropping the pH, and then unable to recover as the season progresses and the depleted Ox levels.

Hope this could be of some help. Anyone with a fuel burning appliance be sure to have CO detectors and possibly an indoor air quality monitor. Detectors and/monitors really aren’t expensive compared to that Homewrecker frag or gold torch you bought last month! Hahaha

 

[JDtimk]

I use an air pump that pushes 10-20 LPM of air from the outside through a line into a manifold. This is the type of pump that is used to power airstones in small ponds, so it's pushing a good volume of air.
I use one line off the manifold to push air into my venturi inlet on the skimmer. The other four lines push air into an upflow algae scrubber. The combination of those two has pretty much made up for the seasonal dip in pH due to increased CO2 concentrations in the house.

I mention this because sometimes I read that people tried running a fresh air line from the outside to their skimmer inlet and didn't notice any difference. I definitely feel that pushing air with a strong pump is much more effective than trying to have your skimmer draw air in through a tube on it's own.

If you get a pump that has both inlet and outlet fittings, you can connect a canister of activated carbon to the inlet side of the air pump and it will filter out most any air borne pollutants before the air gets pumped into your skimmer.

 

[joeyamador]

For the last two years, right when I switch from burning our wood stove to radiant oil heat, I have a large die off of coral. The coral loses color, looks terrible then algae takes over parts of the coral. When this occurred in the past, I have changed water, blamed it on heaters, blamed it on everything under the sun. This year I have been monitoring everything with my APEX and have done weekly water tests. I am wondering why this would be occurring. Could it be a PH issue due to dissolved oxygen? That is the only thing that I am not testing (PH). Could the wood stove starve the tank of oxygen, drop the PH, and then when it is shut down the Oxygen returns, drives up the PH and cause the die off?


This occurred with my 60 gallon reef in previous years. This year I upgraded to a 175 and it happened again. My parameters have been rock solid (Alk 9.5-10, Calc 420-440, Mag 1350, Nitrate 2-5ppm, Phosphorus 0.03ppm) My salinity did drift from 35 to 37 but that was over time and corrected back to 35. My temp has been stable between 77.5 and 78. My ATO is configured to top off 4 times a day and never runs dry. The whole system is controlled by APEX. I’m baffled!

I had a similar issue a few years back and started using a co2 scrubber.. havent had an issue since.

 

[joeyamador]

I use an air pump that pushes 10-20 LPM of air from the outside through a line into a manifold. This is the type of pump that is used to power airstones in small ponds, so it's pushing a good volume of air.
I use one line off the manifold to push air into my venturi inlet on the skimmer. The other four lines push air into an upflow algae scrubber. The combination of those two has pretty much made up for the seasonal dip in pH due to increased CO2 concentrations in the house.

I mention this because sometimes I read that people tried running a fresh air line from the outside to their skimmer inlet and didn't notice any difference. I definitely feel that pushing air with a strong pump is much more effective than trying to have your skimmer draw air in through a tube on it's own.

If you get a pump that has both inlet and outlet fittings, you can connect a canister of activated carbon to the inlet side of the air pump and it will filter out most any air borne pollutants before the air gets pumped into your skimmer.

I use soda lime and a reactor currently because I hate the pump sound and it's only 7$ a bag that last me a good while.

 

[sfin52]

If the problem is CO2 accumulation due to wintertime closed spaces, you should see that as a persistent decrease of your pH level as compared to before. You should be able to assess for this kind of thing easily with your Apex. However unless you have particularly severe inside CO2 levels, like 1000 or higher, I doubt it would drive your pH low enough to actually kill things (although growth would slow for sure.)

I can't see how the oil radiant heat as you describe it would raise CO2 levels or affect your aquarium directly in any other way aside from room temp.

I'd actually be more concerned about the wood stove. First, burning wood gives off tons of CO2 and can definitely raise your inside CO2 air level. Also if you can smell the smell of wood burning in your house when it's in use, some of those combustion products are also getting into your aquarium water (although less so if you don't run a skimmer.) If that's the case, maybe you're seeing a delayed effect from exposing them to that for 6 weeks? Also, the comment just posted by @rossco about forest fire smoke killing his acros may support this as the source of your problem.

That's is what I was thinking.

 

[dangros]

I think CO2 is probably your issue. It tends to be a problem for folks this time of year, especially in colder places. If you can run a CO2 scrubber or (perhaps even better?) run your skimmer airline outside so that it pulls in fresh air, that would likely help a lot.

