SPS....HELP! They're all dying!

[yellow submarine]

Originally Posted by ouccmich

The relationship with my hubby is great. He doesn't notice things very quickly.......Come on guys! It's not sabotage!....haha!

just checking..... when the spouse is away, thats a great opportunity to "pull-a-fast-one"

i know a guy who wanted a new HDTV but wife kept saying "NO! no way!!" ....she leaves for a few days and he damages the electronics to his old TV and when the wife returned and went to watch TV...it was broken.... and he played dumb and said, "i havent watched TV all week and you now broke the TV. well looks like we need a new TV now, huh"

people do some very ODD things when married for a longtime and dont get their way...and too afraid to face a conflict face-to-face.

i remember seeing a HomeDepot commercial where the hubby runs over his old lawnmower with the Van ON-PURPOSE so he could convince the wife to go buy a riding-lawnmower.

[tashier]

Originally Posted by yellow submarine

hate to say this but what's your relationship like with your husband? was he holding a grudge you going out of town without him? does he like having the tank in the house?

I find it ODD that everything was okay for over a year, you leave town and leave hubby in charge......and you return to things dying. I'm not a detective BUT my first instinct is to look at your husband for some ANSWERS.

my guess is that he either:
1) sabotaged your tank out of spite (for some reason), or
2) made an honest mistake by trying to help with tank maintenance and really SCREWED something up by adding TOO MUCH of soemthing and now not owning-up to it.

i'm about 90% sure your HUBBY knows whats going on.....

Are you being serious?? LOL

[Wiskey]

Originally Posted by ouccmich

I didn't recently upgrade the lights. System has been up and running since early March.

Okay,.. that rules that out then. Water perams out of wack are still a possiblility though.

I've kept SPS just fine in very, very little light (NO floressnts) for almost a week, so I don't think that slow decline of bubs will cause this sudden of a problem.

Another thing,.. Are the SPS loosing tissue from the bottom up? Or the top down?

How long did you have the plate? Do you usualy feed it? Did your husband feed it?

How fast is this tissue loss?

Have you checked for AEFW and RB?

Whiskey

[ouccmich]

Originally Posted by Wiskey

Okay,.. that rules that out then. Water perams out of wack are still a possiblility though.

I've kept SPS just fine in very, very little light (NO floressnts) for almost a week, so I don't think that slow decline of bubs will cause this sudden of a problem.

Another thing,.. Are the SPS loosing tissue from the bottom up? Or the top down?

How long did you have the plate? Do you usualy feed it? Did your husband feed it?

How fast is this tissue loss?

Have you checked for AEFW and RB?

Whiskey

Water quality: will get it tested tonight

SPS losing tissue: on the plate it's both, but very white at the top. Kind of a diffuse color loss everywhere but a white blotch on the top. Plate is over a year old. Never fed it individually. Never feed any of my corals individually. Should I be doing that and with what if so? On the other corals it's at the tips.

Tissue loss: coral was fine when I left last week.

AEFW and RB: ???

Another thing I noticed is some cyanobacteria (very red algae) on some of the LR. Not a lot but I've had that happen in the past and treated with an antibiotic. Afraid to do that again, although I had no problems last time. Just don't want to send it into a cycle or kill good bacteria.....

[thebutler4]

First thing to check is the SG .. Make sure that hubby dident add to much fresh water to the tank (ON ACCIDENT!! .. not hard to do) ... then check Alk, CA and PH levels .. I would not add any medication to the tank right now .. however I would run large amounts of carbon and do a 30% water change ..

Are they any leathers in the tank? .. they are known to have chemical wars with SPS .. and SPS will always loose the war ....

unless your husband knows what he is doing .. its not his fault .. I would not blame him LOL!!!!

[hng]

Based on what you described, i think it's a water quality issue. Skim wet, run carbon, and do a large water change. Corals losing color and cyanobacteria bloom point to excess phosphates, IMO.

[ouccmich]

I don't have any carbon to run....I did a large water change yesterday and going to do more today.

Nitrates were up a little (40 I think). Salinity was 1.027, pH great according to LFS. Calcium 450. Phosphates couldn't get tested because Steve knocked the water over before the did that. He had been using tap water because he's too lazy to hook up my RO filter (he has been taking care of my tank until I graduated). I hooked up the RO filer and did as much a water change as I could with only RO water. Doing more today.....Purchsed some phosban for the sump in the meantime. Alkalnity was a little low so got something to raise it a bit. Also, having some temp fluctuations but xenia are usually more suseptible to that and they are great. Goes from 78-82 when there's a large heat wave......

[thebutler4]

A SG of 1.027 is a little high ... not bad though .. although I would try and lower that SLOWLY to 1.024-25 ...

So the topoff water used was from the tap? .. thats very bad ... run as much carbon as you can .. change it ever 4 to 5 days ... continue doing water changes ...

[Wiskey]

The problem with using Tap water is the ammount of things like Copper in it from municipal water supplies, and coper pipe. The Tap water also has Clorine in it as well as a host of other nasty things. I would definitally stop using Tap water and switch over to RO/DI since you already have the setup to do it.

I agree with the idea of a of a WC issue,.. Carbon is a great idea,.. Those pads that remove heavy metals and change color (I can never remember the name ) would be a good idea too IMHO.

RB= Red bugs, an Acro parasite
AEFW = Acro eating Flatworms,.. another acro parasite,.. this one's hard to check for, but much more devistating in an acro tank.

Whiskey

[hng]

Tap water - there's the answer. Water changes with ro/di, get some carbon from the LFS, and hope for the best. Skim wet for a few days too. Good luck!