total sps loss within 4 hours

K

kba981

New member
Tank 125 reef.
all had been great
Ph 8.0
dkh 9.8
cal 520
amm 0
no2 0
no3 less than 10.
I added a new diamond gobie to replace the one that died.
tank a little cloudy within 15 minutes or so.
1 hour later tank very cloudy.
I notice some of my acros are starting to slime.

by the time I was able to do a 100% total loss.
The following morning what corals were left were totally bleached.
skimmer going crazy.

Here is the kicker 5 clams 4 acans and all lps just fine no loss.

any suggestions as to what happened??
confused and ready to quit.
 
Did you float the bag in the tank? Is it possible something was on the bag such as some cleaning chemical? Could something have been on your hands? Was the net used to put the fish in the tank laying around where it could have been contaminated with a cleaning chemical?
 
Do you have a substrate that the diamond goby dug into? Perhaps it dug too far down and released some nasties into your water that did in your corals. Obviously something in there was bothering them as they slimed up and if they all died, then something obviously went wrong. My guess is that the water chemistry was disturbed and that some of your LPS didn't react as quickly as the acros did (which is not unusual) and the clams were able to handle the problem due to the fact that they can eat some of the stuff that was released into the water.

The other guess I have is that your clams or something else in the tank spawned and this is what caused your problems. LPS and clams would typically last longer than the SPS in this situation as well, at least from my own perspective.
 
if nasties were released from
the sand bed.
and I did a 100 % water change when should I try another acro?
 
sorry to hear this your calcium seems kinda high though

sorry to hear this your calcium seems kinda high though

i always keep a couple sps in my tank as an indicator of tank health those are the first to go.
 
I agree with the idea that the goby could have dug into something that fouled the tank. I have a tank with a DSB and if I put in a burrowing fish in they always die after digging under a rock or just deep enough into the sand. I'm guessing they dig into a pocket of hydrogen sulfide or something and get killed. Maybe yours did something similar. At a LFS I frequent, they had a diamond goby jump into the tank next to it and it fouled the whole tank with all the digging up substrate behind the rocks. I don't know how deep your sand is, or how long it was sitting before you added the diamond goby, but once a sand bed has sat long enough to build up hydrogen sulfide in the lower levels I would be carefull about adding anything that might stir it up. Diamond gobies can really churn things up. I know my acros don't like it if I even do a little digging in my sand bed and usually close up for a little while afterwards.

I would try some small acro frag first before I put anything more important in.
 
Were the corals bleaching before or after the 100% water change? If the water was cloudy and they were only sliming, why bother? This type of event is extremely common.

I think it is possible the water change itself killed them, unless sps were peel beforehand. A 100% change is pretty extreme.

Is it possible that the goby is completely unrelated? Was the water cloudy with sand or was it just murky? Did you use any gasoline product before having your hands in the tank? I would definitely explore other possible causes for this event.
 
Last edited:
Something this drastic often is a simple but overlooked answer. Even RTN does not most that swiftly....I have never heard of a fish digging into a DSB and dying from it. Just seems that they would know, smell or avoid areas which could be hold H2SO4......


Sure hate to hear about it.
T
 
I coral died before the water changes.
I have done 2 100% water changes, and added a few frags back all seems OK.
But It is way to early to tell.
My skimmer is still freaking out so I must have something still floating around
 
kba981 said:
The gobie was from one of my other tanks.
just netted him and in he went
Click to expand...

Why didnt u just move your sps to the other tank? In any case it seems almost impossible to me that all those SPS died so swiftly especially with no warming let alone no acans or clams dying with them. Something is missing however from what you said the most likely answer is substract got trapped in SPS polyps. Or like people said the sand released toxins or nitrates explaining why the acan and clams are still alive. But even then i dont believe it because you said you were just replacing the goby that you lost...

Anyhow im sorry to hear about your lose.
 
Believe what you want.
those are the facts.
and yes I was able to move some to the other tank.
Thank goodness
If you have never seen coral die so quickly then you are a lucky one to say the least.
the tank was fine before I added the gobie.
 
What about the water for the water change? How long was that mixed before adding it? I'm starting to get a better picture of what happened, but can you give a timeline and what you did?

Sounds like things started to happen, either because of a spawning or the goby dug up the sand bed, then you noticed sliming and some irritated corals, one that was overcome, so you did a 100% water change which obviously will completely clear up the water. At this point, if it was freshly mixed water then it probably burned your corals. Even if not, if the corals were used to dirtier water but were already bothered by what was going on, they they were suddenly exposed to water that was too clean and got burned (although this typically takes a lot longer to happen than your prescribed timeframe). My guess is that something happened along the lines of a spawn or goby digging too far into the bed (still don't know how deep it is) and then the water change complicated things and expedited the death of the corals, but again, still don't know all of the facts.
 
The sand bed is about 2 inches deep through out the tank.
I use only natural seawater.
Last time I did a water change before the crash was 2 months.

after the crash it was about one hour until the first water change was
done with natural seawater the corals were all ready bad off.
The second water change was about 12 hrs later.
 
OK, so I am now thinking something simply spawned and fouled your tank water. I used to have snails and urchins that would spawn at the same time and my water would turn into milk, but the fact that I had a ton of active filter feeders (variety of lps, soft corals, fish, inverts, and sps) cleared it very quickly.
 
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