HELP...Everything has decided to die!

[adetamor]

About a month ago I started noticing the SPS in my tank dying from the bottom and browning out. The die off was minimal and didn't seem to be an immediate threat. A little over a week ago, the SPS seemed to begin dying at a rapid rate. I moved most to a friends tank, where it quickly died and so did the remaining SPS in my tank. Along with this, I have about 70+ zoanthid colonies that were looking fine during most of this. About a week and a half ago, they started to lose color and close up and have not opened since. I do have some LPS in the tank that don't seem to be affected by this all too much. The fish have all been acting fine as well. Quite a few things have happened during this time, so I am going to detail them out as best as I can to hopefully try to find a solution to all of this!

1st: About 2 weeks before the SPS began looking bad, I let a friend borrow my RO. During this time, I had to result to using tap water because he was too lazy to bring it back to me. I have tested my tap water, however, and is is free of nitrates and such and goes into the RO at less than 10 TDI, so I consider my tap to be pretty clear.

2nd: The same friend that wanted to borrow my RO asked me to hold onto a large tang for him for a little bit of time. I put the tang in my tank (40g breeder) around the time I started noticing the die off. As the dying progressed, I noticed that my skimmer wasn't working properly. I got rid of the fish, got the skimmer working, tested the nitrates (which were quite high) and started doing water changes to get it down. I had got them down to near 0 earlier this week.

3rd: During this, I switched my lighting over to T5 and added a frag tank. Over the main tank (40g breeder) I have 3 UVL 454, 2 UVL Actinic White and a UVL Super Actinic (39w bulbs). These are about 20" above the tank. Over the frag tank (30x20x8) I have 3 Giesemann AquaBlue+ and a Midday (24w). These are around 11" above the tank. When I did this switch, the zoas in the DT looked fine. I moved them all into the frag tank and they looked fine in there for about a week.

4th: About 2 weeks ago, my RBTA decided to find out what a powerhead feels like. I got it out within the hour of it happening, so I am not sure how much damage there was.

Currently, all of the zoanthids are closed and some look very close to melting, my purple deaths were open for a little bit but were black in color. The anemones in the tank are closed up the the size of a thimble. Almost all chalices have lost their eye color and are looking a bit thin. And as I said, all SPS has died. I checked my tank levels a few days ago and things seemed fine for the most part. Everything was zero expect ammonia was a bit above. I noticed that my PH was around 7.8 and my magnesium was a little above 1500. My ph has been around 7.8 for quite some time, so I don't believe this is an issue. I did add some PH buffer just in case. I checked everything today and here are the current numbers:

Ammonia: .25ppm
Nitrite: .05ppm
Nitrate: 25ppm
Phosphate: .2ppm
Calcium: 520
Magnesium: 1500
PH: 7.9
Alk: normal

 

[bkoppes]

Can't give any advice but that sucks to lose everything. Feel for ya man.

 

[Troylee]

Well from reading it sounds like you started with 'stn. Then changed things very quickly in a panic fashion and it turned to rtn.... Sps need a very stable enviroment and using tap water could have done a number of things like added copper to the system which in terms would kill the tank naturally.. Check your local water districts water report aNd see what has been found in the water... I know out here Vegas the one they just released was very high in copper and po4...

 

[MarkSativa]

What is your salinity at??? Do you use a refractometer? I also agree with troylee on the copper deal. ether way I feel for you.

 

[UWWorld_NJ]

sorry to hear it sucks to lose everything.. but you should not have any

Ammonia: .25ppm???
OR
Nitrite: .05ppm??

 

[stedfast82]

i have some good friend's but i would never let them take my RO/DI and i go back to the tap for water!! that's #1. + phosphate test are not right on the money I dont trust any one of them. Im sure it's higher than that.then on top of all that had changed you put new lighting bad move.at this time.IMO you need to go back and start over to many change's to fast. sorry for all of your loss.but you made it happen every one in this hobby has made bad move's at time's this was just your time. get your reef stable and start over ! you will be ok. cal at 520 it should be at 480 mag 1500? it should be no higher than 1400 at most and alk normal what is that alk swing's will kill .RTN if you have a reef you never go to the tap for water ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Stray32]

It sounds like there were way too many changes in a very small period of time, and it through off your water chemistry and stressed everything out.

