Help!!!

[essop3]

I came home from my usual 3 days out of town to find my tank in awful shape. The water is really cloudy and all my LPS are dead or getting there. Softies, fish and clam are open and acting fine.

Nitrates are 5
phosphates show a trace reading
salinity is 36
temp 77
Filters were changed last night and are already needing it again. I put in new carbon and I'm doing a 35g water change.

I am working with the theory that something spawned. Any other ideas or suggestions? This sucks. I've raised many of these corals from frags to big, show size pieces.

 

[LtPiper]

That's wild. Your theory sounds valid though.

 

[rnhrtfan]

calc or kalkwasser reactor malfuction??? if you have one that is

 

[Roger928]

Any Caulerpa in the tank?

 

[essop3]

There is but its a pretty small amount. I would think the levels would be off if it went sexual. Wouldn't they?

 

[coralreefer]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10970404#post10970404 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by essop3
There is but its a pretty small amount. I would think the levels would be off if it went sexual. Wouldn't they?

Not necessarily. Check and see if it turned white.
Water changes, lots of carbon and filter changes are still your best friends either way.

 

[essop3]

it still looks normal

 

[coralreefer]

Then IIRC it didn't go sexual. Does the tank look any better after the water change?

 

[essop3]

it's still about the same. Some of the softies were starting to look a little mad but they've perked back up.

 

[firefish2020]

Had you added anything new to the tank prior to leaving? (coral, fish, inverts, additives, powerheads anything at all) think hard. I ask this because I had a customer recently who kept having problems with her tank out of the blue and she swore she added nothing at all until I said powerhead and she confirmed she had placed a Koralia 2 in her tank right before this happened, turned out it was leaking voltage. Some seem to have made it through the recall. If it's only the LPS is there one that was showing signs of brown jelly infection prior to this event by any chance?

 

[essop3]

I changed the light over the fuge. But that's all. I haven't added anything because I work out of town so much I've been thinking of selling my tank.

The tank is still a little cloudy after the water change. I'm running water to do another but I'm out of town from tomorrow morning until thursday evening.

Corals that look like total losses:
30 head frogspawn that I grew from a single head
30 head green candy cane
5 inch plate I grew from a frag
6 head torch
4" pink monti, favia frag

 

[firefish2020]

Is it a 4" monti or a favia, as favia is a LPS and montis (montipora) are SPS? Do you have any SPS that were affected at all or is this a 100% LPS event? If so it sounds like a pathogen that spread from the LPS of some sort but thats just a guess. Like you said it could have been a spawn event, I have read of instances of favia spawning in tanks, without extra filtration and heavy carbon that could cause the sort of devastation you have described.

 

[essop3]

I have both. The only sps in the tank is the monti frag. It's pretty bleached looking. The favia is pretty small, maybe 4"

 

[firefish2020]

hmmmm you got a mystery on your hands, I would say the favia is to small to spawn. I am out of idea, anyone else?

 

[coralreefer]

Not very likely but I guess the BTA could have spawned. I've always understood that was really uncommon for a splitter though.
Bacteria bloom maybe? Don't know if that would cause the damage you've had.

 

[essop3]

There are 6 BTAs so they might have done it, but I dunno.

Anyways, it looks like the crisis portion is over. I just got home from 3 days out of town and water is pretty clear and many corals are looking in better health. The glass looked like I hadn't cleaned it in months. I'm going to do a few water changes over the next week.

Losses include:
plate coral
torch coral
95% of candy cane
99% of frogspawn (a few small frags on surounding rocks remain)
favia
monti
ribbon gorgonia
50% of blasto

Bubble and hammer are damaged but look like they might recover.

 

[phljess]

Did you have any disturbance of the sandbed?

 

[essop3]

Not that I know of. There are no places you can see that it was disturbed.

 

[axciom333]

Did you ever figure out what happened here?

I had a similar event in my tank about a month ago and it turned out to be copper for me. I had a DC fan down by the sump and the adapter plug for it fell out of the fan and into the sump. The saltwater corroded the copper off of the plug and into my water.

I was amazed at the speed of the destruction.

 

[essop3]

Whatever it was you could see it. It made the water very cloudy but cleared in 3 days. no inverts were bothered other than the LPS. It's ok now, I just lost years of growth and a coral or 2.