Rapid random tank crash?? Nothing was added or changed. What changed?

[alindell]

I've got a 70 gallon that has been running fine for the past 5 months. Coraline growing, fish healthy, acros and sps growing, everything opened up and colorful. No issues. Alk has been steady around 9, Ph 8.1, salinity around 35.5, 36. I run carbon, UV auto water change all for reef, and kalkwasser. Parameters are stable and everything was fine...

Over a period of 1 day the tank was fine and the next about every coral was read dead. SPS acros Monti almost everything dead and sliming. Nothing obvious was a sign of failure. No equipment failure, parameters all checked out nothing new added or changed. What could it be? I find it hard to believe how fast everything could die no major parameters like temp alk, pH, salinity are at play. They all checked out. Temp was fine all night. The only thing I noticed was that the saltwater in the brute trash can I use for auto water change had some scummy yellowish brown slime stuff that kinda smelled. I believe this to be reef actif that I add in the saltwater for carbon dosing to be slowly added in. Tropic marine uses this in their salts so I don't see the issue.

I really don't know what happened? Bacterial? Toxin or poison? A few snails died but they wouldn't kill a whole tank. Probably died from whatever killed the corals. No equipment failure. ICP tests have been sent off to see if anything out of the normal can be checked. This is a complete mystery to me

 

[edsbeaker]

So sorry that this happened to your tank. I’m sure someone will come along and help you figure out the cause. This is a bit over my head, but just wanted to say sorry!

 

[goosemans]

stuck pump causing kalk or AFR dump? Carbon overdose?

 

[alindell]

No alk tested fine. If it overdosed the all would be high

 

[alindell]

Alk*

 

[alindell]

stuck pump causing kalk or AFR dump? Carbon overdose?

Carbon dosing has been kept the same at 4ml of tropic marine bacto balance. It's not the type of carbon dosing to randomly kill the tank

 

[Aaron Stone]

Ouch, that is painful, I am sorry

How are you measuring salinity and when was the last time it was calibrated?

Have you had your LFS run water tests just as a comparison?

 

[Reefer Matt]

Any kids in the house?

 

[alindell]

So sorry that this happened to your tank. I’m sure someone will come along and help you figure out the cause. This is a bit over my head, but just wanted to say sorry!

Thank you. I have been reefing 15 years. In that time I've had like 1 tank failuresand I knew why. One was a toxic dump from my skimmer overflowing. I've lost some corals from low nutrients. With this tank I bumped up nutrients with neo nitro and neo phos. I let the coral get a little darker in color and then I stopped. No bad side effects. Then started adding bacto balance which is a light carbon dose. Nothing to extreme that bottoms out nutrients. I then added reef actif to water change saltwater drum that has like 30 gallons of saltwater. About a gallon gets changed everyday. Reef actif is another form of carbon dosing that was slowly being added to the tank. I also run overpowered UV so I kinda doubt I killed the tank with reef actif or bacterial. My guess is done sort of toxin?

 

[alindell]

Ouch, that is painful, I am sorry

How are you measuring salinity and when was the last time it was calibrated?

Have you had your LFS run water tests just as a comparison?

I have recently switched over to Hannah digital handheld tester. My refractometer even after being calibrated were testing low. I stopped using them and for a couple months now have been using the digital. It was calibrated and seems to accurate.

 

[edsbeaker]

Thank you. I have been reefing 15 years. In that time I've had like 1 tank failuresand I knew why. One was a toxic dump from my skimmer overflowing. I've lost some corals from low nutrients. With this tank I bumped up nutrients with neo nitro and neo phos. I let the coral get a little darker in color and then I stopped. No bad side effects. Then started adding bacto balance which is a light carbon dose. Nothing to extreme that bottoms out nutrients. I then added reef actif to water change saltwater drum that has like 30 gallons of saltwater. About a gallon gets changed everyday. Reef actif is another form of carbon dosing that was slowly being added to the tank. I also run overpowered UV so I kinda doubt I killed the tank with reef actif or bacterial. My guess is done sort of toxin?

That’s kind of what I was thinking. It just seems like it happen so fast.

 

[Aaron Stone]

Nitrates and Phos check out?

 

[Lavey29]

Sounds like your water in the brute got fouled.

 

[alindell]

Nitrates and Phos check out?

Don't know but phosphate and nitrate spike would not cause death that fast. You could probably dump in a lot of phosphate and nitrate and all it would do is irritate the corals

 

[alindell]

Sounds like your water in the brute got fouled.

Possibly but the only thing in there is saltwater and reef actif being slowly dosed in. It's been doing that for awhile now. Nothing new so why would it randomly cause death now.

 

[alindell]

Ammonia was registering detectable from the basic API dropper vial color test. It's suppose to be yellow meaning 0 and it's the next color up is a yellow green So that means there is some low amounts of ammonia. Question is did the ammonia kill the corals and snails or did something else kill the snails and corals which then caused an ammonia spike? None of this makes sense. Why would ammonia randomly appear... It wouldn't so something must have killed them causing the spike. The rest was cross checked with another established reef tank and it registered zero or yellow meaning no ammonia.

 

[alindell]

Detectable ammonia

 

[nezw0001]

is it possible something got knocked into the tank or sump without you knowing?

 

[alindell]

is it possible something got knocked into the tank or sump without you knowing?

I thought the same. Nothing....I will say that I'm on vacation and if course this **** happens when I'm away so I have a family member taking care of the tanks. I can't verify for myself but I did ask her and she said no. She knows what she is doing for the most part though

 

[alindell]

This basically ruined my vacation