Salinity Crash - what happens next?

[Aquavol]

So, my protein skimmer went nuts. The collection cup automatically drains to my sink drain. My RODI unit automatically tops off to my sump on a float valve. Fresh water was replacing salt water for the last 48 hours while I was out of town.

Salinity dropped to 12 ppt.

Corals and inverts all dead. Fish all hanging on. Pretty devastated, but it is what it is at this point.

I have done a water change to get it up to 19ppt. I will continue daily water changes for the next 5 days or so to get back to 35 ppt.

My question is, what should I expect? I am assuming all beneficial bacteria is dead also. I have 11 fish in a 225 gallon display. Will they survive the cycle? Any chance?

The good news is all the algae died . Just looking for the silver lining.

 

[HankstankXXL750]

So, my protein skimmer went nuts. The collection cup automatically drains to my sink drain. My RODI unit automatically tops off to my sump on a float valve. Fresh water was replacing salt water for the last 48 hours while I was out of town.

Salinity dropped to 12 ppt.

Corals and inverts all dead. Fish all hanging on. Pretty devastated, but it is what it is at this point.

I have done a water change to get it up to 19ppt. I will continue daily water changes for the next 5 days or so to get back to 35 ppt.

My question is, what should I expect? I am assuming all beneficial bacteria is dead also. I have 11 fish in a 225 gallon display. Will they survive the cycle? Any chance?

The good news is all the algae died . Just looking for the silver lining.

I don’t know the conversion, but I cycled my tank at specific gravity of 1.013 as the bacteria generate faster in lower salinity, so it is possible that your nitrifiers are not gone.

I would get a sea chem ammonia alert badge and check ammonia levels daily. Also add a bacteria like seed, stability or microbacter. Won’t hurt your bacteria if they are still present but will help your fish if they are not. My cup overflowed because my auto top off sensor didn’t close the valve and my salinity dropped and the sludge was reintroduced which caused me other issues. So I ordered an AutoAqua skimmer security system from aquacave. Sensor goes in cup and shuts off skimmer if cup fills.

 

[Aquavol]

I don’t know the conversion, but I cycled my tank at specific gravity of 1.013 as the bacteria generate faster in lower salinity, so it is possible that your nitrifiers are not gone.

I would get a sea chem ammonia alert badge and check ammonia levels daily. Also add a bacteria like seed, stability or microbacter. Won’t hurt your bacteria if they are still present but will help your fish if they are not. My cup overflowed because my auto top off sensor didn’t close the valve and my salinity dropped and the sludge was reintroduced which caused me other issues. So I ordered an AutoAqua skimmer security system from aquacave. Sensor goes in cup and shuts off skimmer if cup fills.

Thank you! That gives me hope on the bacteria front. I will look into the security system.

 

[HankstankXXL750]

Thank you! That gives me hope on the bacteria front. I will look into the security system.

Haven’t installed yet. Going to now.

I use their system for direct ATO from my RODI but this one has gone bad and I forgot to shut the valve. Figure the skimmer system will help as a secondary. Going to install it now.

Here is a link.

AutoAqua Smart Skimmer Security

Find premium aquarium supplies at Aquacave. we offer top brands like Tunze, Ecotech, and more. Free Shipping available!

www.aquacave.com

 

[o2manyfish]

I've had the same situation as you happen 2x in the last 20 years. Most recently in March. The good news is not only did the lack of salt kill all your corals, but it wiped out most of the coral pests - Aptasia will survive - but flatworms, AEFW, Monti Nudis, Red bugs, Black Bugs, Black spiders - All are eradicated.

Your system won't go thru a cycle as if you killed the bacteria. But what might happen is if you had a really large amount of soft corals, they have more tissue mass and will continue to rot and decay for up to a month. This constant dumping of ammonia from all the rotting flesh will cause an ammonia spike which can create issues for your fish.

If you had rocks covered in zoas, xenia, leathers, etc - Take those rocks out and hit them with a pressure washer. If you don't have a pressure washer toss them in the back of your truck or SUV take them to the COIN-OP car wash and blow all the tissue off of them. Even the fresh water wash down won't kill your bacteria. You won't kill your algae. You might tick off some of the coraline - but you won't kill it (If it ain't dead already). Take them home and toss them back into the tank.

