HELP! Reef is Crashing

L

lawless

New member
Everything has been going great until this weekend. Suddenly I woke up on Saturday and things didn't look right. A bunch of my zoas were closed up and my Hollywood stunner chalice looked like white lace around the edges. When the lights came on I saw the real damage. The Stunner chalice looks done. I didn't want to over react but was very concerned. Well by Sunday it had gotten even worse. I checked the parameters and my PH was at about 8.1. Nitrites and Nitrates were at 0 and my ammonia was a little high at 1. I did a water change first thing after I checked. I have no idea what went wrong.

Truthfully the only thing I can think of was on Friday night when I got to my house someone had a dead battery. I helped them out using jumper cables. I was the one who connected and disconnected the cables and when I got back to my place I had saw one of my zoa frags was about to fall down in back to where I couldn't get it. Without thinking I threw my hand in and moved it.

This morning things didn't look much worse but surely no better.

Its really the only thing negative I can think of that I did. I don't know what to do but any advice is greatly appreciated. Guess that's what I get for trying to do a good deed and help a stranded person out. FML!

My hands were far from Oily or really dirty but I am sure I should have washed them. Could that really have casued all this?

It is a 34 gal red sea max.

-Bill
 
Temp is 81, I didn't test for Alk or Cal so will do that today.

I usually run carbon but actually just took it out to replace it last week but the carbon bag I bough from the fish store had a huge hole in it so there is no carbon in at this time. That was one thing I was going to try and pick up today and put in.
 
something like that happened to me a few months ago when my ph crashed down to like 6.9 in a matter of 2-3 hours. Have a bunch of people over in my small condo, cranked up the AC and i guess with all the people the co2 rose really quick. PH crashed and some corals suffered. I was able to tell by looking at the graph on my apex.
 
I forgot to turn my carbon reactor on recently. Realized it after 2 weeks. Few sps started to stn. My dirty hands in the tank all the time probably didnt help either
 
SO my Alk is good and so is my Calcium. Got the carbon elite in there now. Things are still looking bad. Zoas are all closed up. Chalice is almost dead. Candy Cane corals are receding hardcore. Going to do another large water change tomorrow and just cross my fingers.
 
My guess is the temp spiked (81 is at the high point anyway) and you had some die-off. Or simply put something died. This increased your ammonia. On a small system, even a large turbo snail kicking the bucket can cause major issues with your corals... Did you add something recently that turned-up missing?
 
I keep my temp at 80/81 so that is normal for them. I just did a 40% water change again this morning. I have not added any livestock that has died. I do have a pistol shrimp and he did a lot of moving of sand and that's what I figured the detritus cause some bit of ammonia. Fingers crossed.

Thank you everyone for all the advice! I hope things turn around soon.
 
More info is needed for sure. but if your concerned about chemicals, like copper (battery cables) and such, a poly filter will tell you, most LFS have them.

A 15 month old tank should not have that much ammonia, something disturbed your nitrosoma/nitrobacter bacteria.
 
So far everything is continuing to die. I am not sure how to check for stray voltage. All the fish are perfect. Crabs and shrimp are fine also. Almost every other coral is dying. Hollywood Stunner is completely ead, GSP haven't opened, trumpet is hurting, acro is dead, montiporas all died. It is the worst thing I have ever seen and I have no idea what to do. Might just give up on everything all together. I am going to try and get one of those poly filters at Exotic Aquatic tonight. Also going to do another 40% water change.

Any other thoughts or ideas a greatly appreciated.
 
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