[Kashi]

Sorry, this is kinda long.

I had my family room grout/tile cleaned 3 weeks ago. They used some sort of steam machine with a cleaner using these chemicals:
Sodium Hydroxide, Ethanol 2-Botoxy
They spent about 4 hours cleaning and sealing. When I got home from work the whole house stunk of this stuff. I immediately went to my tank in the den. Now, normally, when my wife and I clean, we close the den doors and open the den windows and try to use no-ammonia based cleaners. The tile/grout cleaners told my wife that their cleaners were harmless to aquariums so she didnt close the doors and (stupid me) didnt think to tell her to do it anyway. The aquarium looked ok.
Next day, all the snail were on their backs with there foot out. They appeared to be intoxicated but not dead. So when I got home from work I commensed with a large water change. I have a 125 gal tank with a 40 gal sump so I changed 50 gal. No change in the snails so I waited a couple of days and now my soft corals started slumping over. I changed more water, and did this every day for a week. The soft corals started to rot with some type of bacteria infection so I started to remove them.
More water changes and more corals died.
I purchased a large cannister filter and a UV filter and ran large ammounts of carbon and added media to remove phosphates/silicates.

To make a long story short, I have lost 90% of my livestock including
SPS, LPS, Purple LTA, all soft corals. Some polyps and mushrooms remain. I have kept some of these animals for 5 years and have lost hundreds of dollars.

Ok. Now I need help getting my tank back. The live rock and sand is now covered in green hair algae and red cyno stuff. The water is very clear (due to carbon) and I am running a large ammount of phosphate/silicate remover so why the algae outbreak. Could this be do to the tank eco-system being out of wack?

Oh, my 6 fish never seemed stressed and they are all doing fine (?????) go figure.

What do I do now? I want to rebuild the tank but it's a mess. Keep doing water changes? I really don't want to break the whole tank down and start over. I have cut my lighting period down now to 4 hours a day to hopefully slow the algae outbreak.
Isn't this a sign of to many nutrients in the water? How can that be after all those water changes and my carbon filter??

Anyone know about the chemicals I mentioned? I did some searches on them and found some things out but nothing concrete.

Sorry for the long ramblings, I guess I'm still in shock and disbalief over my once beautiful tank.

What to do . . . . .?

[kevinpo]

Very sorry to hear about your tank .
What type of water are you using RO/DI? Your water is likely fine now. If you are using tap water with all the water changes your media may not be able to remove nutrients from the water fast enough before the algae uses some of them. I would buy a few new snails and see how they do (like the canary in the mine). If they are OK I would just wait and let the tank cycle. I would also caution on the extensive use of UV, as it is indiscriminate of the type of bacteria and other organisms it kills.

HTH,
Kevin
PS: Sodium hydroxide (commonly called caustic soda) is what is used in household bleach. It is the opposite of acid, which would be caustic. I don't know the other chemical but I will guess that the first one is the major one. If it was used in a steam application I'm sure the small water particles filled the air also. There would have been a big jump in the tank PH if sodium hydroxide entered the water. Is your PH OK now should be about 8.0

[Kashi]

Thanks, me too.

I use water exclusively from a water store that's free from phosphates and silicates. I have been using water from the for 2 years now and never had a problem.

I did put in a turbo snail a week ago and in a few hours it was on its back. Will try this weekend again to see what happened.

I bought the UV in case my fish broke out with something and I will stop using it once I get my tank stabilized.

My PH is at 8.0 down from 8.3. I cant get it to come back up.

I'm going to have a sample of my water tested that I saved and have been in contact with the cleaning place who still claim that the cleaning they did never affected any aqauriums with fish. Well, I told them all my inverts died and my fish are ok.

I the meantime I want to get my tank slowly ready for "clean up" crews and then start with some corals. I guess I'll keep doing water changes.

Thanks

[jsaltzgi]

Sorry to hear about the tragedy!

Sodium hydroxide is a base, and would have increased pH in the tank had a significant abount settled in. I think the problem may have been due to the Ethanol 2-Botoxy stuff, probably an organic that is toxic, especially to invertebrates. It seems to me as though that name is missing something after the Botoxy (good old organic chemistry wasn't a waste, after all...) but that's really not important. I would think that with the carbon and water changes, you should have most of it out. I'd still keep the carbon running for a while, though, just in case.

If the pH decreased, something acidic (or with a pH lower than 8.3) must have caused it. My guess would be the stuff that died and decayed before you could get it out of there (even acting as fast as you did) Try to siphon any junk you can out and remove anything you can that's dead.

I can surely sympathize with you- my flatworms recently decided to crash in my reef, and nothing, not even the fish liked it. A couple of the fish looked like they were dipped in bleach (their colors faded overnight!!!) and the corals all looked terrible. I ran carbon for about three weeks, did lots of water changes, and only lost a couple of things. I was getting ready to look for homes for the few survivors for a couple of days.

Just keep up with what your doing, and go slow again and you (your tank) will recover.

James

[Kashi]

Thanks for your reply!

I am going to rejuvinate my refugium which is built into my sump and start filling it with caulerpa. I'm even thinking about getting some new live rock for the tank. Hopefully get the tank stable again

In another week or two when I feel things are safe I will add a huge 'clean-up' crew and let them start getting rid of all the hair and cyno' .

Even though I'm still upset, rebuilding the tank over the next year will be fun but costly