Tank crash!

[nick9one1]

For the past week my plating montipora has been loosing colour and going brown. Everything else looked great so didn't worry too much, levels look ok.

I have a new mandarin fish that had been in QT for a couple of weeks (QP and Prazi).

He was nice and plump, feeding well on mysis. Within 8 hours of adding him to the DT he was dead. Followed the next day by a coral beauty, gramma, blenny and goby. Couple of other fish MIA - presumed dead.

This was followed by a purple stylo and a couple of other sps loosing flesh (some are fine).

Two shrimp are fine although the cleaner looks like his antenna are half the length?

All in about 7 fish died, I got a couple out before they were gonners and put them in a hospital tank - Wrasse lasted another day but ultimately died.

Two clowns absolutely fine, eating well, so signs of anything wrong - they didn't even go into the hospital tank.

LPS and Zoas fully extended - no sign of anything wrong.


I added a load of carbon and did a 40% water change... things look stable now, but at a loss to what happened?

 

[Redfoxtang]

First for the corals receding can you post tank parameters please. Maybe N03 and P04 maybe on edge and could be causing this issue.

For the fish dying, did all fish get QTed? Any new additions( Coral, live rock, snails, etc). Also you mentioned a hospital tank with QP? Did you mean CP?

 

[nick9one1]

First for the corals receding can you post tank parameters please. Maybe N03 and P04 maybe on edge and could be causing this issue.

For the fish dying, did all fish get QTed? Any new additions( Coral, live rock, snails, etc). Also you mentioned a hospital tank with QP? Did you mean CP?

Sure,

No new additions, other than the mandarin.
Yes, sorry not QP, but CP.

A month or two ago I had Coolia dinos so have been keeping my N03 and P04 quite high -

N03 is about 15ppm
P04 is 0.6 (higher than normal but not as high as it has been)
Alk is 11, about 1dkh higher than normal but I presume this is because the corals aren't using it as fast.


All the original fish had been QT's with CP and prazi other than the mandarain, I don't think I've had any new additions in the last 6 months.

I've got an unused ICP so sending that off tomorrow.

 

[Uncle99]

Your phosphate at .6 is way way high!
Should be 0.03-.1 ish.
Yours is six times the higher end.
High phosphate leads to poor calcification of your stoneys...

 

[Dom]

I have a new mandarin fish that had been in QT for a couple of weeks (QP and Prazi).

Can you tell us how many days and what your exact treatment regiment was while in QT?

Fish disease isn't my strong point, but, based on what I've read, it seems that the new mandarin, while treated, still carried some kind of infection into your display tank.

 

[nick9one1]

He was in QT for 3 weeks in total. 21 days CP then Praziquantel bath - 6 hours.

The tank seems to be back to normal now.. phosphate is down to .03 and dropping (rowaphos).

I wondered if it was lack of oxygen that caused all the deaths. Maybe a phosphate spike caused a bacteria bloom and oxygen drop..? Doesn't really explain the coral deaths though.

Stylopora and montipora died. Other sps lps and four acros were surprisingly unaffected.

 

[nick9one1]

The green plating monti has completely recovered and back to a very bright green from the dull brown.

 

[Colin_S]

gutted for you, i can't add anything of use, but watching this thread and hopefully we can learn from your experiance.

 

[nick9one1]

thanks. Could have been worse I suppose!
My gut feeling is that its a water parameter rather than disease as a couple of corals were affected as well as the fish.