Important: Do microbubbles kill fish?

[dsmitchell]

I just finished a chemi-clean treatment yesterday and restarted my skimmer. Although my nitrates were only at 2 after two days of no skimming (nitrites were 0), my skimmer produced TONs of microbubbles.

This morning I found that nearly all of my fish were dead, except 2 Nemos and a Cardinal. I had my ozonizer running last night too.

My skimmer is still producing microbubbles, and is pushing out a lot of water in the waste cup. Right now, the waste cup is emptying out into a bucket so that the water that produces a lot of bubbles is leaving the system, while my auto top-off replaces that water with fresh saltwater.

The urchin, anemone, snails, crabs, and coral seem to be doing fine.

The nemos seem pretty healthy still -- they're not sluggish. Is there something else I should be doing to make sure they survive? I don't have another tank to put them in.

Thanks.

 

[matttvi]

dsmitchell wrote: I just finished a chemi-clean treatment yesterday and restarted my skimmer. Although my nitrates were only at 2 after two days of no skimming (nitrites were 0), my skimmer produced TONs of microbubbles.

This morning I found that nearly all of my fish were dead, except 2 Nemos and a Cardinal. I had my ozonizer running last night too.

What are your other tank parameters? ammonia, nI, pH, temp, etc...

My skimmer is still producing microbubbles, and is pushing out a lot of water in the waste cup. Right now, the waste cup is emptying out into a bucket so that the water that produces a lot of bubbles is leaving the system, while my auto top-off replaces that water with fresh saltwater.

How much water? IMO, this is a potential hypo-salinity problem as saltwater leaves and fresh replaces it, your salinty is going to drop over time, however, cnidarians and inverts are usually the first to go in hypo-salinity.

A picture would help here, but I think you may need to dial back on that skimmer and get a nice, disgusting, dry skimmate.

The urchin, anemone, snails, crabs, and coral seem to be doing fine.

The nemos seem pretty healthy still -- they're not sluggish. Is there something else I should be doing to make sure they survive? I don't have another tank to put them in.

Thanks.

Well, some good news with the bad. Again, a testing of all tank parameters, including salinity, is in order here! I suppose that microbubbles could kill fish, but a picture of just how many are in the tank would help!

best of luck,

Matt

 

[xyzpdq0121]

Great Post Matt! (+1 Rep)

Only thing I have to add, is yes, Microbubbles have been reported to be very bad for fish.. Is your skimmer running in a sump/Fuge?!?

More then likely, Matt is correct and it could be something else in your tank that is causing the problem. But, as I said, microbubbles are bad. Would love to find you a link, but I can't right now.. Work is beckoning!

 

[mojo]

I'd like to see a link. I've seen so many fish on a real reef swim in the aftermath of crashing waves - microbubbles everywhere. If microbubbles were detrimental, I'd be curious to hear why and see the research...

 

[dsmitchell]

MattTVI wrote: What are your other tank parameters? ammonia, nI, pH, temp, etc...

How much water? IMO, this is a potential hypo-salinity problem as saltwater leaves and fresh replaces it, your salinty is going to drop over time, however, cnidarians and inverts are usually the first to go in hypo-salinity.

A picture would help here, but I think you may need to dial back on that skimmer and get a nice, disgusting, dry skimmate.

Ammonia: undetectable
Nitrite: undetectable
pH: unknown at the moment (but has never varied away from 8.2)
temp: 78
Salinity: 1.024

The water is being replaced with saltwater (at the moment) not fresh water. My skimmer is running in the sump, though it is not possible to stop all of the microbubbles from making it back into the tank -- they are very fine. Perhaps it is the combination of ozone with the microbubbles?

By the way, regardless of the skimmer setting, it is producing lots of microbubbles -- that is why this morning I routed the waste cup exit into a bucket so that all the water that is prone to producing these bubbles goes away. Why this is happening, I don't know -- does the chemi-clean do this?

