Tank Problem <sigh>

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 4

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.

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. 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

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?

If anyone wants to give me a shout on here. Or if you want to chat pm me and I can send you my phone numbers.

I'm at the mercy right now of how fast my RO unit can spit out water :P

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 8pm or so :P
 
I would take temp down to 77, slow everything down. I'm not an expert by far, but I noticed my tank does look better when I have the temp down.

Good luck I hope they come out of it.

Craig
 
I'm sorry to hear this. I don't think those numbers are that bad but I don't keep SPS. Are you sure nothing else changed? Seems like if there was a death in the tank the nitrates could have bloomed.

I also see some cloudiness in the Salifert Ca.

If you are concerned about the water than I'd change more
 
dont know how big the tank is but i would do a bigger water change and look for some thing died, sounds like to me something died. or something happen in tank fast. just curious or there any cucumbers that could have got sucked in powerheads or anemones. happen to me with a cucumber before, killed alot of stuff.,
 
I would suggest checking your MH bulbs. Ours had a bad spot in it and it was crackes and we didn't notice it and it started to poison our tank.
good luck in finding what caused it.
 
Everything's alive so far.

I counted all the fish. The only thing someone suggested is if my anenome got well excited and released sperm in the tank. Cause by the looks of it nothing else has changed.

The only thing that I noticed out of the ordinary was the frag that was completely gone over night on the bottom of the tank.

The anenome is still ticked off but it hasn't spit out its guts its just curled in. Inverts are alive and I have changed the carbon out.

If ya look at my profile you would notice that its a 90 gal tank.
 
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