My condolences, keep the chin up though. You can always bring it back better than it was before. Also, the acro-smell, I can totally relate, years ago when my tank cooked while I was away for the weekend due to the AC going out, it was the first thing that hit when I opened up my front door, THAT smell!! I knew immediately the tank was done for.
Feel for you man.
Thanks a lot mate, there's no smell quite like that of dying acros is there lol.
Wow I am at a loss for words hope to see you make strong come back
Thanks mate, i have a lot of nice acros that are just sulking (i hope) so it's nothing like a total wipe out.
It happens to everyone, I had my saltwater mix tank open to the sump while refilling the mix tank with DI, the sump kept filling with Di until it overflowed and flooded the garage. Salinity dropped to 29ppt, luckily the change was slow enough to not kill anything. My sympathies are with you, hopefully everything keeps on the road to recovery.
Thanks Matt, stuff ups are part of the hobby imo mate.
Mate, sorry about the tank issues. I think there has to be some kind of contaminant...1.0225 isnt terribly low...yes its a drop but I've known acros to be fine (ie going from my tank to my LFS tank which typically run low SG). Also the snails dying...something doesnt add up for me.
You know Andrew...when I posted about STN in my tank, it was a false alarm...you should have read my thread again before going and doing better than my fake STN event...:uhoh3:
OK, silly jokes aside, I hope things are on the mend.
I've gone over so much stuff in my head trying to work out where a contaminant might have tainted the water but came up with nothing. The only thing that i can't be sure of is the skimmer hose out the window facing the neighbour's place didn't suck something in that he sprayed near my window such as weed killer or paint etc. I removed the hose and both plastic matrix trays the evening after all hell broke loose even though the effects were so rapid i know the trays weren't the culprit having been in the water for weeks.
Things are a lot better now than a couple of days ago at least
Brother,
So sorry for the bad news.I know it hurts.I can relate, I've had similar issues the last 1.5 years. Bad salt mix, carbon dosing, etc,Losing, 90%, last year and a couple of 30% losses this year.When you start with 50 colonies and do this , it kills you, especially when you find the error is the salt mix, bad test equipment, whatever.
Hang in there, I haven't bailed yet either.
The good news
You know what the problem was, you still have access to some really nice stuff, and $$ wise it is easier to recover.
I know it may be little comfort now, and most things aren't, but hang in there.Most of us have been there, unfortunately and feel your pain, even if it's oceans away.
Thanks a lot mate, sorry you've had a bad run but hanging in there is what you do when you love the hobby.
I'm leaning in your direction, Sahin.. That's why I wanted to be clear on the numbers.. That type of salinity drop and alk spike shouldn't kill off snails like that.. Or really corals either..
Couple of oddities in the story..
The two of you need to stop leaning against each other and do some bloody work - sort my tank out for a start.....
Andrew, this event could be poisoning"¦maybe copper or something else
Could be anything mate, i checked the ceiling for comet strikes but i'm 99% sure one didn't splash down in the display.
Do you think something could of leached out of all the matrix you have added recently
I don't think it's anything slowly leaching or building up as the acro reaction was too sudden and too severe. I still have all the matrix in the system and the tank is slowly settling down compared to a couple of days back when i was thinking i was going to see a total RTN crash.
sux bro, if snails are dying you have ammonia or nitrate in your tank. no idea what could have caused it tho, when doing your WC is your matrix exposed long enough to cause die off?
Hey Ryan, it sux big ones mate. I tested nitrates a few times and they stayed at 5. Never tested for ammonia though. Nothing living is ever exposed when i do a water change so i don't think it's related to that.
This kinda like a Déjà vu to me.
I had a similar thing happen to me 4 months ago. Lost about 7 large colonies that I had over 1 year in my tank.
Some snails did die as a results, but alot of them was sluggish and not moving as much. Almost like zombie or hit by a stunt gun.
It was down to bad batch of salt or rodi water was faulty.
Hope you figured it out - I would check the bucket of salt and RODI unit, make sure it is outputing 0 TDS reading and double check it with a TDS pen on the finished RO water product.
I'm pretty certain the salt itself isn't the culprit having used a lot of it previously and i know the salt from bucket to drum procedure i use has no room for contamination to occur. I have a TDS pen and i have zero on the RO, i actually check that once a month. I had dead snails and lots of dopy ones but most survived like you saw.
Really sorry to hear this mate. I hope you can work out the problem. I think it has to be more than the salinity and all swing, your corals were really healthy and I think they would handle something like that. As mentioned above, I would be checking my rodi.
Thanks Michael, i bought new water drums today since i don't want to use any that i used during the dramas in case one or more has been contaminated. Paranoia is running rife in the biggles household now lol.
The snail die-off is a big question mark on this, I agree. Snails should have been able to handle a salinity swing of this magnitude. It's almost like the fresh makeup water was tap water or loaded with copper. Very strange.
I seriously doubt i will know exactly what went in the water Matt.
I would get a poly-filter in your system ASAP
I think that's a good idea mate, i'll get one asap. :beer:
That acro i showed you didn't lose any more tissue and has polyps out....... the top inch of the teal stag in the middle of the right island lost tissue but i knew that was coming after seeing it this morning. I don't think anything else has gotten worse and PE is slightly better tonight compared to yesterday. I'm hopeful the only damage i see now is just acros that barely scraped through and some areas were just too badly damaged to live on.
Don't know but my gut and eyes are telling me that the water isn't contaminated anymore as the acros seem to be improving terribly slowly. I'm super careful monitoring alk and won't be doing any water changes for a few weeks now if the corals continue to not die. :hmm2: