Afraid we're loosing all corals within 3 days - tiny white 'things'

[DKKreef]

I'm afraid we are loosing all of our corals. Not trying to be dramatic, but all of our corals have closed up within the last three days. We are very new to this hobby and don't know what we are witnessing. We've had nudibranchs, which we think have cleared up.


Our water parameters are spot-on and our fish all look fine. The only thing/predator we can see are some small white "things" (worms?) that look like backwards "c"s. Everything we've read about 'tiny white worms' say that they are harmless. These things (or something) are causing major issues for all our corals: GSP, Cynarina, Frogspawn, Golden Torch, Duncan, Hammer, Pearl Bubble.


Our tank is 2-1/2 months old. Live sand substrate.


Sorry - really hard to get photos because they are so small.

 

[Lockridge49]

Flatworms?

 

[DKKreef]

Still looking for help with our system - things have not turned around. I thought if I provided more information, maybe someone would have more of an idea of what may be happening. I'm beginning to think that the small white 'things' may have nothing to do with what is going on.

We have an Oceanic 90g tank (65 g DT with a 25g sump); we are running Fluval full spectrum multi-spectrum LED lighting-504 LEDS; protein skimmer; limestone live rock; live sand; have added a Voyager 2 stream pump to the two power heads that came with system. Have a grounding probe in sump. System has been up and running for over 2-1/2 months. What else do you need to know about the system?

Our water parameters are:
pH: 8.2
Ammonia: 0
Nitrate: 0
Nitrite: 0
Calcium: 440
Specific Gravity: 1.023
Phosphate: ,25
Carbonate Hardness: 7

We dose with Calcium, Buffer, Iodine & Strontium twice a week.

Livestock: Black & White Ocellaris; Snowflake Ocellaris; Midas Blenny; Citron Goby (2); Skunk Cleaner Shrimp; Clean-up Crew: red-leg, blue-leg, green-leg & zebra hermit crabs; Astrea & Margarita & Turbo snails

Corals & Anemone: Rose Bubble Tip Anemone; Neopolitan Frogspawn, Duncan, GSP, Ridge Hammer, Zoanthid, Lobophyillia, Cynarina, Pearl Bubble

Feed pelleted food 4/5 days a week and frozen Mysis combo 2/3 times a week
Add about 1g of fresh water into sump each day
Using a service for water changes & cleaning

Everything has perked along nicely until about 5-6 days ago.

Going to try some Cuprisorb on the chance that this may be related to heavy metals. Sound possible?

Thank you for any help or guidance you may offer. I'm very sad and distraught about this dramatic change in our tank. There is so much to learn and I hate learning at the expense of living creatures!

 

[Lockridge49]

The phosphates are a little high what test are you using to test your parameters ?

Still looking for help with our system - things have not turned around. I thought if I provided more information, maybe someone would have more of an idea of what may be happening. I'm beginning to think that the small white 'things' may have nothing to do with what is going on.

We have an Oceanic 90g tank (65 g DT with a 25g sump); we are running Fluval full spectrum multi-spectrum LED lighting-504 LEDS; protein skimmer; limestone live rock; live sand; have added a Voyager 2 stream pump to the two power heads that came with system. Have a grounding probe in sump. System has been up and running for over 2-1/2 months. What else do you need to know about the system?

Our water parameters are:
pH: 8.2
Ammonia: 0
Nitrate: 0
Nitrite: 0
Calcium: 440
Specific Gravity: 1.023
Phosphate: ,25
Carbonate Hardness: 7

We dose with Calcium, Buffer, Iodine & Strontium twice a week.

Livestock: Black & White Ocellaris; Snowflake Ocellaris; Midas Blenny; Citron Goby (2); Skunk Cleaner Shrimp; Clean-up Crew: red-leg, blue-leg, green-leg & zebra hermit crabs; Astrea & Margarita & Turbo snails

Corals & Anemone: Rose Bubble Tip Anemone; Neopolitan Frogspawn, Duncan, GSP, Ridge Hammer, Zoanthid, Lobophyillia, Cynarina, Pearl Bubble

Feed pelleted food 4/5 days a week and frozen Mysis combo 2/3 times a week
Add about 1g of fresh water into sump each day
Using a service for water changes & cleaning

Everything has perked along nicely until about 5-6 days ago.

Going to try some Cuprisorb on the chance that this may be related to heavy metals. Sound possible?

