Fish dying used ozone

I just lost a bangai cardinal, bicolor pseudochromis, fairy wrasse, and a blue spotted goby when I got home from work the only things moving were my hippo tang and a bangai snails hermits, and corals look ok the bangai did not eat.

tested water
ammonia is at 1.0!!!!
ph is crazy high api goes up to 8.8 and that is where it is
nitrate is 0
Nitrite is 0

setting up to do a water change anything else to do I started using ozone about a month ago I hooked up to a milwaukee controller set at 400mv and I turned it off when I got home it was running and said 356mv. I just don't know why else my ammonia and ph would be so out of wack. I started using ozone to kill dino's and thought I would be fine with the controller. Everything was looking better than ever til now I didn't know the ammonia and ph were so off I should of been watching it closer.

 

I really have no experience with the use of Ozone, but repeated BIG water changes would be the first thing to do with ammonia and nitrates being so high... specially the ammonia, fish are more resilient than corals to nitrates. Do many big water changes. I read somewhere a while ago how to do a 100% water change, I can't remember if it was viable or theory, but there were graphics even explaining how.

I'll look for that, bud. Keep us informed about the progress and I'm sorry for your losses.

 

On second thought... 100% water change would mess up your bacteria population.

I'll see what other people have done in this case.

 

yeah I would be afraid of lowering it too quickly and causing more problems the corals are all (zoas, green stars, galaxia, frogspawn, and shrooms) looking ok except my toadstool isn't open

 

Are you running the exhaust water through carbon? If its ozone, it's short lived, unstable form of oxygen. Running the exhaust water through carbon helps keep it out of your tank proper. Once you stop putting it in, it will not stay in your system long however.

I can't explain the pH, but the ammonia could be the result of ozone stripping your system of bacteria, triggering a cycle. Need more information, how do you run your ozone, what is your ORP?

 

Sorry, I see you did give your redox, but what is your setup? It's been a long time, but I don't believe 350 to 400 redox is dangerous, although higher is. The problem is redox is not a measure of the ozone in the system which may be the problem.

 

You can do a big water change and buy 3 bottles of bacteria to add to the new water to compensate for the dead bacteria that right now is not processing your ammonia.
It is a cycle... and you need bacteria to turn ammonia into nitrite and nitrite into nitrates and so forth.

 

A large water change isn't going to affect your bacteria, the majority of our bacteria lives on surfaces not in the water column. If it where the other way around and they lived in the water column, we wouldn't need the expensive porous live rock.

 

Ozone is an oxidizing agent. it oxidizes ammonia producing nitrate. Because you've run it for a month, your ammonia eating bacteria have been reduced in number. If ozone got into your tank and killed this weakened population, it's a one two punch. You need to set your ORP at 300, then continue running the ozone at the reduced level to help proces ammonia since your bacteria is beat up and can't.

The pH I have to guess at until I know what's in the system, but if you're dosing anything, the ozone has stunted the uptake and caused the dosed compounds to spike. Ozone can also directly influence pH in some circumstances.

Water changes, modest ozone, a new bacterial population, and reregulation of any dosing are all called for.

Also, run the exhaust water through carbon.

 

You are correct that the bacteria populates the rock and to be honest... any and all other surfaces in the tank, including sand, glass, overflow boxes etc.... but he's obviously having problems with his bacteria population being low... the post above clarifies that in a better way. Adding bacteria after getting rid of the ammonia/nitrate loaded water could do nothing but help the rock and all the other stuff under water get repopulated with this beneficial bacteria.

Any updates on this problem, smart189?

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