Don’t have a clue what happened

[Erikpanzer]

Last Friday when I went to bed my reef was very happy. Saturday when I woke up, all my fish were on their sides struggling to breath and most of my corals were closed up. I immediately grabbed my stuff and made 30 gallons of new sea water. While tat was mixing I started testing water to see what’s wrong. Nothing came back out of parameters or nothing stood out Al the culprit. I did the 30 gallon water change and within a minute or so of adding the new water the fish bounced back. The corals slowly opened except the candy cane. I changed my filtering and added a charcoal filter and a Phosphate and ammonia pads in case my test kit was lying to me. I later went to my LFS and bought another 15 gallons of saltwater from them and did another 15 gallon water change. By Monday the candy cane lost all its flesh but is still alive and regrowing it’s flesh.

The tank has been stable since. I started thinking low O2 but my filter is more than enough for my tank I have a wave maker and after this I added a HOB filter temporarily to help. My tank is 120 gallons, all my parameters are in place every thing is happy again. Any ideas out there?

 

[Genetics]

How deep is your sandbed?

 

[Erikpanzer]

About 2 inches with Conchs sifting through it.

 

[Erikpanzer]

I did wonder about gassing coming out of the sand. Got a friend at work with a large freshwater set up that lost a big catfish after he stirred the bottom of his tank.

 

[JohnL]

How long has the tank been running?

 

[Erikpanzer]

This one has been running for 8 years

 

[JohnL]

Could some kind of contaminant have gotten in? What about low oxygen?

 

[JohnL]

I added a HOB filter temporarily to help.

Good idea, imo.

 

[Erikpanzer]

Sorry hit send before I was done. It has been a fish and live rock only tank and just 4 months ago I started reefing again.
Green Star polyp
2 sea fans
Fox coral
Acan
Favia brain
Branching hammer
Zia frag

 

[Erikpanzer]

Could some kind of contaminant have gotten in? What about low oxygen?

I’m wondering about the outside contamination. My Sons friends were over, but they are in the 30’s and very considerate. His friends wife is actually a water quality tester for the county. But they were in awe of the tank when they were here. It could have been something accidental

 

[Genetics]

Really difficult to say. If you have conchs sifting on a 2” bed that probably wasn’t it. It does sound like some sort of odd oxygenation issue. Any chance you lost power overnight?

 

[Erikpanzer]

Could have. We lose power all the time. Odd because I’m a lineman for this utility and on the worst line. My filter is larger than it really needs to be. I have a wave maker that sits high so the surface is always moving and a red octopus skimmer. I’m going to add a CO2 scrubber to it payday. There is not a large amount of algae at all, sometimes I worry about the lawnmower fish having enough to eat. I know large amounts of algae will consume O2 fast.

 

[Erikpanzer]

 

[Erikpanzer]

 

[JohnL]

Any chance you lost power overnight?

Good question

 

[JohnL]

We lose power all the time.

This seems like a probable cause

 

[Anemone]

The reaction of the fish to the addition of water movement (adding the new water) sure sounds like an oxygen-deprivation event. It sounds like you have a lot of surface agitation regularly, so a power outage or equipment failure (of something that helps oxygenate the water) seems like a likely culprit.

Dunno, maybe you had something die, or a large amount of uneaten food somewhere that sparked a bacterial bloom that scrubbed the water of oxygen.

Kevin

 

[Erikpanzer]

I think your right, I’m thinking low O2 also. If it was a type of poisoning they wouldn’t have recovered as fast as they did.

 

[Genetics]

The other suspect is that filter. Is it a fluval canisters?

 

[Erikpanzer]

Aqueous canister