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View Full Version : Can carbon poison fish?


Wrench
03/28/2012, 06:09 PM
This is not an HLLE question.

Yesterday I notices that two of my bartletts anthias harem were acting different. Today I came home to find three of them dead and my powder blue tang is looking "off". It's hard to describe but I will do my best and hopefully get a photo ASAP. The perimeter of all of its fins are what I would describe as tattered. Overall color is slightly more pale than normal. There are darker areas on its body. I am hesitant to call them spots or blotches, they fall somewhere between those two categories. The fishes' appetite and behavior are normal. Aside from the fish that have died and the PBT, all other fish in the system appear normal.

All fish went through a 12 week QT period last year, the tank was fallow for this period and all new additions were also QT'd and treated prophylactically with copper, antibiotics and prazipro.

Now onto my question. Two weeks ago I began running ozone on my system again. I am using an Avast Marine reactor and running the effluent through a carbon reactor. Since then, I've noticed my filter sock and skimmer neck are jet black. I would assume that this is carbon dust, even though I thouroughly rinsed the carbon. The questions are A.) what would cause the carbon to break down like this, and B.) could this dust be the cuprit of my sick fish?

jinks
03/28/2012, 07:02 PM
Kent had a recall on their carbon because it had copper in it. I don't know if thats all thats wrong with it or if it had more problems and that was just the biggest. Copper alone shouldn't do that to fish unless its really high. If you have coral that are alive then you know its not that. I would check for stray current in your tank.

bertoni
03/28/2012, 07:18 PM
I'd turn off the ozone and shut off the GAC until the issue is resolved. Usually, high flow is about the only thing that can break up GAC like that. I'm not sure how bad an effect GAC dust might have, but I'd avoid it.