Loosing all corals within 3 days

[DKKreef]

I'm afraid we are loosing all of our corals. Not trying to be dramatic, but all of our corals have closed up within the last three days. We are very new to this hobby and don't know what we are witnessing. We've had nudibranchs, which we think have cleared up.

Our water parameters are spot-on and our fish all look fine. The only thing/predator we can see are some small white "things" (worms?) that look like backwards "c"s. Everything we've read about 'tiny white worms' say that they are harmless. These things (or something) are causing major issues for all our corals: GSP, Cynarina, Frogspawn, Golden Torch, Duncan, Hammer, Pearl Bubble.

Our tank is 2-1/2 months old. Live sand substrate.

Sorry - really hard to get photos because they are so small.

 

[MechEng99]

In order to help you, we need to know more. Exactly what are your parameters? What is your tank setup like? What inhabitants do you have? Without knowing this stuff, we would be shooting in the dark.

And, those "things" aren't worms. They are the coral's mesenterial filaments...guts basically...showing that the coral is stressed.

 

[DKKreef]

We have an Oceanic 90g tank (65 g DT with a 25g sump); we are running Fluval full spectrum multi-spectrum LED lighting-504 LEDS; protein skimmer; limestone live rock; live sand; have added a Voyager 2 stream pump to the two power heads that came with system. Have a grounding probe in sump. System has been up and running for over 2-1/2 months. What else do you need to know about the system?

Our water parameters are:
pH: 8.2
Ammonia: 0
Nitrate: 0
Nitrite: 0
Calcium: 440
Specific Gravity: 1.023
Phosphate: ,25
Carbonate Hardness: 7

We dose with Calcium, Buffer, Iodine & Strontium twice a week.

Livestock: Black & White Ocellaris; Snowflake Ocellaris; Midas Blenny; Citron Goby (2); Skunk Cleaner Shrimp; Clean-up Crew: red-leg, blue-leg, green-leg & zebra hermit crabs; Astrea & Margarita & Turbo snails

Corals & Anemone: Rose Bubble Tip Anemone; Neopolitan Frogspawn, Duncan, GSP, Ridge Hammer, Zoanthid, Lobophyillia, Cynarina, Pearl Bubble

Feed pelleted food 4/5 days a week and frozen Mysis combo 2/3 times a week
Add about 1g of fresh water into sump each day
Using a service for water changes & cleaning

Everything has perked along nicely until about 5-6 days ago.

Going to try some Cuprisorb on the chance that this may be related to heavy metals. Sound possible?

Thank you for any help or guidance you may offer. I'm very sad and distraught about this dramatic change in our tank. There is so much to learn and I hate learning at the expense of living creatures!

 

[Reeferz412]

Check your heaters or any faulty equipment to rule that out. my corals declined quite a bit a few months back because I didnt check my heater. Also, take a sample of your water to the LFS to get a second look at your parameters, maybe your kits are off. Sorry for your troubles and good luck. Keep us posted.

 

[CoralReeForrest]

Loosing all corals within 3 days

Your alkalinity is a bit low you should be shooting for more in the 10 range. 7 could be causing an issue. And with that what is your magnesium level? It needs to be about 1350 before you raise the other two.

 

[trinidiver]

your salinity should also be in the 1.025-26/
Also do you test for the strontium you are dosing? If not, why are you dosing it.

 

[Art13]

i was going to suggest the salinity as well, that i would think would also help bring up the alk.

 

[Browndawg80]

Check the inside of all your pumps for rust. I had some magnets rust inside my mag 24 return pump once and leech contaminants into my system without affecting the pumps performance. My softies survived but I couldn't keep acan lords alive. Cuprisorb would help the symptoms but you really need to diagnose the main problem. Hope this helps.

 

[trinidiver]

Check the inside of all your pumps for rust. I had some magnets rust inside my mag 24 return pump.

Wow, I need to check mine more regular. I never thought of that. Good info

 

[zenom]

Don't dose anything you do not test. I would be checking iodine and strontium ASAP.

 

[AdamSabina]

Kinda silly I'm assuming you have one but I didn't see a heater in you equipment? How many watts and is it working correctly shoot for steady temp between 76-80. Check late at night at least once if your heater is under powered it easy to have the temp plummet to the low 70s (bad) or high 80s (worse) at midday.

