Bacterial bloom. May need to restart tank, need suggestions.

[Kelly3s]

Our 75 gallon is in a serious bacterial bloom. This is an establish tank that has been flawless for 8 months. Everything was under control, all params are good, everything was healthy and thriving with fast coral growth. Then over night, we woke to slime. This happened right after a water change and after a coral feeding of Reef Roids. We thought maybe we fed too much at once and the corals discharged mucus, but it got worse. It has been five days of total slime and cleaning the sock and skimmer every couple of hours. Another water changed of 30% didn't help.

Since, we have lost two new cardinal babies that had just been moved to the breeder box. Our teenaged Coral Beauty and a crab. The corals are now starting to die off. The RBTA doesn't know what to do.

We have lots of aeration going and stopped the NoPox dosing. Ammonia testing maybe slight - no more than .25

SO, we are thinking if we keep losing livestock by Sunday, we are going to do a total drain with 100% water changed (we make our own RO). Scrub any rock that doesn't have coral permanently attached and scrub the refugium.
It may be the only thing to try to save it from a total die off.

Questions:
What should I do about the sand? We wanted new sand anyway and this sand is so old and dirty any disturbance is likely to create havoc I am sure. But the loss of all good stuff in the sand, with all new water, is this going to be like starting from scratch and having to go through all the cycling pains?

If I buy new sand, do I need to do the very thorough hours of washing as some recommend?

If I keep the old sand, do I rinse it to get most the detritus out?

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

 

[G Santana]

Have you tried an inexpensive UV, I bought one made for ponds and it cleared up my problem within a couple of days.
Starting over is tough especially when you have your live rock cycled.
Try housing live stock in an other tank until you can sort things out if possible

 

[Timfish]

+1^^ Pictures in white light (not blue) and water parameters would help a lot. I wouldn't do more than 30% at a time and I'd siphon off as much algae as possible (Steel Straws). Stop feeding reef roids if you haven't already, any corals you have will be stressed out an not feeding and roids will only be feeding microbial stuff. And feed fish still sparingly.

 

[TnFishwater98]

+1 on get a UV

 

[Vested]

If you are loosing livestock like you say you need todo something asap, I would do a near 100% water change if its that bad. Take a picture so we can see what kind of slime your talking about.

 

[GARRIGA]

Without knowing what caused the bacterial bloom then any action taken might make it worse or cause other issues. I've stress tested carbon dosing and the resulting bacterial bloom lasted a day. Last I would do is start changing things without knowing what affect that change will cause. Plus only downside to bacterial blooms that I'm aware of have to do with oxygen depletion. Increased surface agitation can assist with that and visually seeing fish gasping at the surface can confirm it. I have a DO meter purchased for these types of events but mostly for testing. Perhaps a local reef club can lend but depleted oxygen rather easy to spot as fish will be gathered at the surface on literally their last gasp.

Obviously knowing all prior parameters vs current can assist in identifying what caused the die off as the bacterial bloom might just be an affect of the die off.

I see UV has been recommended but that only disrupts the RNA preventing reproduction vs removal and any deaths will just contribute to the bio-load needing to be processed. Better option I believe is getting the magnum polishing internal filter and using the pleated filter. Get an additional filter or two as they clog quickly and physically remove the floating bacteria. Using it as a DE filter will polish it further and easy enough to recharge as needed.

Large water changes best handled with caution. Sudden changes can be more lethal or stressing although sometimes one has no choice. Best get that new water relatively close to temperature, salinity, ph and alkalinity. Heater, kalk and an acid buffer might be needed. Latter will lower alkalinity, if needed. Plus power head to get all mixed right.

This also provides an option to move fish, corals an inverts into the new water while tending to cleaning of the tank such as removing all detritus, dead animals and cleaning the sand which depending on depth might have pockets of hydrogen sulfide that aerated will release into the atmosphere but I've heard conflicting stories on how lethal if a pocket exposed when fish present and why best a deep cleaning as such with no inhabitants at risk.

BTW, panic tends to create more problems than quick solutions provide.

 

[Kelly3s]

Thank you very much for the replies! Unfortunately we had to go out of town today. This morning I brushed off as much slime as I could from rocks, and used baster to blow off corals. It seemed to come off more easily this time. Hopefully a sign it is dying?
The skimmer was not filling as fast. And we vacuumed foam/slime from surface in sump.
I did not see the fish acting any different. Just know the coral beauty was healthy then dead this morning. I moved one of the wave maker flows to hit the surface.

I agree about trying not to panic and do anything drastic. That is why I am trying to get advice from people who have been there. SO many opinions on this topic.

I have someone going to clean the sock and slimmer tomorrow and will see where it is at Sunday morning when I get home. Sounds like next non-drastic step is the UV filter?

On reflection, I am really thinking it was an overfeeding of reef roads that sparked it.

 

[Kelly3s]

Just got back home, there is a lot less foam/slime in the skimmer and no other fish died. I lost 3 very nice corals, two montiporas and a meteorshower. I think we are on the road to recovery but I am going to head up to Petco for a UV to hopefully finish it up.
Would a bacteria bloom kill those corals or should I be thinking it may have been something else?

This is what it looked like on Friday.

This is after I stirred some of the slime up.

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

I agree with above that I would do more water changing (maybe 30% in am, 30% in pm) and not use the UV. Keep the skimmer going and working optimally by keeping it clean. Carbon probably won’t hurt either.

 

[TnFishwater98]

Just got back home, there is a lot less foam/slime in the skimmer and no other fish died. I lost 3 very nice corals, two montiporas and a meteorshower. I think we are on the road to recovery but I am going to head up to Petco for a UV to hopefully finish it up.
Would a bacteria bloom kill those corals or should I be thinking it may have been something else?

This is what it looked like on Friday.

This is after I stirred some of the slime up.

Don’t throw your corals out. Corals can bounce back even if you think they are toast… Do some water changes , put floss filter in filter/sump and put fresh carbon in filter/sump….

 

[Kelly3s]

Don’t throw your corals out. Corals can bounce back even if you think they are toast… Do some water changes , put floss filter in filter/sump and put fresh carbon in filter/sump….

Even though they are totally white?
I just did another testing of params. Everything is great except the ammonia at .50. Water is much clearer just since yesterday.

 

[BroccoliFarmer]

+1^^ Pictures in white light (not blue) and water parameters would help a lot. I wouldn't do more than 30% at a time and I'd siphon off as much algae as possible (Steel Straws). Stop feeding reef roids if you haven't already, any corals you have will be stressed out an not feeding and roids will only be feeding microbial stuff. And feed fish still sparingly.

++2

 

[TnFishwater98]

Even though they are totally white?
I just did another testing of params. Everything is great except the ammonia at .50. Water is much clearer just since yesterday.

I would hold on them. Many corals seem to come back from the dead… It shouldn’t hurt anything. If algae starts growing on them then take them out.