protien skimmer foaming over

[bluespotjawfish]

Sympathy from someone who also lost ALL corals, Nasa Tang, and Bluespot because of chlorine!

So painful!

Do you have anything left at all? All the dead stuff will keep raising your ammonia through the roof. Do massive water changes if you have anything, and I wouldn't be shy about the volume! My fish survived the chlorine, but I lost two to the ammonia, even with daily water changes. If your skimmer can't manage everything, try to coat the top of it before it goes into the cup with a bit of silicone lubricant or vaseline. It will keep the foam from rising so fast so that what goes in the cup stays there and can be removed.

Good luck!

Here is a link to my problem, perhaps it will have some info that will be useful to you:

Christmas Tragedy in My Tank

[coreef2006]

Well actually I am amazzed at the survival of some of this stuff. I lost all my fish. I was told that the clorine will evaporate in about 48 hours. Which it seamed to, but only after I lost all my fish. But I have allot of fan worms feather dusters and even my polyoup corals made it through. I did a 80 water change after about 2 weeks of letting it sit. My ammonia's and Nitrites stayed pretty good, but my Nitrates went up to 40 ppm, and after the water change 10ppm and now I did a test yesterday and down to 5 ppm. My coroline allge is expanding to other rocks and the only problem i have at this time is that red bacteria due to the high phosphates but I'll get a filter for that here soon and that will be gone. Then I will start adding fish again.

[Dentoid]

You say your tank is 180 gallons? How big was this piece of coral? I ask because bleach is a very volitile compound, meaning it evaporizes readily at normal temperatures and pressure and doesn't stay around long. In fact bleach left in an open, wide mouth container would in short order lose its strength and eventually become water. Was the coral wet when you placed it or bone dry? Do you know how long ago it was bleached? If the coral was bleached and allowed to dry for several days, I doubt there would be enough CL ion to cause such devistation in a 180 gallons.

Did you test the water for ammonia after your fish started showing signs of stress, to verify what the lfs told you? Is it possible that a disgruntled person put bleach in your tank? A p'ed off girlfriend, wife or friend? A cleaning person? A child? Did you rinse the coral in tap water before placing it in the tank? It seems odd that a piece of coral, unless it was huge and wet with recent bleach water still on it, could do such a thing in such a large volume of water. Just a few things to think about. Good luck.

[coreef2006]

Well it was a pretty big piece, about 25-30 lbs. And yeah it would take allot of bleach to do what I have statted. My ammonia levels were less than .25 PPM at the time of the problem, and my bio filter was just great working order, I had the fish that were in there for about three weeks from the last addition, but all levels were staying well with in peramiters. The only reason I say this is what happened was due to what I could smell. But in amy case I have learnded a lesson of to never by a dead coral and put it in my aquarium. I would rather send 500 on a large live coral and chance killing it or my fish picking on it, then at least my fish would be safe. I moral of this tory is all ways ask questions of a new store. Plus if your buying a dead coral, ask how it was bleached I know I would not have taken the chance if I had known before the sale.