Also run Carbon - Depending on your water clarity change it every 24-48 hrs. I know people say change Carbon every 2 weeks - But you aren't interested in carbon polishing clean water - You want it absorbing the crap out of all the bad things in your water. Carbon is highly effective at doing this - but when used in this application the carbon is only efficient at its task for 24-48 hrs.

If you run filter socks - change them every 24 hours - They are grabbing all the lost tissue and rotting tissue and once in the filter sock the aggressive water flow just keeps breaking down the dying matter even more.

Your fish shoud keep swimming and swimming without a problem.

Also if you have a few corals that seemed to have survived there is a 90% chance that what appears to have survived will die off in the next week.

Dave B

 

[Viking_Reefing]

Most of your bacteria should have survived but keep a very close eye on the tank in terms of cloudy water, nutrients spikes etc. I would assume that there will be tons of little critters in the rocks that has kicked the bucket.
Also, a system set up like that will always cause the issues you experienced on a long enough time frame. If you still wish to run it like that please make sure that there are redundancies in place both on the skimmer and on the ATO. A silver lining is that it went down the drain and not in to a bucket like some folks do it. You saved yourself a ton of cash on water damages

 

[Yuumi's Reef]

My question is, what should I expect? I am assuming all beneficial bacteria is dead also. I have 11 fish in a 225 gallon display. Will they survive the cycle? Any chance?
The good news is all the algae died . Just looking for the silver lining.

Depends what kind of fish you have... If you have nothing but clowns, damsels, or predatory fish; you should be fine. If you have delicate Tangs (especially achilles or Powder brown/Blue) or any angelfish, you're sure in for an ich battle of the ages. I would prepare with a big bottle of Ruby Reef Kick Ich, and a big bottle of Fritz Turbo 900. The cycle is going to try and crash in a few days after the incident. even water changing between brackish salinity (20<31ppt) and salt salinity (35ppt) can crash a bacteria cycle. Brackish bacteria is not the same as saltwater. You need to be water changing with Pre-bacterialized or cycled saltwater from the fish tanks at your local fish store to keep the cycle going. Add small doses of the fritz bacteria (Turbo900) daily, and if you test positive AT ALL for ammonia, use 2x the recommended amount. You can safely use the bacteria up to 5x the recommended amount for a faster cycle, but it is better to spread it out. Hope this helps... Best of luck to you <3 I'm so sorry to hear about your tank.

 

[Dbichler]

Depends what kind of fish you have... If you have nothing but clowns, damsels, or predatory fish; you should be fine. If you have delicate Tangs (especially achilles or Powder brown/Blue) or any angelfish, you're sure in for an ich battle of the ages. I would prepare with a big bottle of Ruby Reef Kick Ich, and a big bottle of Fritz Turbo 900. The cycle is going to try and crash in a few days after the incident. even water changing between brackish salinity (20<31ppt) and salt salinity (35ppt) can crash a bacteria cycle. Brackish bacteria is not the same as saltwater. You need to be water changing with Pre-bacterialized or cycled saltwater from the fish tanks at your local fish store to keep the cycle going. Add small doses of the fritz bacteria (Turbo900) daily, and if you test positive AT ALL for ammonia, use 2x the recommended amount. You can safely use the bacteria up to 5x the recommended amount for a faster cycle, but it is better to spread it out. Hope this helps... Best of luck to you <3 I'm so sorry to hear about your tank.

1.009 is a known treatment for ich why would it cause ich other than possible stress. Bacteria was not effected either or fish would already be dead. As to op this is why I just use a gallon milk jug and drain into that in my sump to avoid overflows and the worse that happens is some skim goes back in the tank.

 

[mtraylor]

For your skimmer you can try one of these. This is what i use. That way you never run into this issue again.

