EMERGENCY!!!! Toxic tubing?????

[plantweanie]

We hooked up our sump yesteday. today, we have a yellow watchman gobie that is not showing himself and a xenia that is looking dead. all other critters are looking ok. (scooter blenny, candycane coral, lace coral, green torch, crabs, snails and cleaner shrimp). PO4 and NH3 have been elevated, but were going down. Before today, tank inhabitants appeared heathy.

Given what happened and how sudden it happened, we disconnected the sump and did a 30% water change in the tank (it was all the water we had unfortunately). Chem tests before the change showed no spikes in previous readings.

For the sump: It is a megaflow model 1. PVC parts were glued with PVC glue, very sparingly, then soaked for a few days to leach out anything that may get into the water. The sump has bio balls, the existing protien skimmer and uv filter. no other new parts were added other than the sump hookups.

The return tube from the sump to the tank is heater hose. we are thinking this is the culprit in potentially poisoning the tank. can anyone confirm or deny???? Can anyone think of anything else that could have caused problems the day after sump hookup?

thanks.

[tholleyh46]

I would be leary of using that as the rubber may infact introduce contaminants into the water. I'd recommend vinyl or PVC.

[Poseidon]

Agreed with above! Use Vinyl, or PVC.

[plantweanie]

Update to original post: It is not a question of, it is a statement of: HEATER HOSE IS TOXIC!

Less than 24 hours after installing it as the return tubing from the sump, we saw problems with life in the tank. within a few hours of disconnecting the sump, we saw improvement. nothing else was amis. therefore, no other choice but to blame the tubing.