Also iodine CAN BE DEADLY to marine life. Not for beginning reefers. Maybe later but to start I'd hold off on all dosing especially iodine. Best advise I have 3-4 water changes 15-20%. Space them a day apart. You'll should be able to save them. Water changes will dissipate your issue.

 

[Josh40996]

+1 water changes should help you at this point. Stop dosing what you cannot test for, you'd much rather have too little than too much Iodine. 0.25 PO4 is rather high, running GFO will help with that. Something to absorb heavy metals and you may as well throw in a bag-o-carbon whilst you're there. Check all of your equipment for damage/faults.

It does seem that you have tried your best to ensure the well being of your livestock and seems you have researched it thoroughly, it would be a shame if the situation gets any worse.

Good luck

 

[justinky]

Make sure all your livestock is alive.

 

[kurt_n]

... Also iodine CAN BE DEADLY to marine life. Not for beginning reefers. ...

This. Stop the iodine dosing and do some big water changes to get what you have in there out. In my opinion, it's either this or some failed electrical equipment in your tank. I have a powerhead die in my tank - corals all closed up and reacted bad while the fish could've cared less.

But I've seen other folks lose corals from overdosing iodine "because the LFS told me to." With normal water changes, iodine is one of those things you really don't need to worry about.

 

[DKKreef]

Update:

Thanks for the thoughts on what's causing our system to crash - and it is crashing. I really appreciate the help and thoughts.

LFS came out and did a big water change with their sterilized water, vacuumed sand, and put in Cuprisorb and Purigen and removed the carbon that we had been using. Also put a couple capfuls of Prime into the tank. They couldn't see any pests or hitchhikers. Said it looked like a 'toxic event' - but no idea what. Questioned me about dirty hands in tank (lotions, cremes, oils, soaps, etc.), cleaning products, room fragrances, etc. Negative on all of that. LFS was surprised that Skunk Cleaner Shrimp and Anemone were still alive (which they are - as well as all other fish: 2 ocellaris, midas blenny, citron goby). We have stopped dosing anything. And thanks for the tips on not dosing something that you're not testing for, just because LFS says you need to dose that stuff! Another hard lesson learned.

So, we're still nowhere on what caused this to happen so quickly - in a period of 3 days. Yes, I understand that many may think it didn't happen quickly - but to the novice, which we are, it DID happen quickly. I understand a lot of you may think that we went too fast, so this will definitely be a lesson learned if we continue with this hobby at all (very close to giving the fish to anyone who wants them and selling the system--this has been too painful to watch) but, in the meantime, I guess there is nothing more to do but sit and watch everything die? In other words, any other ideas on what else we can do to try and save anything or turn it around? Should we try to spot feed the anemone some Mysis - or is that just going to stress it more?

ARGH! I hate this! It's painful to watch and especially if it's something we 'did'. :sad2:

 

[kurt_n]

The only thing you can do at this point is water change, water change, water change. I'd be doing 20% a day if I was in your shoes. Sounds like you've got a LFS servicing your tank, so that makes it a little tough to do I guess. Hard to take charge of your tank when you're not in charge of your tank. Water changes and the cuprisorb will help. I'd also be running a Polyfilter. Those turn different color depending on what it's sucking out of your water. Purigen isn't going to help you really - won't hurt, but in this scenario it's not really going to help. (And yes... I've run Purigen for many years.)

I wouldn't feed the anemone - I think you're right, it'll just stress it more as it spends the energy to digest the food.

Have you looked at all your electrical devices in the tank? Do they look OK? This is hard to describe, but you know when your heater is on and the water around it looks kind of "wavy" or distorted? Does the water around any of your powerheads look like that? When I had a powerhead lose the seal (potting) around the electrical coils, I could see the higher temperature water (the "distorted" look) spewing out the back of the powerhead. It was obvious something was wrong. Once I took that powerhead out, and did a couple 20% water changes, things started coming back to life. That, and the Polyfilter which turned a bit blue - signifying it was pulling copper out of the water.

But I agree... some type of "toxic event." When all else fails... water changes never hurt anything. Ever.