ALL corals suddenly started sliming, but nothing else to see

[DiscoHobbit]

Hiya All!

Today i got kinda lucky since someones tank broke and he just wanted a good home for his corals. I got a lot of freebies. Ofcourse it really sucked for him, but i told him id give him any frags if he ever starts a new tank!

Now since the coral that came in were sliming a lot when i put them in (around 10am), i decided to put a lil bag of activated carbon in. Never done that before but i can never hurt right was my train of thought.

Apart from that, I dosed some Magnesium and Calcium for the first time, but i dosed only half of the max daily dosage (10ml of each on a 150Liter tank).

Now its around 6.30pm and i come home from getting something to eat, to see EVERY coral sending out slime. Even the zoas, ricordeas and leathers! 3 of my 8 euphyllias and my duncan closed up, but are slowly opening again. Nothing is sliming anymore. Im guessing its nothing to worry about, but im mixing up 25L of fresh seawater anyways.

Anyone have any idea what this could have been? Ive never seen this before. Was is the carbon or the dosing or some stresshormone sent out by the traumatized rescue coral?

I dont think it would be the slime off of the rescue corals that got caught on the other corals as it wasnt sliming anymore since 2pm.

 

[Reefing102]

Have you tested your Mg and Ca? Generally sliming in my experience is a stress indicator. I doubt it was a result of the new additions. I’m wondering if the dosing spiked one of your levels resulting in the slime

 

[DiscoHobbit]

i just tested and:
Calcium: no change (still at 430)
Magnesium: went from 1335 this afternoon to 1390 tonight.
Would that Mag increase be a cause for worry? It does seem like a lot.

HOWEVER as im testing calc with red sea and mag with salifert and both involve adding this "level spoon" of reagens to the solution it could also just be a "scoop levelling" difference?

 

[Reefing102]

That doesn’t seem that huge to cause sliming but I could be wrong. @Habib any thoughts on possible testing variance?

 

[kharmaguru]

i just tested and:
Calcium: no change (still at 430)
Magnesium: went from 1335 this afternoon to 1390 tonight.
Would that Mag increase be a cause for worry? It does seem like a lot.

HOWEVER as im testing calc with red sea and mag with salifert and both involve adding this "level spoon" of reagens to the solution it could also just be a "scoop levelling" difference?

All hobby level titration tests have a certain level of inaccuracy due to human inputs. You can always do it twice for confirmation. I personally don't think large changes in magnesium are as touchy as alkalinity or calcium. I saw a video where fishofhex dumped a full gallon of magnesium solution into the sump of an established reef tank to make a large adjustment with no ill effects to the tank. As for the sliming, I would say it was a response to the new stressed corals sliming prior. There's many posts about 1 coral sliming, then the rest of the tank following suit.

 

[DiscoHobbit]

thanks for the info! Seems to be fine then. I however rolled into the next problem when doing the waterchange. Clumsy me just knocked over the bucket with the last bit of new water in there, which also happened to contain my new salt. Luckily i kept some of my "old" water, but this was drained through a gardenhose, which im not sure is reef safe. As i only had to add like 2 liters back from this water: fingers crossed itll be fine...

 

[DiscoHobbit]

thanks for the info! Seems to be fine then. I however rolled into the next problem when doing the waterchange. Clumsy me just knocked over the bucket with the last bit of new water in there, which also happened to contain the last of my salt. Luckily i kept some of my "old" water, but this was drained through a gardenhose, which im not sure is reef safe. As i only had to add like 2 liters back from this water: fingers crossed itll be fine...

had to be and edit of my previous post to state it was the last of my salt, not a new post...

 

[Habib]

i just tested and:
Calcium: no change (still at 430)
Magnesium: went from 1335 this afternoon to 1390 tonight.
Would that Mag increase be a cause for worry? It does seem like a lot.

HOWEVER as im testing calc with red sea and mag with salifert and both involve adding this "level spoon" of reagens to the solution it could also just be a "scoop levelling" difference?

Take an average of these two magnesium values, approx. 1360 ppm, so the variation is +/- 2% in measurement.This not bad.

The color powder’s amount is not critical. It will impact slightly the strength of the color but not the color change point.

Did you measure alkalinity?

 

[DiscoHobbit]

Take an average of these two magnesium values, approx. 1360 ppm, so the variation is +/- 2% in measurement.This not bad.

The color powder’s amount is not critical. It will impact slightly the strength of the color but not the color change point.

Did you measure alkalinity?

wait, the actual CEO of Salifert? A fellow countryman, Goedemorgen!

Yes my Alk is at around 8 DkH.

 

[Vinny Kreyling]

When I have a powder to measure I use something to level said powder in the spoon so I get an even level every time.