How does it go this bad, this fast?

[JayM]

My tank appears to be in a crashed state......

came home last night from a week away for work....lights were off, didn't even really look.

This morning....disaster. All 3 BTAs melted, leaving, a gelatinous mess, removed them, many corals dead, shriveled, bleached, red slime breakout, zoas melted, turbos dead (and boy do THEY smell bad).

Did a WC with every drop of RODI I had ~40G, changed purigen, phos-guard and carbon....

The weird thing is....I don't know why this happened.

pH 8.3
Ca 425
Alk ? (spilled the reagent!!!) I was a little high, but dropping last sunday
Mg 1250
Nitrate <10
Phosphate undetectable
1.025
Temp 79. No temp spikes I know of, (maybe 82 at a max) no interruptions in circulation.......

Any thoughts

 

[randoma]

Man. That sucks! Is it possible something died and contaminated the water, setting off a chain reaction?

 

[~Flighty~]

I bet a temp spike you don't know about, but be sure to chck all electrical things for burned out stuff. Heaters, powerheads etc

 

[chew*]

I doubt it was alk, my KH was at 15.6 last week and coming down now, No losses. I had the same problem in the past due to temp spikes, in 2 days i saw some recession, in 7 days it was a complete wipe out of the tank.

 

[Aquadiva]

Wow... sorry to hear it.

And, yep... things can go wrong that fast. Been there, done that. I think after you get over the initial shock over the losses... there is always the lingering "what went wrong." If you don't figure it out, it'll drive you crazy.

 

[nichols]

Unfortunately I know first hand that screwing up the tank happens a lot quicker than bringing it back.
Best of luck. Hope it all works out for you.

 

[ChemDumb]

Dude, sorry to hear. Good luck with the rebuild and good luck on figuring out what happened.

Lou

 

[marco67]

Sorry to hear it, Been there too, I know that smell and that feeling and they both stink.
FWIW my first thought also as I was reading is temp.

 

[Moe_K]

Jeez, Jay. That sucks!
I'm thinking temperature spike.

Any fish deaths?

 

[JeremyR]

Bummer.. sorry to hear man.

If it's not temp.. it's contamination.

 

[Richard]

Hey Jay Sorry to hear that. I've lost everything also over this spring. All SPS gone including my pink birdnest with blue polyps. It was 12" across. My 3 giant caps are gone also.

 

[KyleinCT]

Sorry to hear. I have a green monti that my kid said looked dull...when I looked at it I thought so too...I remebered I lost a large colony earlier this year when I had low ph problems. My AC jr said the ph was fine at 8.19. I went to calibrate it and it was way off, .3 or so. I have been gradually adding kalk toget things back on track. When was the last time you calibrated your probe?

 

[Moe_K]

Hey Jay Sorry to hear that. I've lost everything also over this spring. All SPS gone including my pink birdnest with blue polyps. It was 12" across. My 3 giant caps are gone also.

HOLY CRAP!

What happened?

 

[Gina McReeferson]

Geez Jay, so sorry to hear of this.

I think I tend to agree with others who mentioned a temp spike.

 

[pillowfish]

July doesn't seem to be a good tank month

 

[JayM]

not getting ANY better.

First, thanks to all for the support and offers of help, here or via PM

Well, the mystery continues. I checked all of the heaters for leaks and stuck "on". They (3 of them) all check out OK. Powerheads (tunzes) working OK. Main pump (reeflo tarpon) never stopped. Skimmer (NW150 w/mesh and gate mod) kept running, but was pretty close to full of skimmate.
topoff water checks out at 1TDS, new water from RODI filter is at zero TDS, (with 2 meters). The IO I used for my last water change was mixed into my other tank at a higher concentration (as a percentage of total water volume)without incident

Temp seems like it would be the culprit, but the other tank is about 15 feet away....zero problems, and the central AC was on all week.....room the tank was in never even saw 75 degrees. basement (120+ gallons) stayed pretty steady at about 72-73 degrees.