Thank you for any help or guidance you may offer. I'm very sad and distraught about this dramatic change in our tank. There is so much to learn and I hate learning at the expense of living creatures!

 

[ritter6788]

I'd start by not dosing anything at all for now.

What test kits are you using? Is your source water ZERO TDS RO/DI water?

 

[Lockridge49]

I'd start by not dosing anything at all for now.

What test kits are you using? Is your source water ZERO TDS RO/DI water?

Do they look like Flatworms to you

 

[reefpeeper]

Are u using carbon? Also is it possible that u may have overdosed iodine?

 

[ritter6788]

No. I don't see any flatworms in those pics. Looks like those tiny tube worms that get on the back glass. I can't tell what's on the Lobo from the pic. Mine gets like that when I irritate it. Little white balls of tentacles.

 

[Lockridge49]

No. I don't see any flatworms in those pics. Looks like those tiny tube worms that get on the back glass. I can't tell what's on the Lobo from the pic. Mine gets like that when I irritate it. Little white balls of tentacles.

Yes that's what it looks like. It's pretty irritated , I have accidently OD iodine and that's what my corals looked like I did the fastest water change in my life haha !!

 

[DKKreef]

Update: Thanks for the thoughts on what's causing our system to crash - and it is crashing. LFS came out and did a big water change with their sterilized water, vacuumed sand, and put in Cuprisorb and Purigen. Also put a couple capfuls of Prime into the tank. They couldn't see any pests or hitchhikers, thought those 'white things' were just calcium. Said it looked like a 'toxic event' - but no idea what. Questioned me about dirty hands in tank (lotions, cremes, oils, soaps, etc.), cleaning products, room fragrances, etc. Negative on all of that. LFS was surprised that Skunk Cleaner Shrimp and Anemone were still alive (which they are - as well as all other fish: 2 ocellaris, midas blenny, citron goby). We've not dosed anything in a couple weeks. And, yes, we were using carbon.

So, we're still nowhere on what caused this to happen so quickly - in a period of 3 days. Yes, I understand that many of you think it didn't happen quickly - but to the novice, which we are, it DID happen quickly. I understand some of you think that we went too fast with the system. I get it. So this will definitely be a lesson learned if we continue with this hobby at all (very close to giving the fish to anyone who wants them and selling the system--this has been too painful to watch) but, in the meantime, I guess there is nothing more to do but sit and watch everything die? In other words, any other ideas on what else we can do to try and save anything or turn it around? Should we try to spot feed the anemone some Mysis - or is that just going to stress it more?

ARGH! I hate this! Really hard to watch and especially knowing that it may have/must have been something we 'did'. :-(

 

[pgr11]

Do you have any algae scrubbers in the tank? Check to see if they have split and exposed the magnet. Same goes for the power heads. I've seen this a number of times when a magnet gets exposed and crashes a tank.

 

[pgr11]

I'd be suspect of any used equipment you might have with magnets

 

[thatrugbydude]

Maybe it's just me but I think you dKH/alk is way too low, although most LPS do like a lower dKH, 7 is too low (coming from a guy with an LPS tank), when I was dosing 1 and 2 part, with drastic swings of over 1pt per dKH a day; I came to the conclusion that anything under 7.6dKH is way too low for LPS (correct me if I'm wrong as I've only been in the hobby for 3 years and there's plenty more well experienced candidates to ask) natural sea water is also between 1.024-1.026 spec grav. I hope this was helpful, if you want to raise your spec grav top off with salt water since your precipitate is 1g a day; top off with salt water 1.026-1.028 to slowly start raising your spec grav to a more suitable environment. They do say that a grounding probe although good with most bacteria is leaking protons into a system causing charged electrons flowing through the system. Remember LPS loves dirty water, so yes your PO4 is high...but LPS likes dirty water so more than likely it's your dKH and salinity causing the issue. I hope this was helpful, and I hope you have someone with more than 3 years experience to bounce these concepts off of. I am a science major, but of the human body not marine life. You may be stressing them because of spec grav might have been 1.026 where you bought the corals from causing a gradual shock in them if they were bought in conjunction.

 

[Reefing Madness]

Just looks like Pileolaria to me. Those are normal to a tank.
Also, your ALK is low, your SG is low and yor phosphates are high. Theres a few things to start with. Whats your MAG?