A Splash of Color

Andrew.... I wish I have never read this. As Matt, I still do not have clear what happened. Salinity drop due to....?
Alk spike was because there was no use from the corals, correct ? Or was an issue with your salt ?

Reading this wasn't anything good to start our Sunday here. But at least it is good that the crash have stopped.

Daniel
 
Andrew,
I am very sorry to hear about these issues, this honestly why I am too scared to do water changes anymore, I use trace minerals and simply top off for evaporation, otherwise when I do a water change, I test the water at least for alk, but sometimes the batch is corrupt, and this is usually when we fail to test, murphy's law I suppose. Hopefully this step back will allow you to leap forward, I am sure you will be back and colorful again in no time at all mate!
 
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.
 
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.
 
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: :facepalm::facepalm::facepalm:

OK, silly jokes aside, I hope things are on the mend.
 
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.
 
Got to go to work so i'll answer posts tonight. You might be right Sahin because i woke to fresh RTN this morning on acros i thought were out of the woods.......... this is going to be a much bigger hit than i first thought :hammer:

Potatohead my cleaner shrimp is dead and being eaten by the yellow and green wrasses as i type this.........

I don't want to do this anymore lol............... :hammer:

1_zpsqlj6c6uw.jpg~original
 
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: :facepalm::facepalm::facepalm:

OK, silly jokes aside, I hope things are on the mend.

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..
 
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?
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 

Ouch is right mate.

Sorry Andrew. :(

Thanks Mark.

Oh man, what a nightmare :facepalm: Best wishes for a speedy recovery :thumbsup:

Yeah it's never fun to watch Mike but i'll get it sorted out mate.

This makes me sick to my stomach.... I know exactly the whip of adrenalin and sudden "wind knocked out of you" feeling that staples your feet to the floor...
Very sorry to hear this, Andrew.... I have done different things with the same outcome..
It is gut wrenching...
I want to summarize to be clear in my head what happened.. As I read, my pulse quickened as did my reading (not to mention kids distracting me in the background) so I want to be clear..
Basically you forgot to fill one reservoir of RO with salt and used this to do a wc and then proceeded to do subsequent wc with salted water who's alk was too high...
You had a salinity drop from 1.026 to 1.022 and an in-tank alk spike from 7 to 8.4..
Is this accurate?
Again, really sorry to hear this.. :(

Hey Matt, i did two water changes totaling 18L but i replaced the old tank water with straight RO water. The alk rose overnight i think due to lack of consumption and was 8.2 in the morning. I then did a 75L water change with actual salt water mixed to 1.0260 which is where i keep the salinity. I didn't realise the alk of this salt bucket was 9.2 so i raised the alk again in the system to 8.8. All this happened over about 12 hours.

Andrew, I am sorry about what happened. There are important lessons to be learned for all of us from your experience.

Thanks Bulent, there's a lot to learn mate which is why i share embarrassing things such as this.

Andrew.... I wish I have never read this. As Matt, I still do not have clear what happened. Salinity drop due to....?
Alk spike was because there was no use from the corals, correct ? Or was an issue with your salt ?

Reading this wasn't anything good to start our Sunday here. But at least it is good that the crash have stopped.

Daniel

Hi Daniel, i made it a little clearer in my reply to Matt.

Andrew,
I am very sorry to hear about these issues, this honestly why I am too scared to do water changes anymore, I use trace minerals and simply top off for evaporation, otherwise when I do a water change, I test the water at least for alk, but sometimes the batch is corrupt, and this is usually when we fail to test, murphy's law I suppose. Hopefully this step back will allow you to leap forward, I am sure you will be back and colorful again in no time at all mate!

Thanks Perry, i'm pretty paranoid about putting anything whatsoever in the tank now mate lol.

Andrew I'm so sorry to read what happened...:sad2:

Thanks buddy :)
 
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:
 
Caution on the poly-filter.
I know it's in one of Randy's threads in the chemistry forum, he stated that they had copper added to them and that if you had no copper , it could leach into your system.
I switched to CupriSorb.
I'll see if I can find the link.
 
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