Catastrophe!

DaveWF

DaveWF

New member
Last night, after watching the election we were heading up to bed around 11:30 when my wife happened to glance in my tank. "What's wrong with your 6 line?"
Uh oh
I take a look and my wrasse has wedged himself in between a piece of egg crate and the front glass. Crap.
I gently moved the egg crate and he floats free - dead. Double crap.
After I flush him I take a look in the tank again. My cleaner shrimp is plastered up to my MP10, dead. <insert blocked expletive here>.
I flush him and start to inspect the tank. Mandarin is barely moving, breathing heavy. Female clown is flat against the back wall behind some rock breathing heavy. Male clown is looking better but also breathing heavy. Lawn mower blenny is breathing real heavy. Pajama cardinal looks generally ok. Anemone looks perturbed with a swollen foot/body and minimal tentacles sticking out of the "ball" of the body.
Now, mind you, I'm dead on my feet at this point and should have been in bed a long time ago so I did what I could quickly. Swapped out my carbon, added some of Aqua-Tech's new Algae Export nutrient exporter, did a 5 gallon water change (all I had made up - but that is my typical amount for a water change), chased the female clown out from the rock until she was at least swimming a bit, opened the hood to get some more oxygen exchange & aimed my return more towards the surface of the water to create a little more agitation. I couldn't think of anything else to do with what I had on hand.
Needless to say, I did not sleep well.
I came down this morning to check on things. Mandarin is dead. All other livestock appears generally OK. Fish are still breathing heavier then normal but are, in general, looking much better then last night. One odd thing is that overnight, those little thread-like creatures (not feather dusters) that live in your sandbed building little tubes have completely taken over the sand bed. I mean COMPLETELY taken over. I've always had a bunch, but there's never been this many, or at least they have not been this active - especially in one night

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I'm mixing up some more water now for another water change. I also broke out my long-ignored test kits. I know it makes some difference (not sure how much), but FWIW, the lights were off all night before testing. Here's what I found...
Temp - 78-79
Salinity - 1.024
Nitrite - 0
Ammonia - 0
Phosphate - 0.5
Nitrates - 0-5 ppm
PH - 7.4
Calcium - in excess of 520 (my test didn't go any higher)
Carbonate Hardness - 125.3

So, as far as I can tell, the ones that are out of whack are the PH, Calcium, and Hardness. Any suggestions are how I can rein in these numbers and get them back to where I want them to be?

FWIW, the water has been cloudier then usual, but I attributed that to the fact that I've been feeding the begeezers out of my tank to try and get my Paly Grow Out frag to pop another head.
 
Is that a cucumber ive heard of the ones with pink getting mad and releasing toxic stuff and crashing tanks mainly fish
 
Dang bro, sorry to hear that about your tank. Good luck with everything, and hopefully another water change sets everything straight.
 
Doing multiple wc's over the next week should bring the param's into normal ranges. I'd star with a 50% wc and then do 25% changes every other day until back to normal. And figure out how they got out of whack. What and how often are you dosing for ca/alk? Did you test your pH digitally?
 
EricTheRed said:
Doing multiple wc's over the next week should bring the param's into normal ranges. I'd probably do 25% changes every other day until back to normal. And figure out how they got out of whack. What and how often are you dosing for ca/alk? Did you test your pH digitally?
Click to expand...

I've been dosing almost 1 capful of Purple Up per day. Obviously need to dial that back a bit. I've also been adding Ms. Wages Pickling Lime to my ATO, but admittedly, have forgotten to add it the last few times I've topped off my ATO reservoir.
PH was done with a drop & compare test. I rinsed and checked it again with the same results.
 
madjoe said:
Is that a cucumber ive heard of the ones with pink getting mad and releasing toxic stuff and crashing tanks mainly fish
Click to expand...

If you're referring to the long thing in the 2nd pic, that's a coco worm tube that has been encrusted with a meteor shower cyphastrea.
 
dohc97 said:
may I ask why the purple up? also crack a window open a bit, helps with ph
Click to expand...

