Jmar101786
New member
To be honest I really don't know where to start nor do I know where to postthis. I guess the best place to put it is in the "Reef for Beginners"section as after this issue I feel like a beginner all over again.
I have been in this hobby for over 10 years now and I am one of thosereefers that prides themselves on saying that they learn something new everyday. Today however I haven't learned anything new as I can't explain the reasonwhy things have happened to my tank.
A little about my tank - 125 Gal DT, (2) 400 Watt Metal Halides on an 8 hourcycle, 40 gal long sump with approx. 30 gallons of water in it when running,GSM G4+ Skimmer, 200lbs of rock, shallow sand bed, Temp at a steady 77 degrees.
I guess I will start from Wednesday 7/11... I came home and did a waterchange (30 Gal change...once a week - some may disagree with this practice butit’s been my staple move from the beginning of the hobby 10 yearsago)...everything looked great afterwards as well as on Thursday andFriday....Saturday morning I wake up to go in my tank room and smell an oddodor....I go to look at my tank and find that many of my SPS pieces diedovernight (approx. 8 pieces)....they were not fully melted away but enough tosay that there was no chance of survival for these pieces...I pulled the pieces out of the water and proceeded to test the water...my results were as follows:
Temp 77
Salt 1.024
Alk 8
PH 8.2
Ammonia 0
Nitrate 0
Nitrite 0
Phosphate .5
Calc 420
Mag 1350
At this point I scratched my head...thought maybe it was chemical warfareand changed the filter pad and upped my skimmer flow so that I would pull outsome more skimmate in hopes that any of the death in the water wouldn't hurtanything else.
Last night was a restless night for me as I was pretty bummed out from themishap in my tank and I found myself checking my tank at about 3 AM to find mytank looked like a giant snow globe with these small "pellets"flurrying about.
At this point I took an old net and ripped the net off wrapping the frame incheese cloth frantically trying to scoop of any of the free floating pieces notknowing what they were... after further inspection I realized it was my lobomelting apart and the pieces that were floating about were pieces of the lobo. Atthis point I removed the piece and let bye gones be bye gones.
This morning I woke up to find even more dead/dying/melting away...this timenot just SPS...but LPS as well...it ranged from chalices and acans tofrogspawns and candy canes/trumpets....nothing seemed safe. To put it simply Ifreaked out...head spinning and not knowing what to do...I tested my wateragain and got the following results:
Temp 78
Salt 1.024
Alk 7
PH 8.2
Ammonia 0
Nitrate 0
Nitrite 0
Phosphate 1
Calc 420
Mag 1350
I thought maybe my test kit was off so I brought it to a LFS to have a friend test the water and all the results matched with mine. In addition to thesample from my tank I also brought a sample of my RO water...which tested phosphates at 1. At this point I bought carbon and new RODI cartridges as minewere exhausted.
I came home and did a 40 gal water change with new clean water, since then Ihave lost a significant amount of corals... some of which I fear I will never be able to replace...
Now I know some of the questions that might rise up are if I changed anything, added anything, tested for copper or other metals, if I tested for stray electricity.... the answer tothese questions are No across the board....nothing has been added, nothing haschanged...this was all at random or so it seemed....no chemicals enter thisroom either.
I am at a loss right now as I have no idea what caused this or how to stop the death...the death toll at the moment is 31 pieces...more than half the coral in my tank.
If anyone has any ideas it would be greatly appreciated...there are no pestsin tank and none of the fish are affected by this with the exception of acopperband butterfly that has stopped eating...it may be unrelated however I am not sure at this point.
Side notes :
- The heater is approx 6 months old as i change them at the start of the new year
- The pump is only about a year old
- I dose brightwell Alk, Calc, Mag however these are the same bottles ive used for the past month so i know it's not old stock or anything like that.
- This room is a locked down room...no chemicals or cleaning supplies... no paints or stains...nothing harmful to the tank in that fashion
As of right now this is the list of dead coral
Blue Mille
Tyree Setosa
Forest Fire Digitata
Orange Digitata
Purple Stylophora
Pink Stylophora
Rainbow Stylophora
Green Stylophora
Pink Jade
Undata Monti
Lantana Monti
Rainbow Monti
Sunset Monti
Chilli Pepper Monti
Superman Monti
Jedi Mind Trick Monti
Green Birdsnest
ORA Hyacinth Birdsnest
Ponape Birdsnest
Green Cap
Red Cap
Cyphastrea
Candy Cane
Maze Brain
Rainbow Frogspawn
Lobophylia
Hollywood Stunner Chalice
Soccer Mom Chalice
Pink Panther Chalice
Green Wall Hammer
Blue Branching Hammer
I have been in this hobby for over 10 years now and I am one of thosereefers that prides themselves on saying that they learn something new everyday. Today however I haven't learned anything new as I can't explain the reasonwhy things have happened to my tank.
