Emergency, Xenia Crash, Please Help

[chriscolt]

:eek2:

On Sunday 5/21 - I woke up to a disaster - my Xenia which were spreading like wildfire were all a whitish / yellow and had that smell of decaying flesh (sick, sweet smell) - the tank had a whitish glow to it - unnaturally bright, which I immediately thought was a broken MH UV filter glass or something like that - all color in the reef tank was gone.... I later surmised that this may have been caused by Calcium precipatation - read on - fortunately I had recently connected my Neptune AC3 Pro to my network and I was able to print out the data log - the log indicated that on Saturday night around 10 PM the ORP dropped from 350 to 150 and my conductivity went from 58000 to 46000 (first spiked up to 60,000) - I recently hooked up a new Kalkwasser reactor because my PH has been steadily decreasing and has been hovering around 7.8 - the Kalk reactor has been steadily raising the PH to around 8.1 - based on the Neptune log - it appears that my Kalkwasser reactor dumped a lot of Limewater in all at once which caused the calcium to drop from 480 to 310, which may have stressed the Xenia and caused them to crash which in turn lowered the ORP by 200mv - but what I do not see in the datalog is a significant PH spike (although it may have happened during the 1 hour period in between the first reading at 9PM and the 3rd reading at 11PM - I don't know for sure) - The only other thing that happened and I am not sure if it had any impact on anything is that my corallife 18 Watt mini Compact Fluorescent light blew out over my sump and it appears that water was trapped in one of the 9Watt bulbs and may have leaked into the tank right around 9PM - the fixture was fried and I wonder if any chemicals from the fluorescent tube may have entered the sump water column and then into the reef - note the conductivity spike at this time (water got into the tube a few weeks ago when the fixture fell into the sump when it was off - I dried it out and it worked so I thought it was OK) but when it turned on at 9PM the tube separated from the base and water leaked out and possibly entered the sump (THIS IS A BIG GUESS ON MY PART LOOKING FOR AN ANSWER).

My tank parameters on Sunday were as follows:

Salinity - 10250
Conductivity 48,000 (this must be wrong)
Temp 78
PH as indicated on log
Alkalinity - 10.5dkh (normally 8.5-9dkh)
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate < 3
Phosphate - 0
Mg - 1425
Calcium 310 (normally 490-510)

Neptune Log for this crash period - note 5/20 between 21:00 - 23:00 hours.

Time Date Temp pH ORP Cond
00:00 05/20/2006 77.1 7.93 358 57900
01:00 05/20/2006 76.8 7.95 361 57900
02:00 05/20/2006 76.5 7.93 364 55200
03:00 05/20/2006 76.3 7.92 366 54900
04:00 05/20/2006 76.1 7.91 353 54900
05:00 05/20/2006 76.4 7.91 343 55100
06:00 05/20/2006 76.5 7.90 340 55200
07:00 05/20/2006 76.4 7.90 338 54900
08:00 05/20/2006 76.7 7.91 332 54900
09:00 05/20/2006 76.9 7.92 332 55000
10:00 05/20/2006 77.2 7.91 328 55200
11:00 05/20/2006 77.2 7.93 306 55300
12:00 05/20/2006 77.2 8.02 301 55300
13:00 05/20/2006 77.3 8.06 299 55400
14:00 05/20/2006 77.4 8.09 297 55200
15:00 05/20/2006 77.6 8.13 301 55900
16:00 05/20/2006 77.8 8.15 306 55800
17:00 05/20/2006 77.9 8.16 307 54700
18:00 05/20/2006 78.1 8.21 303 54100
19:00 05/20/2006 78.2 8.22 305 53900
20:00 05/20/2006 78.0 8.18 316 52700
21:00 05/20/2006 77.7 8.15 267 55600
22:00 05/20/2006 80.0 8.08 142 60000
23:00 05/20/2006 79.8 8.03 172 49200
00:00 05/21/2006 79.3 8.02 178 49600
01:00 05/21/2006 78.9 8.00 176 49200
02:00 05/21/2006 78.8 8.00 170 48600
03:00 05/21/2006 78.8 7.97 166 49200
04:00 05/21/2006 78.7 7.96 163 49400
05:00 05/21/2006 78.7 7.94 160 48900
06:00 05/21/2006 78.5 7.93 160 48500
07:00 05/21/2006 78.4 7.94 159 48300
08:00 05/21/2006 78.5 7.93 158 48300
09:00 05/21/2006 78.5 7.95 156 48400
10:00 05/21/2006 78.5 8.02 154 48300
11:00 05/21/2006 78.9 8.00 151 48300
12:00 05/21/2006 79.6 8.01 151 48600
13:00 05/21/2006 80.1 8.08 139 48700
14:00 05/21/2006 79.8 8.08 143 48800
15:00 05/21/2006 79.6 8.00 099 48600
16:00 05/21/2006 79.5 8.07 102 48500
17:00 05/21/2006 79.5 8.07 108 48500
18:00 05/21/2006 79.5 8.09 113 48600
19:00 05/21/2006 79.2 8.11 120 48500
20:00 05/21/2006 78.3 8.11 126 48700
21:00 05/21/2006 77.9 8.17 128 48700


Any ideas or help would be greatly appreciated - I have done three 6 gallon water changes, I am currently running activated carbon, Purigen and Hypersorb to help remove any "bad stuff" released by the corals and/or the fluorescent tubes - my Tridacna clams are OK except for one that is badly gaping and starting to die (Derusa), the LPS are coming back except for an elegance because the clownfish (Perculas) have now taken residence there instead of in the Xenia where they were - fish are all doing fine as are the seahorses and scallops in the refugium - Tanks are as follows:

70 gallon main reef, 100lbs live rock, 3 inch DSB, 3 different wrasses, 2 percula, Purple and Chevron tang, pistol shrimp and goby pair, serpent star various hermits and snails
20 gallon Refugium, DSB - 2 seahorses, 1 pipefish, 2 scallops, yellow sea cucumber, various hermits, snails etc..