Thanks,
David

 

[cameron]

mojo wrote: I'd like to see a link. I've seen so many fish on a real reef swim in the aftermath of crashing waves - microbubbles everywhere. If microbubbles were detrimental, I'd be curious to hear why and see the research...

Agreed and I have actually read contrary information to this that states microbubbles will actually increase the oxygenation of the water.

 

[cameron]

Make sure you don't have ozone leaking into the tank. I would guess it would belly up fish in a hurry if a significant quantity hit the tank. Check your meters as well. One could easily be lieing to you.

Reading over chemi-clean it chokes the oxygen out of the water in a hurry. Chemicals are scary stuff.

 

[kwl1763]

I'm purely guessing but it sounds like an ozone wipeout to me. Chemiclean wouldn't have taken the 2 days to kill. If the o2 would have be deprived that first night would have been the worst.

Obviously i'm purely guessing here. Do you have an ORP reading?

 

[jmaneyapanda]

Cameron wrote: Make sure you don't have ozone leaking into the tank. I would guess it would belly up fish in a hurry if a significant quantity hit the tank. Check your meters as well. One could easily be lieing to you.

Reading over chemi-clean it chokes the oxygen out of the water in a hurry. Chemicals are scary stuff.

Yeah, I agree- microbubbles are no danger to fish. They may accumulate on some corals, and can cause problems from that, but that is not really a big issue. The ozone is what is intrigueing me the most. Ozone that gets back into the tank can be very very bad. It will essentially "bleach" whatever it touches. But I cant imagine fish would die, but eveything else is ok.

Im not entirely sure, but I think chemiclean causes this massive overskim as described. From what I've heard, it can literally pull out twenty plus glallons of otherwise good water via skimming.

I also think the rapid hyposalinitizaion (is that a word?) couldve caused some serious problems. Keeping fish at hypo may not kill them, unless the salinity swing occurs over a 5 minutes period and is a significant swing.

Overall, the microbubbles are definitely not what is causing the problem, but you'll need to get the tank sopecs back to normal. turn off the ozone untill everything has settled.

 

[xyzpdq0121]

"Micro bubbles can cause serious harm to fish. If a solution of water is supersaturated with Oxygen, acute
air embolism can occur and quickly wipe out a population of fish."

"Yes, death by embolism happens occasionally, and yes, the skimmer was probably mis-adjusted. Skimmers make some incredibly fine bubbles (they're supposed to), and those bubbles can be quite harmful to fish, and many invertebrates as well (kills anemones fast), if the bubbles are flooding the tank. This is why the good skimmer mfg'ers claim "no bubbles in your tank!""

Botht he above quotes were taken from replies from Fenner. Are they true? I don't know?

I said it was not likely but the question stated was "Do microbubbles kill fish?" The quick answer is that they have been reported to.

Most dives I have been on, fish are not swimming in the aftermath of waves, Heck the reef is 40-100ft below the water line and very rarely do I remembr seeing a microbubble down that far.

I am not a researcher nor do I claim to be. I know it has been reported and is stated by people like Fenner (And I believe I first read it in Noga's Fish Disease: Diagnosis and Treatment.)</em>

 

[cameron]

Xyzpdq0121 wrote: "Micro bubbles can cause serious harm to fish. If a solution of water is supersaturated with Oxygen, acute
air embolism can occur and quickly wipe out a population of fish."

"Yes, death by embolism happens occasionally, and yes, the skimmer was probably mis-adjusted. Skimmers make some incredibly fine bubbles (they're supposed to), and those bubbles can be quite harmful to fish, and many invertebrates as well (kills anemones fast), if the bubbles are flooding the tank. This is why the good skimmer mfg'ers claim "no bubbles in your tank!""

That is a jump in logic. Can oversaturated oxygen in water cause fish to die... yes. Does oversaturated oxygen levels in water cause microbubbles... indirectly yes. Do microbubbles kill fish directly... that is not known and tests done by the EPA have proven very inconclusive on this fact. Was his microbubbles caused by oversaturated oxygenated water, probably not. It was more likely a result of not enough oxygen causing the skimmer to go crazy.