 

[gparr]

Agreed, too many changes too soon. Switching from RO/DI to tap water was/is no doubt significant. In terms of reef tanks, tap water is rather "dirty" water.

Did you slowly adapt your tank habitants to the T5 lighting? What lighting did you have previously? I think we tend to grossly under estimate the power of T5 lights and six lamps on a 40 breeder is a lot of light. The adaptation process would be several weeks before you could run them all on all day.
Gary

 

[stunreefer Verified Sponsor]

Switching from RO/DI to tap water was/is no doubt significant.

Yes, this was the initial issue in this case.

Many times tap water contains Chlorimine and Ammonia, if this wasn't removed that's a big problem. Even with "dechlorinators" you really don't want to use tap water on a reef tank.

When you first saw "the die off was minimal and didn't seem to be an immediate threat", that should be investigated immediately, and be thought of as an immediate threat. Corals should never be dying off.

There should never be detectable ammonia levels in an established reef. This was likely due to some of the corals dying off. Now you're seeing levels of ammonia and nitrite (also should never be detected) that are toxic to both fish and coral. Your best bet is to perform larger water changes (50% +) daily until these drop down to 0 ppm.

Your pH, Mag and Ca aren't a big issue here. Mag can be ran at that level continuously with no issues, Ca should be ran a bit lower stabily. Once you get your nitrite and ammonia down to 0 ppm, lower your nitrates some, then stabilize Alk and Ca will fall to a decent level.

 

[firsttime]

Sorry for your loss, I know its hard to deal with it.

It could be a combination of things and its going to be hard to root cause at this time.
You should have not gone to tap water at all. That brings in new chemicals into the water stream and you dont test for them.

6 T5 on a 40B is a very good amount of light. To give you a perspective, I use 5 Ts on a 60B and grow SPS at a depth of about 10 inches. You might want to use some layes of protective screen and slowly start adapting the inhabitants

SPS seems to have started to STN and then moving them caused them to RTN.

To me ALK is very imp, and more importatnly the swing. I have lost corals early on in the hobby due to alk swings - A tight control over it helps all corals.

Once a tank goes down hill it take some time ( couple of months) to recover to full health. So be patient.

Dont hesitate to ask more questions, its always good .

 

[CoralBandit]

Tap water = bad news. Did you dechlorinate and even if you did tap still has high concentration of metals, phosphates and other "stuff" bad for tanks

 

[LegoZ81]

Many times tap water contains Chlorimine and Ammonia, if this wasn't removed that's a big problem. Even with "dechlorinators" you really don't want to use tap water on a reef tank.

If not Chloramine (Chlorine/Ammonia compound), they use Chlorine (you know it as bleach).
If you use a standard dechlor on Chloramine, it breaks the bond and the Chlorine can offgas* or be nutralized. The ammonia stays in the water till bacteria breaks it down.

If you just have Chlorine, then it will over time offgas* however this will not happen quickly enough for your tank.

If you did not use dechlor, you need to IMMEDIATELY go get amQuel and dose for the amount of water you changed out in a high flow area of you system. That will bind the ammonia, detoxify the chlorine, and supposedly bind nitrIte and nitrAte rendering them less harmful.

Also get activated carbon in the tank that will help absorb the Chlorine.

Please tell us you used a dechlor product on the tap water. If not then you may be hosed unfortunately :(


About NitrIte:
"The addition of one half ounce of salt per gallon of water will prevent methemoglobin from building up. Chlorine salt is preferable, however any aquarium salt is better than no salt at all. Aeration should be increased to provide ample oxygen saturation in the water. Feedings should be reduced and no new fish should be added until the tank until the ammonia and nitrite levels have fallen to zero. "
From: http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/disease/p/nitritepoison.htm

As you can see to help prevent the poisioning of the fish due to exposure to nitrIte you add salt to the water. So nitrIte for the fish in a saltwater tank is not as lethal as freshwater but it is still bad.


