Coral loss while I was away.

[Taxus812]

Hoping you can help me understand what happened to my corals. (Still learning) I went to cape code on vacation for 4 days. While gone, two weird things happened.

1) my skimmer started acting up and effectively stoped working.
2) one of my wave pumps hung up and it also stopped spinning. As a result my phosphates went to .17 and my nitrates jumped to 16 and I had small spots of Cyano on the sandbed.

Ph stayed at 8.0 and alk was low but at 7.0 dkh (normally 7.5ish) , Cal 450, mag 1450

I found two corals seemed to dye off quite rapidly. They were happy before leaving.

Could the lower flow or the increase of nitrates have caused the die off ?

Once again your help is appreciated. The loss is unfortunate but a good opportunity to understand how it all works.

 

[Sailfinguy21]

Those nitrates arent high and neigtr are the phosphates. My tank is at like 10-20 ppm nitrates and .5 phosphates and i hsve a bost load of sps.

I think it was the flow.. and your alk is kimda low to me.. i keep mine at 8-9

 

[reef lover]

Loss of flow...

 

[Sailfinguy21]

Fyi those corals arent dead.. the polyps are on the birds nest and the chalice is still alive.

Id break off the dead parts on the chalice. And get fpow back on them both