Carnage list:

My zoas are nearly all melted, or profoundly pissed. We'll see in a few more days. All that are left are closed. at least 2/3 are lost.
Lost my xenia, lost my mushrooms. shriveled and black, blew apart when touched with a powerhead output
Orange Ricordea, toast
Monti cap, bleached white, lost
Candy cane, lost 2/3 (so far)
2 feather dusters, dead
brain, 1/2 bleached out....it's gone
lost my hammer (5 heads)
lost 6 anemones, including my rose BTA and purple tip from the auction.
sun corals (both) look like crap, but a few polyps came out for a target feeding tonight.
at least 50 dead tulip anemones in my refugium. picked them out
Cleaner shrimp mated pair, (always out) MIA
scooter blenny, MIA
I only see one out of the school of 7 of my chromis......doesn't look good there.
Coral banded shrimp pair....I can see 1, and they were RARELY apart.
Don't see any of the conchs....even at 12:30, when they're out every night.
looks like I lost all my snails and other CUC.

The second worst thing....the giant leather coral that was the centerpiece of this tank is shrunken and closed......I don't see a single polyp out after 3 days. It's never been closed this long. I will REALLY be sad if I lose this one.

The WORST thing....still no conclusive idea what caused this.......

Guess I'll do another water change and carbon swap in the AM.

When I called a friend to commiserate, he summed it up well.

"This F###ing hobby. My next tank is going to be FOWLR"

 

[saltnut]

Jay I am so sorry to hear of your losses. I have read a few people going FOWLR lately. Hope it turns around and is not a total wipe out. Good reef vibes aimed your way.

 

[Greg Hiller]

Sorry about the losses. But I'm interesting in trying to figure out what happened. So I'm going to do some digging to see if we can come up with anything.

>Did a WC with every drop of RODI I had ~40G, changed purigen, phos-guard and carbon....<

You are using purigen. Some people regenerate this and have problems. No chance you regenerated the stuff and put it in just before you left, correct?

> no interruptions in circulation.......<

Are you certain of this? Could the power have been off for a few hours and then come back on? You said the other tank is okay with no problems. Can you decribe the any differences in the two tanks? Is one more heavily stocked with fish than the other?

 

[JayM]

I changed the purigen AFTER the crash, and what was in the tank when the crash happened was about a month old, and not regenerated.

While I was away (work), my house still had my family there. My tank is on a 16kW natural gas powered generator, which did not turn on (I checked the hours meter this morning) I also failed the house system to the generator, to make sure it would come on (it did). Also, I had a Solaris system running all week on a surge suppressor, and it showed 6 days of uptime on Sunday.

The differences between the tanks:

72 is RR with about a dozen small fish, soft corals, 2x6025 nanostream flow, CRA skimmer, NeO under tank custom sump/fuge, 4x54W T-5 lighting, 1x200W stealth heater, and a mag5 return. ~90 gallons total water volume. About 4 feet from the nearest central air supply

92 is RR, basement 150G rubbermaid sump, Octopus NW150 mesh/gate mod skimmer, 40G breeder refugium/DSB, 8x39W T-5 and 65W PC lighting, reeflo tarpon return pump (dialed WAY back, but maxing out the AGA megaflow for return, 2x 6025 nanostream for flow. Nanostreams flow collides with the return for tubulence. 2x200W heaters plugged in, set to 75.

72 has 1 fish. 5 damsels, 2 false perc, royal gramma, arabian pseudochromis, LMB, 1 chromis, 3 large BTA


92 has (had) 14. No large fish, largest was a 4" yellow tang, and 7 of the 14 were a school of small chromis.
7 chromis
2 false perc clowns
yellow tang
purple tank
LMB
Scooter blenny
flame angel
much heavier (coral) bioload on 92. There is a leather coral that probably weighs 6 pounds by itself, and a bunch of other zoas, rics, LPS.

 

[steveoli]

Loss

So sorry for your loss. I am thinking that you either had a temp spike like others have mentioned or a single death that caused a chain reaction mass death. Cucumbers are known for that. Good luck with getting your tank back together.