cabenn
New member
Well,
I've never had a problem with my tank and I've read so many threads that I sorta know what to do but wanted to share some thoughts.
Wife calls me at 4 this afternoon telling me that the water looks cloudy and everything is all shrivelled up. I tell her to check the power heads and make sure nothing fell down etc. The obvious stuff.
Well I get home and pretty much all the coral is bleaching. The super hardy anthelia is all bleached white and shrivelled among everything else.
Tested the following at 4pm
Tank size 90gallons
Inhabitants
1 yellow tank
2 bangai cardinals
2 mated black saddleback clown fish
1 cleaner shrimp
1 pink tip green bubble anenome
Anthelia - really stressed out
Orange Cap - almost completely white
Purple tip monti - some color left but noticeiably stressed
zoanthids - all closed up
green star polyps - all closed up
2 - large toadstool mushrooms
pink finger leather all shrivelled up
Tank Params
______________________________________
Alk 2.74 meq/L 7.7
Ca 270 (low)
pH 8.2
Nitrate 5.0 (never had high nitrates before possibly cause of die off?)
Am .25 - .35 tough to tell
Nitrite 0
Salinity was 1.029 (this was a shocker to me) I added some top off water and lowered it to 1.025. (about 4 gallons total)
Temp 81.5
Unfortunately I don't know exactly what happened over night like that since I haven't changed any feeding habits etc and I seriously doubt I could have overfed feeding the little mysis and cyclopeez that I have in the past 2 days. No more than usual.
I forgot to add top off water over the past two days but it's nothing bad like before. I've had the water lower in the tank before when I've left for a vacation on the weekend and came back.
I knew something was up this morning when I woke up and a frag of Purple tip montipora I had was completely bleached on the sand bed. It was about a 4 inch frag but I was surprised cause everything else had good color. My Bubble tip anenome was all happy and bubbly(which it doesn't do very often)
I'm in the process now of filling up some additional water to bring the salinity down to 1.025 - 1.026
Some additional questions I had are regarding the Ca salifert test kit. It says to watch the color change from pink to a clear blue. Well I noticed it change colors to blue but it really isn't clear. So I figured I'd add the rest of the mixture in the solution and it didn't get any clearer so should be a clear blue as in you can see all the way through it?
I'm at the mercy right now of how fast my RO unit can spit out water
Only time will tell. All the fish seem happy so far but for now I've turned off my MH lights and I'm keeping on the VHO's.
My next step is to get a 5gal water change in ASAP. But at this rate it will be around 12am or so
Additional Info
Tank has been up for over 2.5 years and this is the first event aside from when I changed my MH bulbs about 8 months ago that I've ever seen the corals stressed out this much.
I'll be back up in a few hours but I'm gonna try and get some sleep and relax while the water fills up for the Water Change.
I've never had a problem with my tank and I've read so many threads that I sorta know what to do but wanted to share some thoughts.
Wife calls me at 4 this afternoon telling me that the water looks cloudy and everything is all shrivelled up. I tell her to check the power heads and make sure nothing fell down etc. The obvious stuff.
Well I get home and pretty much all the coral is bleaching. The super hardy anthelia is all bleached white and shrivelled among everything else.
Tested the following at 4pm
Tank size 90gallons
Inhabitants
1 yellow tank
2 bangai cardinals
2 mated black saddleback clown fish
1 cleaner shrimp
1 pink tip green bubble anenome
Anthelia - really stressed out
Orange Cap - almost completely white
Purple tip monti - some color left but noticeiably stressed
zoanthids - all closed up
green star polyps - all closed up
2 - large toadstool mushrooms
pink finger leather all shrivelled up
Tank Params
______________________________________
Alk 2.74 meq/L 7.7
Ca 270 (low)
pH 8.2
Nitrate 5.0 (never had high nitrates before possibly cause of die off?)
Am .25 - .35 tough to tell
Nitrite 0
Salinity was 1.029 (this was a shocker to me) I added some top off water and lowered it to 1.025. (about 4 gallons total)
Temp 81.5
Unfortunately I don't know exactly what happened over night like that since I haven't changed any feeding habits etc and I seriously doubt I could have overfed feeding the little mysis and cyclopeez that I have in the past 2 days. No more than usual.
I forgot to add top off water over the past two days but it's nothing bad like before. I've had the water lower in the tank before when I've left for a vacation on the weekend and came back.
I knew something was up this morning when I woke up and a frag of Purple tip montipora I had was completely bleached on the sand bed. It was about a 4 inch frag but I was surprised cause everything else had good color. My Bubble tip anenome was all happy and bubbly(which it doesn't do very often)
I'm in the process now of filling up some additional water to bring the salinity down to 1.025 - 1.026
Some additional questions I had are regarding the Ca salifert test kit. It says to watch the color change from pink to a clear blue. Well I noticed it change colors to blue but it really isn't clear. So I figured I'd add the rest of the mixture in the solution and it didn't get any clearer so should be a clear blue as in you can see all the way through it?
I'm at the mercy right now of how fast my RO unit can spit out water
Only time will tell. All the fish seem happy so far but for now I've turned off my MH lights and I'm keeping on the VHO's.
My next step is to get a 5gal water change in ASAP. But at this rate it will be around 12am or so
Additional Info
Tank has been up for over 2.5 years and this is the first event aside from when I changed my MH bulbs about 8 months ago that I've ever seen the corals stressed out this much.
I'll be back up in a few hours but I'm gonna try and get some sleep and relax while the water fills up for the Water Change.
