ahhh, so much for best laid plans.....background: I have a 28 gallon nano mostly soft coral reef tank. The only stonies are LPS including a small Duncan, frogspawn, and candy cane. I have a yellow clown goby, an orange lined cardinalfish, and a tailspot blenny. I take a pretty low tech approach, HOB filters, biocube skimmer (sort of works), T5s and some kind of fairly cheap LED. I have a lot of mushrooms, a toadstool leather, a Kenya tree and a whole lot of GSP. I do 10-15% weekly water changes with RO water and reef crystals, or NSW from the LFS.
Or, I had.....So I moved everything to a new 29 gallon that I had set up as a sort of DIY all in one, with spray foam background. Substrate was new aragonite sand (not live, and very well rinsed). I've moved things from one tank to another and stuff before, but never had a disaster...until this time.
All the rock and critters got moved over Saturday. It seemed to go ok, the usual closed corals after being moved, but fish ok. Yesterday (Sunday, one day after moving) most of the corals looked annoyed and closed up, fish were ok. The water looked a little bit cloudy, but I attributed it to moving everything around.
Today (Monday) I came home to a dead tank. The water is cloudy and smells awful, the cardinalfish is very dead, and all the LPS are just skeletons. The mushrooms have disintegrated into pieces over the last day. The zoas/polyps are closed up but haven't fallen apart yet. The Leather is closed up but not obviously dead yet. I haven't seen my blenny but the yellow goby is ok. Ammonia is 0.25 on an API test. Nitrate is 0, nitrate I didn't bother with and I will be testing pH, alk and calcium here shortly.
I'm thinking either this is an ammonia spike from moving, or something worse. The ammonia is high (was 0 before the move) but nitrites are 0. Does that make sense with an ammonia spike in the last 24-48 hrs? I've moved tanks before without this happening so I'm wondering if "just" an ammonia spike could kill every coral, fish and literally melt mushrooms basically in one day? (I've had mushrooms survive my newbie 'what is a cycle' days, so I wonder).
The other thought is toxins. I have never used any copper of any kind on any of my tanks so I don't think it's that (I have a test so I will check that though). The spray foam is the black pond type stuff that was set up for about a week prior to filling the tank with FW, which then sat for a day with the pump running. Filtration is an overflow into the DIY media rack made with egg crate, filter floss, phosguard, then a biocube return pump back to the display area. The only other mechanical item is a koralia pump that I had in the other tank. Maybe the foam is toxic, or the pump is leaking metal?
I've changed out about 8 gallons and working on more, and I've added some carbon. No improvement yet. Ammonia recheck was still 0.25 so I will keep doing water changes. Does this amount of complete destruction overnight sound like an ammonia spike? In other words, stupid question, but does an ammonia spike kill literally the whole tank overnight?
Any ideas??? I feel sick about this.....UGH.
Or, I had.....So I moved everything to a new 29 gallon that I had set up as a sort of DIY all in one, with spray foam background. Substrate was new aragonite sand (not live, and very well rinsed). I've moved things from one tank to another and stuff before, but never had a disaster...until this time.
All the rock and critters got moved over Saturday. It seemed to go ok, the usual closed corals after being moved, but fish ok. Yesterday (Sunday, one day after moving) most of the corals looked annoyed and closed up, fish were ok. The water looked a little bit cloudy, but I attributed it to moving everything around.
Today (Monday) I came home to a dead tank. The water is cloudy and smells awful, the cardinalfish is very dead, and all the LPS are just skeletons. The mushrooms have disintegrated into pieces over the last day. The zoas/polyps are closed up but haven't fallen apart yet. The Leather is closed up but not obviously dead yet. I haven't seen my blenny but the yellow goby is ok. Ammonia is 0.25 on an API test. Nitrate is 0, nitrate I didn't bother with and I will be testing pH, alk and calcium here shortly.
I'm thinking either this is an ammonia spike from moving, or something worse. The ammonia is high (was 0 before the move) but nitrites are 0. Does that make sense with an ammonia spike in the last 24-48 hrs? I've moved tanks before without this happening so I'm wondering if "just" an ammonia spike could kill every coral, fish and literally melt mushrooms basically in one day? (I've had mushrooms survive my newbie 'what is a cycle' days, so I wonder).
The other thought is toxins. I have never used any copper of any kind on any of my tanks so I don't think it's that (I have a test so I will check that though). The spray foam is the black pond type stuff that was set up for about a week prior to filling the tank with FW, which then sat for a day with the pump running. Filtration is an overflow into the DIY media rack made with egg crate, filter floss, phosguard, then a biocube return pump back to the display area. The only other mechanical item is a koralia pump that I had in the other tank. Maybe the foam is toxic, or the pump is leaking metal?
I've changed out about 8 gallons and working on more, and I've added some carbon. No improvement yet. Ammonia recheck was still 0.25 so I will keep doing water changes. Does this amount of complete destruction overnight sound like an ammonia spike? In other words, stupid question, but does an ammonia spike kill literally the whole tank overnight?
Any ideas??? I feel sick about this.....UGH.
I will have to move my tank in roughly 8 months and am hoping for the best (20g)
