Worst 2 months EVER!

[spoggy]

Hey folks,

What a crappy 2 months, lost ALL the coral in my 200, and about half the inverts. Here's the scenario, I bought 10 or so frags at the swap, came home, acclimated them to the display tank (I know, quarantine, quarantine, quarantine!). Within a week, most everything is dead or dying, including my established colonies. I eventuall lost all the coral in my tank, Acros, Millies, Acans, Xenia, Staghorns, my Leng Sy cap, all the rest of my Caps, Blue polyps, Anthelia, Red Mushrooms, 8 or so Rics, everything.
Strange bit, the water parameters test fine. I own every Salifert test kit, everything tests good. No copper, ammonia, nitrates, nitrites. Temp is 79.2, no spikes, no electrical current, ph 8.2. Schuran reactor is running, calcium is up to 1200.
2 RBTA's, all Astrea, all hermits (blue and scarlet), all porcelin crabs, all shrimp, all large feather dusters (small ones ok), all nassarus, LS urchin, sally lightfoot crab...dead. Weirder still, cereth snails are ok, small feather dusters, fighting conch, spaghetti worms, some peanut worms...all ok. All the fish in the tank...fine.
I HAVE NO IDEA! I've been in the hobby over 20 years and NEVER had a kill like this. Anyone have any ideas other than the obvious? I use RO, tropic marin salt, have no detectable levels of anything on the tests that would be considered bad (copper, ammonia...etc.), no temperature spikes, no stray electricity on a conductivity probe. No gross dead animals (mice, chipmunks, whatever). I'm lost.
See everyone at the June meeting?

Steve Sump

 

[spoggy]

Sorry, did I say 1200 for calcium? I meant 400, It was late when I wrote last night.

Steve

 

[MJAnderson]

Seems to be several threads relating to mass wipeouts, but most are limited to acros.

after the frag swap I lost about 1/3 my snails but my hermits and shrimp are fine. In the 2 months since, I've lost about 1/2 my acros and about 1/2 the ones that are left are damaged and will probably die. Montis, softies and RBTA unaffected.

Here's a thread on what's going on in my tank from the SPS forum

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1125686

Common theme -- recent introduction of new corals, all sps lost, parameters all fine, no AEFW, no redbugs, no known cause.

Right now it looks like all my acros will die and I'll wait a few months before introducing anything new. Everything else is fine.

 

[spoggy]

I saw your other post, my snails did the same thing, flat on their backs and not moving. I added a couple of snails before the weekend, 1 went back up, the other one appears to be cranking around fine. Also added 2 blue-leg hermits and they both seem OK.

Steve

 

[jh2pizza]

I lost all my fish but two after the Cleveland swap. I didn't QT the coral.

 

[MJAnderson]

My fish seem to be unaffected, as are my 4 emerald crabs, a fire shrimp and scarlet hermits. My snails, both trochus and cerith were the ones affected.

 

[stevestank]

reef woes

reef woes

I wonder if you had a power outage while you were away from your house. The power may have been restored a few hours later, started the die-off, and you didn't notice it. By the way, you can't possibly have that much die in your tank without spiking your amonia levels. Be suspect of your test kit if it is showing normal levels and you have that much carnage. You might ask for help here for folks to take some of your remaining livestock to QT until your ducks are in a row.

 

[spoggy]

stevestank,

I was speaking from the stand point of when the "attack" first happened. My water parameters were well within what would be considered the "good" range. After the deaths had progressed to their highest level, ammonia levels did rise...slightly, never more than 1 ppm. I was very diligent on removing dead and dying animals.

I don't remember there being a power outage around the time this happened, I would have remembered resetting the digital clocks, and comparing them to the wind up clock to see how long power was off.

As far as asking people here to take and hold livestock for me...I've got nothing left but fish, a handful of cerith snails and some feather dusters that are firmly ensconced in the rockwork. I appreciate the offer, but I don't know what good it would do at this point.

Thanks for the insight, though I have been over it so many times in my head, I don't know what else there is that might be missing.

Steve

 

[ironheads]

You should let every one know who you bought frags from so the rest of us don't have the same things happen next year....I know I'd be totally ****ed......I bought several frags and was very lucky ..at the same time I would not buy from some of the people again ....If you get up and going again...I would pass on a few freebees

 

[The Saltman]

spoggy, it seems from the thread on rc that you may have gotten a bacterial infection that was affecting your acropora that was probably on one of the frags you got.