OMG, Whats going on here.....

[Metal Man 1221]

I've heard of some of these not being accurate. If it was off by two degrees making the tank 86 which is deadly to sensitive sps especially if it was rapid.

+1, This too!

I would run carbon in case there was some kind of contamination. Stop gfo as well if you are running it. Wait.

And this... If things are dying, your ammonia levels will be detectable at some point. Do what you can to prevent the situation from compounding. All the while do not over react to the information you do obtain, there needs to be processing inbetween.

 

[outssider]

Dosing: I does daily amounts (if needed) of CA,ALK,Ma,Acropower,Trace Elements, Strontium

Strontium can be deadly if you dose too much..... strontium is very hard to test for

 

[jfarr]

I had heater stick in the on pos and all sps flesh fluffed away like u described and lips pretty much melted over night

 

[nudifun]

Ahh ok in that case I guess the temp is ruled out. Hmm this is interesting...I'm stumped because everything else seems spot on. I don't have any ideas about the lighting either.

A 216 watt 48 in t5 fixture seems very reasonable for your tank. What kind of bulbs were you running before you switched to the brand new ones? And what kind of bulbs were the new ones? Sorry if you mentioned this already, but did you notice the decline after making the bulb switch? If so, maybe it was too rapid of am increase in intensity or maybe a shift in spectrum(just speculating on this one)

I always run Wavepoint bulbs. no change in bulb brand or color/intensity. The acropora was literally scorched in the period of 8 hours under this light. The day before it was amazing, never looked better. the next it was ghost white with hollowed out holes where the polyps used to be. Also the new bulbs were on the tank for two weeks before this happened with no issue and no outside influence between then and now.

 

[nudifun]

Food for thought...

How can you possibly determine it IS the lighting, if you dont know how or why?



How many times have you tested the water since this started?
Have you tested for stray voltage?
Any chance yours our your neighbors yard has been sprayed for weeds or bugs lately?
How long was the tank at 84, and what steps did you take to remediate?

Also, you might be able to rule out the heater being defective, but 84 is quite high. Temps that high can cause some some serious damage, especially if it was a quick swing.
I may have missed it I do not believe you posted current or average temp.

I still would not rule out the temperature swing, stray voltage, or chemicals having an effect on this.

Good luck,

I can determine this by ruling out other possibilities in order of how much effect they have on the particular environment. Inductive reasoning. logic, sings & symptoms....take you pic.

I have tested the water 6 times by myself utilizing two different brand test kits, under different lighting circumstances. I also verified my results with my LFS twice.

I have checked for stray voltage of course. Thats not hard besides there are no signs or symptoms for that besides the bleaching, which only effected one coral at that point. the rest just looked closed up/shriveled up.

no spraying has been done. Its winter and 18 degrees outside. the windows and doors are kept shut at all times. have large light/heat blocking curtains on all the windows. (I like it dark and cold in my house)

The tank was at 84 for less than 4 hours. As soon as I noticed I took out the heater I thought may be creating the issue. I also used a box fan to cool the water surface over my sump for the rest of the night. this turned the temp down about a degree every half hour or so, if i remember correctly.

temps of 84 degrees are not catastrophic. anything over that is a different story. the issue was a couple days before the bleaching though so I do not think its as likely as the light.

My average temp is 80.

 

[nudifun]

update: the heater is not the issue here. the tank temp is normal all the time. this was n isolated incident in which the temp was at 84 for a few hours. It was days before this issue at hand and it did not seem to have any effect on any of the livestock at the time it occurred. everything looked tip top. The Acropora that bleached was looking fabulous, lol before he bleached the next day. so i don't think it was a residual effect either

 

[nudifun]

updated picture:

heres a pic of my birdsnest. the day the acropora turned white, the birdsnest (who is at the same height to light) looked fine, which confused me. this is why I continued to have the light on after the acro bleached. I thought it was possible it was the light but not sure. so the next day after the acro bleached i changed the light schedule to 4 hours on. came home from work and the tips of the birdsnest were bleached.
I took the light off and put on a temporary one that is less than half the power, LOL. Afterwards it did not get worse. obviously it was the light. I thought thank god, almost lost my birdsnest. I figured the tips would come back and even if they dont I can frag him. Unfortunately the tissue deterioration is getting worse. its not bleaching, it seems to be a residual effect of the old light fixture burning it. I dont think this is bleaching I think this light was frying my corals! Any way the birdsnest tissue is peeling away from its skeleton, but only where the tips were burned/bleached. But its getting worse. at first the tips were only burnt about 1cm now its peeled down almost a 1/2" down each branch! I can see the tissue peeling and flapping in the current on some branches. Im so upset, not sure what to do. soo sad. any advice?
Maybe someone can shed some light on what happened her with the coral tissue and what happened with the light to make it do this?

 

[nudifun]

update 2:
Not sure its the light after all. Now I think its the Purigen or Chemi-pure Elite.
I took out my Purigen yesterday. I took out the chemi-pure a couple days ago. I am beginning to not trust these products. I read somewhere that purigen works so good at removing dissolved waste that can actually cause environmental shock and RTN! so now Im leaning towards the Purigen. possibly the Chemi-pure elite as well. I wish i knew which one it was though because I like how beautiful the water is made by them and how stable the tank is with chemi-pure elite in it (PH wise). Can you put to much of either of these things in? I used about 125ml of Purigen (rinsed in RO first), places in my bubble trap spread from side to side so water is forced to go through it and not around. Same with the Chemi-pure Elite.

Has anyone experienced an issue with either of these products doing this?

ps- tested my nitrates again....they read 0ppm!! just a few days ago (before the purigen was put in) it was 15ppm! wow.

 

[DSMpunk]

I don't see bleaching at all, everything I see looks like tissue necrosis. Personally, I would cut off the dead/dying tips of your birdsnest.

 

[maddmaxx]

im surprised really nobody mentioned this and everyone is scrambling for a reason,,,sometimes and im serious sometimes SPS corals just RTN or STN out of no where. obviously there is a cause for it, but it could be something beyond what has been discussed. sometimes you have to chalk it up to things happen. its the hobby.

i do hope its something that can be figured out, and figured out quick for your sake.

i had a pink birdnest frag, had it for 8 months, tripled in size, was doing great with great colors. suddenly is started to loose tissue, within 3 days completely lost. all other SPS where fine and nothing happened to them. got another frag of same pink birdnest from same original colony, and have been fine ever since...things happen