[Ben Nicholls]

Got up this morning to a tank crash. Water is cloudy, and all but 2 fish are dead. I have found and reamoved the 2 clowns, green madarin, coral beauty, and the yellow tail damsel. Still AOL is the neon goby (at least he is small). Still alive are the naso tang, and the foxface. All the sps are sliming and withdrawn. The brown xenia looks a little shriveled. The leather, the clam, and the pink xenia look fine. The skimmer is really bubbling.

I ran my water test and get the following results.

Salt 1.022
Ph, 7.9 (usually 8.2-8.4)
Am 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 15 mg/L

The last water change was 2 weeks ago, and I have not added anything for over a week.

I have put a bag of reef carbon in the overflow, and I am preparing a 5gal water change. If anyone has any sugestions, or mixed salt water, let me know. I am in Burnsville for those who don't remember, or know.

 

[geshields]

Ben,

I have 5 gallons mixed and heated as we speak...I could also put some of the corals in my refugium for a while if that would help. It is only 12 gallons but it is empty..

Greg

BTW, either pm me your number or pm me directions..

 

[Ben Nicholls]

Thanks, Greg, for bringing the SW over.

The corals are starting to look better. Hopefully nothing else dies. I am filling one more 5 gal water changes, then I'll wait awhile and see how things look.

 

[SawCJack00]

Ben, I'm sorry to hear this. Any idea of the cause?

 

[Toyfreek]

I step out of the house for like 2 hours and disaster strikes
I know it's late but if you need anything I will help in anyway I can.
I have some fish you can have to restock.
I got 1 PJ Cardinal and a batch of baby bangaii Cardinals that are almost ready for homes.
What temp was your tank at?
I have seen a system crash similar to yours when the temp rose to 88'F did yours get hot?
HTH,
Matt

 

[Ben Nicholls]

The tank looks like it has stabalized now. The water is clear, and all the corals are back out. Still no idea what caused it. The temp is right at 80. The only thing out of wack I can see is the low ph. I have not checked it in a couple months, so I don't know if it had a suddent drop or not. I went down to something fishy and had them double check my test results and do an alk and cal test. Alk is normal and cal is down to ablut 280 (guess I need to up my kalk doses).

I'll probably let the tank stay as is for a couple weeks before I try replacing any of the fish.

 

[Graham]

Ben,

Sorry to hear about your loss

The Ca, while low, wasn't the culprit.
One thing that comes to mind is your specific gravity. While it's right around the low-optimum, some corals might react negatively to prolonged 1.022. Probably not your case, though. What do you use to check the SG? If you use a cheaper hydrometer, it may be worth double checking with a refractometer or glass hydrometer. Just a thought. If there was some sort of RTN chain reaction, it could have produced what you have seen...but to lose most of the fish overnight like that is pretty nasty.

Hang in there!

 

[Ben Nicholls]

I was using a floating glass hydrometer. Something fishy says it is 1.026 (they used a floating arm style one). I also tried my old floating arm one and it agrees with SF. My floating one must not be calibrated correctly. It is most likely set for a lower tempature.

Everything still looks fine this morning. All the corals are back to normal and the 2 remaining fish are fine.

 

[David Grigor]

When you say up your Kalk Dosage, does that mean you regularly does Kalk ? Perhaps PH got too high and precipitated CA.

What was the last CA reading you had ?

Another thing, I personally just don't trust having lots of zenia in the tank. No clue if that was the culprit or not. I believe Gary attributed his problem to the zenia.....

 

[Ben Nicholls]

Calcium was at 280 when I had it checked at SF. I've noticed no precipitation of CA. All the Xenia looks fine. It does not look like it had a meltdown.

 

[Gary S]

The pink Xenia actually likes the SG at 1.022. I have found it to thrive much better and grow at 1.022-1.023. With a large colony of pink Xenia you have to prune otherwise it will melt down eventually. Any change other than the low SG would have caused the pink Xenia to close up tightly and begin to shrivel. It is the most sensitive thing in your tank (other than the brown Xenia) in my experience.

My theory on the cause of my tank switchover meltdown was due to the pink Xenia going first, and then the rest dying from the toxicity put out by all the dead Xenia.