HELP! Acros bleached in 24 hrs!

[cee]

You didn't know Don but he decided toplace his sump in the laundry room under the return air duct. He couldn't keep any acro alive for very long because laundry chemicals were always in his tank.

 

[BlueDevil]

Water change and drastic media removal could change unknown parameters quickly. I'd ask the aquarium if they can show you the tds level of their water and if they cannot or will not go elsewhere. Hell, for your small tank I'll happily give you rodi water and you can add your own salt. As I'm sure you've heard before change things slowly in this hobby, even things you believe are less than optimum. Can't tell you how many times I've ignored that mantra and paid a price.

I think I should be able to instal an RODI unit in the basement. I might not be able to store large quantities as I plan to with a mixing station but I should definitely be able to make enough for my little tank.
Once I get past this little incident and my tank settles down I'll pull the trigger on the unit.

What puzzles me is that everything was looking and encrusting really well. And just the drastic nature of this incident has me thinking it might be something to either with the media removal or the pieces I was trying to resuscitate that might have triggers this incident.

Guess I have to take my rookie bumps at some point!

Thank you everyone for the feedback. I'll post updates over the next few days. Hopefully it will be positive updates!

 

[Jmcdaniel0]

I think I should be able to instal an RODI unit in the basement. I might not be able to store large quantities as I plan to with a mixing station but I should definitely be able to make enough for my little tank.
Once I get past this little incident and my tank settles down I'll pull the trigger on the unit.

What puzzles me is that everything was looking and encrusting really well. And just the drastic nature of this incident has me thinking it might be something to either with the media removal or the pieces I was trying to resuscitate that might have triggers this incident.

Guess I have to take my rookie bumps at some point!

Thank you everyone for the feedback. I'll post updates over the next few days. Hopefully it will be positive updates!

If you think it might even be remotely possible the favia caused it toss them out. I'll test my tank tomorrow and double check everything. But my parameters were normal on Saturday. I hate to hear that and I feel terrible.

I get pretty nice pricing on spectrapure rodi units so check with me before paying retail.

 

[BlueDevil]

If you think it might even be remotely possible the favia caused it toss them out. I'll test my tank tomorrow and double check everything. But my parameters were normal on Saturday. I hate to hear that and I feel terrible.

I get pretty nice pricing on spectrapure rodi units so check with me before paying retail.

Don't feel bad man. It could be anything really that could have caused this. Who knows?! I'll definitely check with you on the RODI unit before buying.

 

[Jmcdaniel0]

I got a big ole chunk of red people eaters zoas today. Probably 90 polyps or so your welcome to some if you want.

 

[BlueDevil]

I got a big ole chunk of red people eaters zoas today. Probably 90 polyps or so your welcome to some if you want.

Thanks a lot for the offer. I think I'm going to take the wait and see approach for a while before adding anything new to the tank. Want to make sure everything settles down well and starts growing before adding more stuff. Maybe down the road I'll take you up on the offer [emoji4]

 

[BlueDevil]

Btw - the watermelons have all opened up nicely!

 

[Jmcdaniel0]

Btw - the watermelons have all opened up nicely!

Good deal. They are a pretty zoa. I like them.

 

[Reeflogic]

Sorry for your loss man, I know your pain, lost every SPS but one when we got ready to move and I took the tank down systematically, patiently and STILL managed to lose a ton of corals. It's brutal when it happens, but fortunately, they are just frags. Maybe some folks can hook you up with some duplicates once you figure out what happened. Wish I had some to send your way, but my tank is on the rebound. Good luck with everything!

 

[BlueDevil]

Sorry for your loss man, I know your pain, lost every SPS but one when we got ready to move and I took the tank down systematically, patiently and STILL managed to lose a ton of corals. It's brutal when it happens, but fortunately, they are just frags. Maybe some folks can hook you up with some duplicates once you figure out what happened. Wish I had some to send your way, but my tank is on the rebound. Good luck with everything!

Thank you! Yeah, it sure is a crushing feeling just watching the coral waste away and there's not much you can do to stop it. I'm new to SPS and I'm sure some of you veterans have seen this and have felt the pain that I am feeling.

Now that I have had a chance to sleep over it and get out of panic mode, is there ANYTHING else that I might have missed that could cause such a sudden event? I read about RTN all evening long and the most common causes I see are Alk (or other parameter) swings, or new frags added. I have had very stable parameters for quite some time now. Possibly my removing the ChemiPure and Phosguard this past weekend contributed to it, though my NO3 and PO4 levels before and after the removal have not deviated that much.