Btw, I added a poll to the post to help get more view/interaction.

I live in the northern Virginia/DC area and winters get pretty cold. I notice a drop in the tank's pH even when guests come over and spend a lot of time in the living room (where the tank sits). I found that cracking open a window or 2 can bleed in fresh air with out freezing the house and maintain a good balance. I tried a scrubber in the past. It worked incredibly well but was not worth the hassle or the expense. The scrubber media lasted only 2 weeks at best and from what I read, is not healthy if breathed in. Last thing I need is toxic dust in my house.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

For the last two years, right when I switch from burning our wood stove to radiant oil heat, I have a large die off of coral. The coral loses color, looks terrible then algae takes over parts of the coral. When this occurred in the past, I have changed water, blamed it on heaters, blamed it on everything under the sun. This year I have been monitoring everything with my APEX and have done weekly water tests. I am wondering why this would be occurring. Could it be a PH issue due to dissolved oxygen? That is the only thing that I am not testing (PH). Could the wood stove starve the tank of oxygen, drop the PH, and then when it is shut down the Oxygen returns, drives up the PH and cause the die off?


This occurred with my 60 gallon reef in previous years. This year I upgraded to a 175 and it happened again. My parameters have been rock solid (Alk 9.5-10, Calc 420-440, Mag 1350, Nitrate 2-5ppm, Phosphorus 0.03ppm) My salinity did drift from 35 to 37 but that was over time and corrected back to 35. My temp has been stable between 77.5 and 78. My ATO is configured to top off 4 times a day and never runs dry. The whole system is controlled by APEX. I’m baffled!

Just thinking out loud. But you may have small carbon monoxide leak. Leak small enough you cant sense. And would add to your situation? If never tested your oil burning heater. Online testers start at about $20

 

[ca1ore]

More correlation than causation. I have pH fluctuations across seasons - lowest in the Summer when house is closed up and RH high- and never seen coral deaths as a result.

 

[bblumberg]

Throw a pH monitor on your apex if pH/low oxygen is your working theory. Unless it's a serious pH drop and oxygen depletion, which it doesn't sound like it is based on your naturally ventilated stone foundation, I doubt normal seasonal pH drops would cause such devastation.

Could be it's something really weird like your copper plumbing is sweating and dripping into your basement sump when you turn on the radiant heat.... So many things could be at play in the scenario you described it's tough to say.

Maybe an ICP is needed to rule out elevated levels of some element that can cause problems if out of the NSW range.

Dunno about your water system, but here in Southern California, the water sources for our local water district change throughout the year, depending on supply. The water district also puts additives to change the pH of the water at various times of the year. This often leads to slab leaks for people who have copper plumbing.

I agree with the recommendation to monitor pH and try an ICP test such as Triton, ATS or whoever you prefer. This should alert you to any serious problems with the water.

Some water districts add chloramine to the supply water, which is not always completely removed by typical carbon block prefilters in our RODI units. For example, the Irvine Ranch Water district where I live adds chloramine to the water whereas others may or may not. A few grams of sodium thiosulfate added into your new salt water mix will obviate this at a very low cost and without collateral problems.

 

[Ray668]

I had problems till I ran skimmer air inlet outside ph was a lot more stable and no more algae outbreaks

 

[powers2001]

I may have missed it but I'm shocked no one mentioned ambient light. The outdoor light that enters our houses through windows. If you have a basement tank or tank where there is little or no windows it wouldn't matter as much or not at all. The range in difference of ambient light in the summer to winter can be the difference between light and dark. The photoperiod difference between the longest day of the year to the shortest here in Montana is almost 8 hours. Just as a for instance many of the BRS lighting videos where they measure PAR at various depths and distances from the light source, they mention PAR is significantly greater at the front of the tank just from the ambient light in the room.

Well the swings in PAR from winter to summer due to ambient light could make a significant difference. On December 21, the shortest day of the year, I'm going to take some PAR readings from my tank sitting in a room with three good sized windows at 6 p.m. Then if I can remember 6 months later to tank PAR readings at the same points in the tank on June 21 at 6 p.m. just as a ballpark figure comparison. There's a lot of variables not taken into consideration but it will give me an idea of the change in seasons and the difference in ambient light.

 

[justjes45]

This is my EXACT same situation. Sadly it took me two

 

[justjes45]

I have this EXACT same situation. Sadly, it took me two rough winters to even hear of this being a thing. I have started to dose Kalkwasser, but am open to ANY other advice on how to prevent this from happening!