6" Waste Collector with Auto Shut Off

Add a Reef Octopus 6" Waste Collector to prevent protein skimmer overflows as well as reduce the strong skimmate smell. Float switch connected to power source for your protein skimmer - automatically shuts off your protein skimmer if float switch is activated. Ping pong ball apparatus stops...

www.bulkreefsupply.com

If you want to further automate. You can drill bottom of it and plumb pipe to drain with a solenoid valve on it. Then you could program it if you have controller to empty it once a week for say 30 seconds or something like that. I would add some other smarts as well.

Anyway. I think I have the smart part of this left over as I hooked mine directly to my controller. If you are interested you can ping me.

 

[fish farmer]

I don’t know the conversion, but I cycled my tank at specific gravity of 1.013 as the bacteria generate faster in lower salinity, so it is possible that your nitrifiers are not gone.

I would get a sea chem ammonia alert badge and check ammonia levels daily. Also add a bacteria like seed, stability or microbacter. Won’t hurt your bacteria if they are still present but will help your fish if they are not. My cup overflowed because my auto top off sensor didn’t close the valve and my salinity dropped and the sludge was reintroduced which caused me other issues. So I ordered an AutoAqua skimmer security system from aquacave. Sensor goes in cup and shuts off skimmer if cup fills.

I remember reading an article that the salt to brackish bacterial shift was around 1.012, and that live rock would still function at 1.014.

 

[maroun.c]

Theres many aspects to worry about, salinity being the first naturally, fish should handle the rapid drop fine but I'd go very slow raising the salinity.
critters dead in the rocks as mentioned above causing spikes in coming days especially if bacteria is affected, you're already doing water changes so that helps but it also helps to run carbon and change it frequently to remove any toxins released by the dying stuff.
corals that have died would have also released toxins in the water (water changes and carbon should take care of that.
good luck with the restart and makes sense to optimize the system so that this doesn't happen. for isntance:
My skimmer has an anti flood tube in the cup (not sure if you can add one to your skimmer, draining the skimmer in a container with a float switch to kill the skimmer when full might be a good alternative.
I have a timer on my ATO so it runs only a little time a bit more than needed to match evaporation I'll be adding a float valve to trigger an alarm in case of sump low or high level....

 

[FishTruck]

Second that... at this point raise the salinity SLOWLY. Clean out all the dead stuff weekly and watch ammonia.

The skimmer overflow is a classic weak point... now you know! Fix that.... and see if you can find any other weak points in your system - always come back stronger.

 

[Yuumi's Reef]

1.009 is a known treatment for ich why would it cause ich other than possible stress. Bacteria was not effected either or fish would already be dead.

Freshwater dips (1.009) are supposed to be for only a few minutes. These fish were in low, un-cycled brackish water for hours, if not days. So for one, it wouldn't kill the ich. It might weaken it, but that's only if it was there in the first place. Low salinity for hours will cause a ton of stress. Stress = itchy time. And two, a bacterial crash will not be instant, so the fish would not "already be dead". Bacteria crashes happen over the course of days. I've had several brackish, freshwater, and saltwater reef tanks. I know if you change the salinity from 1.014 to 1.019 that's enough to cause a small crash because you're changing it from brackish to salt. Maybe you just got lucky in the past.

 

[Aquavol]

Thank you all for the valued info and experience. I’m glad this happened just 6 months in to a new tank. Several of the corals came from my previous tank, but all in all, this could have been much more devastating if I had more corals in a more mature system. Just hopeful I can save the fish and learn from this moving forward.

 

[Dbichler]

Freshwater dips (1.009) are supposed to be for only a few minutes. These fish were in low, un-cycled brackish water for hours, if not days. So for one, it wouldn't kill the ich. It might weaken it, but that's only if it was there in the first place. Low salinity for hours will cause a ton of stress. Stress = itchy time. And two, a bacterial crash will not be instant, so the fish would not "already be dead". Bacteria crashes happen over the course of days. I've had several brackish, freshwater, and saltwater reef tanks. I know if you change the salinity from 1.014 to 1.019 that's enough to cause a small crash because you're changing it from brackish to salt. Maybe you just got lucky in the past.

Used to be standard treatment from one of the best fish medics known