I can understand an Alk swing affecting the corals. But can someone explain how one affected frag might hurt others that seemed to have established over a few months? I lost a couple of pieces that were in there since late November and were encrusting and starting to color up very nicely. Does RTN spread from the one affected piece to another? Or does the dying coral put some nastiness in the water column which could cause the others to get affected? Any bugs or other parasites that I should be looking for that could cause such a sudden event? I would think not as it would likely be much slower of a death with signs of other damage to the coral before it completely dies.

Touch wood, I have never had bugs or parasites in my tank but then again I have never been as deeply involved with corals (SPS in particular) as I am now.

Two things on my agenda in the near future are a frag tank and a RODI unit. As much as I hate to have lost these frag, they were only frags and not huge colonies. So, once the pain of the lost $$ wears off, I should get my enthusiasm back.

Cheers!
Yash

 

[Esage]

Oh and if you get your SW from AM they only run RO, no DI (unless something has changed). That's not adequate for SPS IMO. If that's your water source I would NOT recommend a water change cause their membranes could be past their prime.

I did not know this

 

[WetWhistle]

Have you checked your salinity? A large quick change can cause issues with sps. How long did you wait after mixing the new saltwater up before using? Did you check the salinity of it before using? I noticed you topped up with RO water with kalk in it. How much did you use? If you dumped to much in this would cause a huge swing in alk and PH.

If you remove the infected pieces shut your water flow off first. If you get tissue from a RTN coral onto a healthy one it can spread like fire. It is not likely a bug or pest of some kind because of how fast it happened so I would look at water parameters or something in it as the more likely cause.

If space is low look at putting some carbon in a mesh bag. Passive approach like a mesh bag with not be as aggressive at removing things from the water but it will still remove them. Just at a slower rate.

 

[BlueDevil]

Have you checked your salinity? A large quick change can cause issues with sps. How long did you wait after mixing the new saltwater up before using? Did you check the salinity of it before using? I noticed you topped up with RO water with kalk in it. How much did you use? If you dumped to much in this would cause a huge swing in alk and PH.

If you remove the infected pieces shut your water flow off first. If you get tissue from a RTN coral onto a healthy one it can spread like fire. It is not likely a bug or pest of some kind because of how fast it happened so I would look at water parameters or something in it as the more likely cause.

If space is low look at putting some carbon in a mesh bag. Passive approach like a mesh bag with not be as aggressive at removing things from the water but it will still remove them. Just at a slower rate.

Salinity has been stable at 1.025. I buy my SW from a LFS and check it before my weekly water changes. It also read 1.025. So I don't think it was the water change that caused it. Regarding the kalk, I simply refilled my ATO container - did not add the RO/Kalk water to my DT. Kalk mixture was the same quantity I have been using for the past couple of months. 1.5 teaspoons per gallon of FW.

I have been considering adding carbon in a mesh bag - I might just go ahead with that today.

 

[WetWhistle]

I like to rule out what has not caused something when trouble shooting as this makes the pool of suspects smaller and you can focus on the most likely cause.

 

[BlueDevil]

I like to rule out what has not caused something when trouble shooting as this makes the pool of suspects smaller and you can focus on the most likely cause.

Oh absolutely! And that is what I've been trying to do ... just go over all the things I did since last week and by process of elimination hope to come to a logical conclusion of the cause.

 

[CastAway]

The addition of carbon itself can be a shock to a system I hear. Might want to ween into that, small amount first, then build up.

 

[BlueDevil]

The addition of carbon itself can be a shock to a system I hear. Might want to ween into that, small amount first, then build up.

Good call Jeff. I'll add just a tiny bit at first and increase the quantity once a week during my weekly maintenance.

 

[Reeflogic]

Chemipure is a very good addition, especially if space is limited. I have been using their products since the 80's!! I still use them on my smaller systems. I wish I had an answer for your coral loss, sometimes it can be nearly impossible to pinpoint, especially when you haven't changed anything, other than adding the corals. I like to QT my corals first and I also drip acclimate, slowly. Hang in there!!

 

[bairdimusprime]

https://reefbuilders.com/2013/06/05/rtn-sanjay-joshi/

RTN best of luck

 

[BlueDevil]