Devil's hand turned white

[dedfish]

About a month ago I went on vacation for a week. During this time I had another reefer, a coworker, stop by and check on my tank 3 times during the week. He said that there were no problems at all. I returned on Sunday and the last time he checked the tank was Thurs evening. I have a large auto top off reservoir that tops off twice a day so there wasn't really much for him to do other than feed. So the weekend I returned it was very hot and even though I had my AC auto set to keep the room cool I underestimated how low to set the AC and when I got home on Sun the tank was about 84-84.5 degress. I cranked down the AC and turned a fan on to direct air into the sump area and the tank cooled down. What I noticed when all this was happening was that my devil's hand had turned almost completely white, my kenya tree had shrunk and turned pale, and several but not all of my zoas kinda turned pale as well. At the time I figured it was the heat and that everything would return to normal in a few days or a week or two. Now it's been over a month and there has been little change in the state of these corals. The devil's hand extends it's polyps everyday and looks normal except for it's white color, the kenya has regained a bit of color but has not extended and plumped up to anywhere near it's original size, and some of the zoas look better while another paticualar colony is still pale and semi closed. I ran a series of water tests last night...I have undetectable phosphates, 0 nitrate and nitrite, 0 ammonia, 8 dKH, and 8.3 for a pH. I didn't get a chance to test the calcium levels but I'll do that when I get home tonight.

So after that long winded explanation of what is going on...does anyone have any idea what would turn the devil's hand white? I figure that I'll use that coral as a meter of sorts. If I can get the color to return to it then I'll know I'm fixing whatever problem I am having.

 

[jbishop]

Salinity?

 

[dedfish]

1.025.

 

[dedfish]

Anybody? Ideas?

 

[Cardiak]

You can always sell it to me.. I've been trying to get ronnies white devil for months now

 

[Calciumbuf]

You can always sell it to me.. I've been trying to get ronnies white devil for months now

Just work on him long enough , he'll give in

 

[dedfish]

Over 75 views and 1 on topic response? Guess I'll head to reefcentral or something with this question.

 

[marine mike]

As far as everything you have listed there, there is nothing but the temp which is out of adjustment at all. Of the corals you listed, the zoas will be the most effected by the temp being up a little, but 84-84.5 isn't really that bad IMO. I think that could be why you haven't had much in the way of responses. I wouldn't imagine that a temp spike that small would effect the corals you mentioned in that way for this length of time. You didn't mention a Mag level in that list, which can effect softies and zoas if it drops too low. Hard to say what could be the problem but IMO the temp spike would not be the cause if it was only over a day or two that it occurred. sorry to not be of more help, but good luck!

 

[dedfish]

Thank you for the response. I also don't think a temp spike would have caused this. I've had far worse temp spikes when I had a smaller tank with the almost all the same corals and nothing like this has happened before.

I don't have a mag kit, but I will try and pick one up as soon as I can and report back what I find.

 

[Amazon]

Do you run carbon? If the corals were stressed from the temp spike they could have released some chemicals.

If you're not running carbon, maybe give that a try.

 

[dedfish]

Yes I do have some carbon always running. I may replace it tonight since it has been in the reactor for a little over a month.

 

[dedfish]

Other corals in the tank that seem to be doing fine include 3 stalks of candy cane with about a half dozen heads a piece, a small chips acro frag, a small green monti, a grape monti, and several ricordia. I also have a small open brain that when I first put in the tank was in real bad shape but has slowly been improving.

 

[dedfish]

0 nitrate
nitrite
0 ammonia
8 dKH
8.3 pH
1440 mag
325 Ca <-----

 

[dedfish]

Anyone have 2 1/2 cups of quality dowflake I could have?

 

[Cheetos]

Yes!

 

[dedfish]

Hmm...Little Compton is a trek. :-(