Tank is crashing help!

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JohnnyTJ09

JohnnyTJ09

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Sounds like a bloom of some sort and likely bacterial. You mention corals suddenly bleaching. First thing to check is water temp. High temps will cause tissue release and RTN. Increased temperatures will either modify the structure of the coral microbial symbiotic community or trigger the production of factors affecting the tissue.
Typical actions that cause sudden bleaching and tissue loss are :

- Alkalinity spike
- Temperature spike
- Salinity spike
- Low dissolved oxygen
- Poor water quality related with phosphate levels up to 5 ppm
- Change in water flow
- Addition of sand
- Changes in brand of salt
- Bad test kits giving faulty results
- Levels of minor elements such as Iodine, Potassium, Strontium
- Light intensity or sunlight hitting tank
- - Changes in water flow
- Addition of new corals
- - Pesticides used in the room
It’s not temperature, water flow, light, salt, no new additions, no pesticides are used in the room. Everything was literally perfect and thriving yesterday, I’ve had anything happen so dramatically in such a short amount of time
 

vetteguy53081

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It’s not temperature, water flow, light, salt, no new additions, no pesticides are used in the room. Everything was literally perfect and thriving yesterday, I’ve had anything happen so dramatically in such a short amount of time
Is tank at or near a window?
Something likely happened within tank and water. Problem with spikes are they come and go quickly and by the time you test, theyre undetectable.
What test kits are you using ?
 
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JohnnyTJ09

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Also be sure to check your tanks temperature, sometimes a faulty heater is the issue. It is possible something happened to kill coral/invert and the death lead to the bloom.

Check salinity too. Idk if you use an ATO but make sure stuff like that is working correctly.

I know you don't have test kits but I am assuming you can check those two. Maybe your friend has test kits you can use?
All those things are fine
 
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7186F484-30DC-4A23-B2D8-815494A9FF2D.jpeg

It’s gotten worse since this was taken.
Probably twice as cloudy and corals are more closed
 

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Beautiful tank.. sorry this is happening to you! Did you get the UV yet?
 

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7186F484-30DC-4A23-B2D8-815494A9FF2D.jpeg

It’s gotten worse since this was taken.
Probably twice as cloudy and corals are more closed
How much carbon did you put in? Maybe the paly are releasing some toxin? The wall (hammer?) in the bottom left looks like it has lost quite a bit of tissue. Maybe it's polluting the water? If you have an extra powerhead I would make sure you are getting some extra surface agitation to really keep the O2 levels high. Bacterial blooms will suck the O2 out of the water and snowball the death spiral...

When is the last time you ran Alk, Ca, NO3, PO4 etc testing? Those LPS and Acros might look great until they drop the alk or some other parameter to the breaking point and boom. You said you don't dose anything? Are you manually dosing?

I would do another big water change if you can, pull any corals that are visibly disintegrating and put them in a bucket with a small pump and heater..
 

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Check for stray voltage and broken heaters.
usually bacteria bloom don’t crash tanks this fast. Extreme bacteria bloom will kill your fish first from lack of oxygen.
Post your water parameters. How can you not dose two parts in a reef tank?
 

vetteguy53081

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Take a water sample to a trusted LFS that does NOT use Api test kits and see what your: Ammonia-oh-nitrate and phosphate levels are at.
 

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Carbon, poly filter, and multiple water changes ASAP.
 
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Is there any chance that an anemone got stuck in powerhead?
Any update on this one?
Update.

Over the day, the cloudiness has gone down. My elegance and Duncan colony are slowly bouncing back. My hammer and bubble coral are extremely closed and several polyps have turned clear. They don’t seem like they’ve gotten any worse since the morning. Every sps coral in my tank has been bleached white. Most of my soft corals have remained unaffected by this entire thing but the ones that were are slowly getting better also. Last night I took the cup off my skimmer and have been letting it oxygenate the tank.

salinity: 1.025
Temperature: 77
Ammonia: 0
Nitrate: 3ppm
Phosphate: 0.01

I don’t dose anything in my tank. There are no lighting or sunlight issues. There have been no additions to the system for 2 months. I do not have an anemone. The tank is over 3 years old so I have a pretty decent amount of bacteria. My guess is this has something to do to with coral warfare as I do have a large paly rock that I’ve been meaning to get rid of (safely) and they have also been growing next to some other corals. My gsp has also been competing with some of my corals. I feel like the tank is slowly recovering from whatever happened but my main concern right now is to recover my wall hammer and bubble.
 
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Update.

Over the day, the cloudiness has gone down. My elegance and Duncan colony are slowly bouncing back. My hammer and bubble coral are extremely closed and several polyps have turned clear. They don’t seem like they’ve gotten any worse since the morning. Every sps coral in my tank has been bleached white. Most of my soft corals have remained unaffected by this entire thing but the ones that were are slowly getting better also. Last night I took the cup off my skimmer and have been letting it oxygenate the tank.

salinity: 1.025
Temperature: 77
Ammonia: 0
Nitrate: 3ppm
Phosphate: 0.01

I don’t dose anything in my tank. There are no lighting or sunlight issues. There have been no additions to the system for 2 months. I do not have an anemone. The tank is over 3 years old so I have a pretty decent amount of bacteria. My guess is this has something to do to with coral warfare as I do have a large paly rock that I’ve been meaning to get rid of (safely) and they have also been growing next to some other corals. My gsp has also been competing with some of my corals. I feel like the tank is slowly recovering from whatever happened but my main concern right now is to recover my wall hammer and bubble.
I also added a bunch of rinsed carbon last night.

Alkalinity is a little low at: 6.8 dkh
 

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My 100g tank was perfectly fine yesterday and when I got home today all my sps corals were bleached white and my lps corals were all closed up. I did a water change right away and swapped out the carbon but everything seems to be getting worse by the hour. All of my fish are alive but the tank is super cloudy. I’ve had this system for over 3 years and I don’t know what it could be. I do not have any test kits at the moment but my sg and temp are fine. I had a short spine urchin that died too but my other inverts seem ok. Most of my soft corals are so doing alright but at this point all my lps corals are slowly dying. I don’t know what else I can do by tonight. Someone please help!
I would be taking a water sample before each water change and record the results. I wouls immediately get a poly filter going. If getting a 4"x10" version i would use 2. I would test your water at a LFS or if you have a good test kit, something better than api I wouls test all of your parameters. I would find someone who has a copper test kit or go buy one and test for copper. At this point it could be a million things. My guess tho is it's either ammonia spike, or a heavy metal. It's hard not know how old the tank is, are any fish and or inverts dieing other than coral and urchin? Test your water and get back to me with parameters. In the mean time mix up a **** load of fresh 0tds saltwater and start doing daily 50% water changes take a water sample before each test be writing down your results. You need to know Ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, calcium, alkalinity, magnesium, salinity, ph, temp, phosphates. Get going on those steps and let me know what your parameters are.
 
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