NEED HELP EMERGENCY! Flourish Iron/ cheato grow killing my tangs!

[alindell]

So I dosed 2 cap fulls of flourish and a few cap fulls of cheato grow in my 160 gallon probably 130 gallons of water volume. Water turned a little cloudy, I turned on a carbon reactor to clear it up. ORP went immediately down when I dosed it and reactor cleared it up a little. Hours later my little blue hippo is dead and my yellow tang is on the verge of death. I separated the yellow tang out and put him in a bucket with fresh saltwater. I'm doing a massive water change. Is there any advice for why this happened or anything else I can do for my tank. All other fish are fine. I do have a powder blue but he seems fine for now. Any help or advice is welcome. I've read iron supplements can hurt tangs???

 

[alindell]

Anyone with chemistry knowledge on this. Maybe Randy can help?

 

[Kate Vellis]

So I dosed 2 cap fulls of flourish and a few cap fulls of cheato grow in my 160 gallon probably 130 gallons of water volume. Water turned a little cloudy, I turned on a carbon reactor to clear it up. ORP went immediately down when I dosed it and reactor cleared it up a little. Hours later my little blue hippo is dead and my yellow tang is on the verge of death. I separated the yellow tang out and put him in a bucket with fresh saltwater. I'm doing a massive water change. Is there any advice for why this happened or anything else I can do for my tank. All other fish are fine. I do have a powder blue but he seems fine for now. Any help or advice is welcome. I've read iron supplements can hurt tangs???

I'm sorry to hear about the tangs. I'm not sure I know what ORP is. I'm wondering about the interaction of the iron and the carbon. Did the iron somehow cause the carbon to precipitate?

 

[vetteguy53081]

So I dosed 2 cap fulls of flourish and a few cap fulls of cheato grow in my 160 gallon probably 130 gallons of water volume. Water turned a little cloudy, I turned on a carbon reactor to clear it up. ORP went immediately down when I dosed it and reactor cleared it up a little. Hours later my little blue hippo is dead and my yellow tang is on the verge of death. I separated the yellow tang out and put him in a bucket with fresh saltwater. I'm doing a massive water change. Is there any advice for why this happened or anything else I can do for my tank. All other fish are fine. I do have a powder blue but he seems fine for now. Any help or advice is welcome. I've read iron supplements can hurt tangs???

Flourish is a Freshwater trace for FW planted tanks and should not be used in saltwater and may have had adverse effects if overdosed. Water changes and carbon will help with reduction/removal

 

[alindell]

Yah I was skeptical about it. I was just trying to help my cheato out. I even dosed it like weeks ago and everything was fine. For some reason it killed my blue hippo tang?? Do you know if cheato grow can kill tangs?

 

[slingfox]

See this thread from a few years ago: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/anyone-used-seachem-flourish-iron-with-tangs.790496/

 

[alindell]

Seen it. Thought ferrous gluconate was safe...have my yellow tang in a bucket. Still alive. Is there anything I can do for him

 

[alindell]

He is breathing and moving a couple fins but not swimming

 

[alindell]

Well he just died. No more breathing. what the heck . I feel like such an idiot for dosing that poison. I guess anyone reading this... DO NOT Dose Iron... just do water changes, if your cheato dies F**k it, just let it die and remove it. I just lost a baby Hippo that was doing super good and now a yellow tang that was practically given to me that I promised I would take good care of. He was probably a few years old and fat and healthy.

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

Well he just died. No more breathing. what the heck . I feel like such an idiot for dosing that poison. I guess anyone reading this... DO NOT Dose Iron... just do water changes, if your cheato dies F**k it, just let it die and remove it. I just lost a baby Hippo that was doing super good and now a yellow tang that was practically given to me that I promised I would take good care of. He was probably a few years old and fat and healthy.

Iron is fine, and appears to be necessary if keeping chaeto. The depletion leading to melt happens quickly when it gets large.

 

[alindell]

This is what iron did

 

[F4u-SuperCorsair]

Why would you grow chaeto if you have to feed it? It's just a tool to remove nitrates.

 

[mtraylor]

Sorry for the loss. That stuff is deadly in a reef with tangs. It simply should not be used in a reef with tangs. They just start breathing heavy and most will perish even after you strip the stuff out or rehouse. Other fish for some reason are not affected.

 

[alindell]

It makes no sense and it's just not only all tangs it's only some. For some reason yellows and blues specifically are affected

 

[mtraylor]

Yeah It affects all tangs, but it is worse on some than others. it seems that the Zebrasoma's have a better chance of recovery if you can get them out quick enough or get the stuff out of the water column fast enough. It is really tuff on Acanthuras as well and most likely will wipe them out first. Its sad to see.

 

[alindell]

Yah I got my yellow out as fast as I could and put him in a bucket but he lasted only a few hours until he did the death throws and died

 

[taricha]

I don't know why this keeps happening. But it seems that the amounts of Fe people add with this product sometimes causes fish death. Reports of this often also include cloudiness.

As soon as I added a splash of it to my sump I noticed my display tank was very cloudy. I also checked my apex and noticed ph dropped from 8.3 to about 8.25 immediately. I would have taken corrective action right then but the corals fish and all inverts seemed to not care so I just let it be. The ph eventually came back up within a couple of hours. Later that evening I noticed my 10 year old sailfin tang having trouble breathing and leaning on a rock at the bottom of the tank.

and I don't think cloudiness ought to result from ferrous gluconate, so maybe contamination or instability in the bottle over time is a factor.

anyway, this amount....

So I dosed 2 cap fulls of flourish and a few cap fulls of cheato grow in my 160 gallon probably 130 gallons of water volume.

...would result in +0.2ppm Fe which is quite high, and wouldn't be desirable in a reef tank regardless of the form.

 

[alindell]

The dosing instructions are way too high

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I’m not understanding what might be happening here and if it is a real effect, I wonder if it is from ingredients not listed for whatever reason.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I agree the levels are very high, but Red Sea even recommends levels of 0.1 ppm and some folks fuse large amounts to reduce phosphate.