30 gallon sump, ETSS 500 protein skimmer, LIFEREEF Calcium Reactor, EcoSystems Kalk reactor with integrated dosing pump, ROWAPHOS in Phosphate reactor, DIY Ozone reactor with PINPOINT Redox controller set for 350mv, Neptune AC3PRO not yet fully functional as controller - just monitoring for now, combination spectrapure and DIY auto top off using RO/DI water - top off through Kalk reactor (recent change) using float switch

Aqua medic MH lighting system (2x250W@10K, 1x150W@20K, 2x55 HO T-5 actinic)

No chiller - 6" muffin fans mounted on top of tank (open top, no canopy) for cooling

All test kits are Salifert, Hach, Red Sea (I use different brands to validate the Salifert)

Recent changes:

I added a Kalk - reactor because PH was running low
(Calcium reactor running for the last year, recently changed C02 tank - effluent 6.5 PH)

I recently calibrated PH probes (including Neptune and C02/ PH controller for Calcium reactor) - NOTE: PH probes were reading too high by 3/10ths - e.g. was reading 8.3 before calibration, now reading 8.0 - used different brand test solutions (pinpoint, Milwaukee) but I am not sure why the probes were that far off - Neptune is lab grade and brand new and was off by that much?

I recently changed Carbon on output of Ozone reactor (to filter out excess Ozone)

Recently changed ROWA PHOSPHATE MEDIA in Two Little Fishes Phosphate reactor and doubled quantity to 200grams
(Phosphate was 0.3 now 0)

Additives -
Lugol's solution - 3 to 4 drops every 5 days
Purple up - 2 -3 capfuls per day
AZ-NO3 - Nitrate remover - 1 OZ per day (Nitrate was 25-30 now near 0)


Thanks for your help/comments - please tell me what to do next and what you believe the possible cause for this crash is

Chris

 

[Reefcherie]

How are things looking today?

I won't guess at what might have caused the problem in the first place, but if it were me, I'd do larger water changes. I'm a big believer in "dilution is the solution."

 

[omni2226]

Many flourescent lights contain mercury, which is not a good thing to have in a aquarium, find out if those compacts had mercury in them.

 

[mhurley]

A couple things.....
IME, xenia is very sensitive to pH swings...so it would surprise me that the swing was what caused the crash.

Secondly, you say that you dumped a lot of kalk in at once and that lowered your calcium levels from 480 to 310. Is that a typo because that doesn't make sense? Putting a lot of kalk in is going to raise pH, alk and calcium.

 

[chriscolt]

Thanks for the input - I know a lot of Reefers viewed the post but I didn't get a lot of feedback - I probably made the post too long and complicated / confusing.

I have another 12 gallons set up for a change - I lost a large snail (thank God it died in a place where I could find it - produced snotty looking material that really stunk) and I lost one of the 3 clams I have in the tank. 2 of the 4 acros are bleached but still have some life, hoping they will come back..

Parameters are still good and the ORP is starting to climb back up as Ozone is being fed like crazy through my DIY Ozone reactor and Pinpoint ORP controller - the PH is still on the low side - 7.8 at night, 8.08 during the day. I hope I didn't screw up the calibration of these PH probes which may mean that the PH is much higher - I am working to recalibrate using Borax as a test standard since each of the standards I bought are reading different (Pinpoint foil pack, Milwaukee bottle, ebay cheap stuff) and I will bring my PH meter to my LFS where they focus on corals to test my readings against their tanks and their meters - I can then use that portable Milwaukee meter to calibrate the Neptune and Milwaukee controller probes/meters.

I moved the Xenia to a separate 5 gallon emergency tank to see if any of it comes back - so far it is stinking up the entire house - worst case I will scrape it off and use the 5 gallon tank to recycle the live rock the Xenia was on..

Ammonia is still 0, Nitrate/Nitrite - 0, Cal is starting to climb and is now 380, Alk is still very high at 10.5dkh, ORP 210, Phosphate - 0

I'll see if I can find the MDS for the Power Compacts - but assuming Mercury did enter the water column - The Carbon and the Purigen / Hypersorb combined with the water changes I assume, should remove it - I think

Is it common to have Acros bleach and then sometimes come back? or is it wishful thinking on my part? There really isn't anything to Frag since the entire head is white (used to be a glowing Green)

Chris

 

[chriscolt]

Mike:

My guess is that the Kalk reactor dumping in a lot of Kalkswasser at once caused precipitation of Calcium maybe because the PH went up too high, too quickly - I surmise this because

1) Cal levels have been for the last year - between 480-520
2) If you look at the output from the Neptune controller - something happened between 17:00 and 23:00 on 5/20 - based on the rise in PH, ORP dropping 200mv and conductivity going nuts, tells me that something major happened to the water chemistry - the following morning (Sunday) when the lights came on - the Xenia was dead and the calcium was 310, Alk up at 11.5dkh (normally runs at around 9dkh) - from what I read here at reef central - this sudden change in PH and/or alk can cause calcium precipitation - why else would the cal levels be so low? Mg is normal at 1425 - why conductivity is still reading low when the refractometer is reading 1.025 sounds like a calibration problem but the Neptune Conductivity probe does do crazy things at times if it is not isolated properly.

What do you think?

Chris