A little about my tank - 125 Gal DT, (2) 400 Watt Metal Halides on an 8 hourcycle, 40 gal long sump with approx. 30 gallons of water in it when running,GSM G4+ Skimmer, 200lbs of rock, shallow sand bed, Temp at a steady 77 degrees.
I guess I will start from Wednesday 7/11... I came home and did a waterchange (30 Gal change...once a week - some may disagree with this practice butit’s been my staple move from the beginning of the hobby 10 yearsago)...everything looked great afterwards as well as on Thursday andFriday....Saturday morning I wake up to go in my tank room and smell an oddodor....I go to look at my tank and find that many of my SPS pieces diedovernight (approx. 8 pieces)....they were not fully melted away but enough tosay that there was no chance of survival for these pieces...I pulled the pieces out of the water and proceeded to test the water...my results were as follows:
Temp 77
Salt 1.024
Alk 8
PH 8.2
Ammonia 0
Nitrate 0
Nitrite 0
Phosphate .5
Calc 420
Mag 1350
At this point I scratched my head...thought maybe it was chemical warfareand changed the filter pad and upped my skimmer flow so that I would pull outsome more skimmate in hopes that any of the death in the water wouldn't hurtanything else.
Last night was a restless night for me as I was pretty bummed out from themishap in my tank and I found myself checking my tank at about 3 AM to find mytank looked like a giant snow globe with these small "pellets"flurrying about.
At this point I took an old net and ripped the net off wrapping the frame incheese cloth frantically trying to scoop of any of the free floating pieces notknowing what they were... after further inspection I realized it was my lobomelting apart and the pieces that were floating about were pieces of the lobo. Atthis point I removed the piece and let bye gones be bye gones.
This morning I woke up to find even more dead/dying/melting away...this timenot just SPS...but LPS as well...it ranged from chalices and acans tofrogspawns and candy canes/trumpets....nothing seemed safe. To put it simply Ifreaked out...head spinning and not knowing what to do...I tested my wateragain and got the following results:
Temp 78
Salt 1.024
Alk 7
PH 8.2
Ammonia 0
Nitrate 0
Nitrite 0
Phosphate 1
Calc 420
Mag 1350
I thought maybe my test kit was off so I brought it to a LFS to have a friend test the water and all the results matched with mine. In addition to thesample from my tank I also brought a sample of my RO water...which tested phosphates at 1. At this point I bought carbon and new RODI cartridges as minewere exhausted.
I came home and did a 40 gal water change with new clean water, since then Ihave lost a significant amount of corals... some of which I fear I will never be able to replace...
Now I know some of the questions that might rise up are if I changed anything, added anything, tested for copper or other metals, if I tested for stray electricity.... the answer tothese questions are No across the board....nothing has been added, nothing haschanged...this was all at random or so it seemed....no chemicals enter thisroom either.
I am at a loss right now as I have no idea what caused this or how to stop the death...the death toll at the moment is 31 pieces...more than half the coral in my tank.
If anyone has any ideas it would be greatly appreciated...there are no pestsin tank and none of the fish are affected by this with the exception of acopperband butterfly that has stopped eating...it may be unrelated however I am not sure at this point.
Side notes :
- The heater is approx 6 months old as i change them at the start of the new year
- The pump is only about a year old
- I dose brightwell Alk, Calc, Mag however these are the same bottles ive used for the past month so i know it's not old stock or anything like that.
- This room is a locked down room...no chemicals or cleaning supplies... no paints or stains...nothing harmful to the tank in that fashion
As of right now this is the list of dead coral
Blue Mille
Tyree Setosa
Forest Fire Digitata
Orange Digitata
Purple Stylophora
Pink Stylophora
Rainbow Stylophora
Green Stylophora
Pink Jade
Undata Monti
Lantana Monti
Rainbow Monti
Sunset Monti
Chilli Pepper Monti
Superman Monti
Jedi Mind Trick Monti
Green Birdsnest
ORA Hyacinth Birdsnest
Ponape Birdsnest
Green Cap
Red Cap
Cyphastrea
Candy Cane
Maze Brain
Rainbow Frogspawn
Lobophylia
Hollywood Stunner Chalice
Soccer Mom Chalice
Pink Panther Chalice
Green Wall Hammer
Blue Branching Hammer