It started after I won a couple of small bottles of it at last falls CMAS Frag Swap. I figured if I had it, why not use it, right? The thing is, my SPS TOOK OFF when I started using it. I've seen growth using Purple Up that cannot be denied. Sure, it's a gimmicky name, but the stuff works!
It's also really easy to dose for my tank. I've been using a little less then a capfull a day and have had no issues until last night. Looks like I'll be down to half a capfull until I can dial it in right.

Regarding the window.... you know it's miserably cold outside, right? Still, I'll give it a shot... Can't hurt, right?
 
Well the Purple up is mostly Ca with a Mg boost (coraline takes up a high % of Mg compared to other organisms) and the lack of Kalk could be contributing to your low pH. Your alk is on the low side of "ok", and wouldn't kill anything. The drip tests for pH are practically worthless but with a dKh of about 7.3 (125ppm) you should assume that the pH would be buffered enough to not drop to lethal levels. You still might want to have it digitally tested since your calcifying corals are stymied below 7.8. It is known that pH of 7.3 or lower can be stressful to fish but it shouldn't be lethal. This all points in the direction of a toxin, imo.
 
You can also run an airstone as a temp fix to raise pH a little. Although, fresh air usually helps more. I'm guessing that the purple up helped your sps take off because you were probably low on Ca before you started it. If you (regularly) dose kalk then your Ca (and alk) needs will be met. Purple up is the biggest ripoff in the hobby (IMO)
 
you can run the airline for your skimmer to an outside window. Lots of people suffer from lower ph in winter due to the house being closed off. As eric mentioned i would assume something got into the water somehow. do water changes, run carbon and please stop with the purple up.
 
Dosing purple up too often can cause a magnesium overdose, which can kill anything. Keep doing water changes. Don't dose if u can't check the levels
 
If you want to bring the pH and the Alk up, put some baking soda in the oven on a tray, bake it real hot, and use it instead of your kalk for top off. It'll also help your alkalinity come back up...

And Dave, I want to beat you in the growout, but you don't need to kill off your tank to help. :) Seriously though, good luck! I hope things turn around for you. ;)
 
Follow the instructions in this link to make your own alk supplement with baking soda. With 500+ Ca you shouldn't need to worry about that for a while. You can dose this on it's own. Do not put it in your top-off water, it would be too hard to determine the proper dosage that way. However, multiple large wc's will also gradually raise your alk and pH so you might want to hold off on this since you have sps which could go south quickly if the alk raises too quickly.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/rhf/inex.php
 
**** man

i have learnt a couple of things from this..i dose purple up the same way you dose .. my calcium is also high but in a good high of around 500..i never tested for mg assuming i never dosed Mg

i should go home and test .
sad for you dave :( loosing those many fish at same time sucks .



one questions, is your tank open top or covered ?
 
Sorry about your losses Dave. How do your SPS look? I am also guessing its a toxin or OD of a supplement, not your Alk and CA that caused the losses. I'd start doing 20% water changes daily until you see improvement. Also, run some good carbon if you don't already.
 
Man, I thought I was out of the woods. Fish were looking better last night. Not "good", but better. Checked on them this morning and both clowns and my LMB are sand gasping. Strange, but my Pajama Cardinal seems completely unaffected by everything that's going on. I picked up an airstone and some long air line so I now have my pump outside pumping in fresh air to the tank. I also did another water change and am making up more water now.
Things look better. Kinda like they did last night. Better then they were, but not yet "good".

As of last night, SPS' were looking fine. Noticed today that my new lime green stag from EtR is RTNing. Crap! Should I frag off the affected portion and leave a good foundation on the plug to hopefully grow out or just wait it out and see if it recovers naturally?

Now, to top everything off, my brittle starts decided to have an orgy and are "polluting" the tank. Like ALL of them are doing it. WTH???
 
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