*Many chemicals used in consumer products can be released as fumes, or gases. The process is called "offgassing." From healthychild.org/issues/glossary-pop/offgas

 

[stunreefer Verified Sponsor]

AmQuel is only a short term fix, and should only be used in emergency type situations (which you could classify this as). It will not detoxify ammonia long term.

 

[LegoZ81]

Good point stunreefer! I would hope with his levels it wouldn't take all that long for the bacteria population in the tank to ramp up (provided ample surface area and oxygen) to address this.
I fear the bigger concern is possible Chloramine in the system. It is rather stable and can only be split up by chemical or removed with catalytic carbon (not standard activated carbon from my understanding) Chlorine unbound and Chloramines are very harmful as they are strong oxidants and will react with ANY organic material in the tank.

 

[adetamor]

Thanks for all the posts everyone. I agree that it was too many changes at once. Salinity is 1.025. No dechlorifier. I changed the lighting so early in the process of this all, I neglected to take into effect that things were looking a little off. Before the T5s, I had a 175w hqi with 2 96w PCs for supplement. I guess my question is, what can I do to salvage the situation. I have a couple G's worth of zoas in this tank that I won't be too happy to lose.

Heres a couple random solutions that I have thought of that may or may not work...so please advise:

1) Just let it go and hope for the best (don't really like this solution)
2) Move them back to HQI
3) I have a friend that has a very large, well established system that I could take water out of to fill my frag tank anew and throw a skimmer on it, salvage the coral I have and try to rework the water levels in the DT.
4) Get water from said friend and combine with some fresh RO/salt and mix a bit of old water in and redo all the water in the system.
5) Do something that you guys say!

Please offer any solutions!

BTW, does anyone know a site where I can check city water level params.

 

[stedfast82]

and don't dump any coral's right away i have had some sps RTN and some can come back. just don't make any fast moves get your RO system back and do water change's!! IMO I would do what stunreefer is telling you I'm not that smart Ive made some real mess up's over the year's

 

[LegoZ81]

You need to get amQuel dosed now. I would do nothing else till this is done. If it was present in the tap water you will still have Chlorine and Chloramines in the system. The ammonia you are detecting could be getting split from the Chloramine due the the pH of the test kit for ammonia. Chlorine/Chloramine in itself can kill everything in the tank.

 

[LegoZ81]

Also is this all one system?

 

[adetamor]

One system. I have Prime. It is an ammonia detoxifier. Its the only thing I have right now to use. I don't believe anyone local carries amQuel. I am going to call around after work. What kind of water change process would you recommend to remove the chemicals.

 

[LegoZ81]

One system. I have Prime. It is an ammonia detoxifier. Its the only thing I have right now to use. I don't believe anyone local carries amQuel. I am going to call around after work. What kind of water change process would you recommend to remove the chemicals.

"Prime is the complete and concentrated conditioner for both fresh and salt water. Prime removes chlorine, chloramine and ammonia."
From Prime 100mL (3.4oz)

Dose prime to the tank as you would to treat the whole system worth of water volume keeping water movement high. (1 cap per 50g per their instructions, please read your bottle and verify though)
I you have an extra powerhead point it to shoot water along the top of the tank (under the water) to increase surface agitation to increase aeration.

Get carbon running as it will assist in removing any heavy metals present in the tap water as well as any toxins that may be released from dying corals.

Skim wet as it will help remove extra organics due to die corals.

Get your RO/DI back and use 0 tds water to mix new saltwater and to 5% daily water changes, mix the water bring it up to tank temp and let sit at least 1 hour after salinity matches before changing water. Do this till Nitrate is no longer present.

keep all parameters stable.

BTW "normal" is not a reading for alk, What is the actual number you are coming up with?