An effect of oversaturated oxygen in water is microbubbles, but that doesn't mean the microbubbles cause the fish to die.

 

[xyzpdq0121]

Did the chicken that I am going to eat for dinner come first or did the Eggs I had for breakfast?!?

 

[matttvi]

dang, I saw "fresh" and "water" and thought... oh well.

Is

 

[cameron]

It is seriously unlikely that a skimmer can oversaturate the water hence the microbubbles likely had nothing to do with killing his fish. Also, it is very much unproven that microbubbles themselves do anything to fish. I could be wrong, but I would like to see the study that shows it. I am taking a "Panda Stance" on this one. I gotta see it before I believe it.

 

[mvm]

I woke up one morning to find that my ATO was unpluged and my sump was running dry. Bubbles all in the tank. Did my fish suffer> NO!

 

[mojo]

It's also important to note that microbubbles being injected into water doesn't necessarily result in increased O2 saturation levels. Mixing air into water (such as done with an airstone) simply increases the total air/water interaction, allowing the gas exchange to reach an equillibrium between the water and air, not force more air directly into the water. I'd have a hard time buying that anyone would be increasing the O2 level in their tank beyond 7-8ppm, far below what would be considered toxic, unless the water was very cold or under pressure.

In either case, I'm guessing the cause was from the Chemi-Clean, if it does indeed work as everyone has stated.

Xyzpdq0121 wrote: Most dives I have been on, fish are not swimming in the aftermath of waves, Heck the reef is 40-100ft below the water line and very rarely do I remembr seeing a microbubble down that far.

I've dived on shallow reefs in Fiji, Solomons, Roatan, and Bonaire where corals come out of the water when a large waves are passing through. I've also been in a few places where I was in maybe 3' of water, with acropora at my stomach and the surface at the top of my tank. In each case, the fish seem to be doing fine (although I had a hard time from running into anything!).

 

[washowi]

Microbubbles do not kill fish.....people kill fish...

Wholly hell. bubble's are AIR! Water needs AIR...Fish need air with their water....

visit any reef in the world, watch waves create air bubbles as it hit's the reef... that is good.

Micro bubbles from a skimmer is just a pain in the ***..That is all,

 

[jmaneyapanda]

brad wrote: I don't think hyposalinity is the problem... he said he tops off with fresh saltwater, i had to do a double take when i read it the first time...

You're right, my bad.

XYZ, I think Fenner is a smart man, but I think that comment from him is one of the biggest loads- talk about inciting hysteria. Mojo is right, fish live in these environments naturally. That being said, sure, put a fish into your skimmer, it'll probably suffer and die. But microbubbles in the tank causing problems? I doubt it. Then again, I'm not a world reknowned author.

 

[cameron]

brad wrote: and isnt it a possibility that even though in nature microbubbles do occur they probably happen then go away... i doubt they are a permanent thing, where as i the aquarium its a confined space and it just keeps feeding them into the water, id ont know if it would kill the fish but its possible that it might stress them out if they deal with it for extended periods of time and that may be the cause of death... im not sure, but thats just what i thought of

Oddly enough a group of scientists stuck a bunch of fish in a bunch of microbubbles for a week and nothing happend to the fish. There is a technique for breaking up oil and various slimes in the ocean that involves basically injecting tons of microbubbles into the water along with some other inert gas. They wanted to see if this would ultimately kill the fish. Apparently after a week of living in a virtual typhoon of bubbles they were all fine. This is promising as it could be a natural way to combat various nasty forms of algae and chemical spills.

Panda - I am trying to dig up the study. I believe it was in an EPA report a few months back.

 

[mojo]

On a similar topic, I've often wondered if I could inject a serious amount of microbubbles in my tank (say, an airstone under a tunze) and help kickstart the skimmer. The idea being that any DOM would find the microbubbles and be taken to the surface, where they'd be skimmed off and taken to the sump / skimmer. If it were more effective, then it'd be an quick & easy treatment for some problems.