Water Change Making Acros Unhappy

[ElementSquaredLLC]

I have a tank maintenance person who maintains my office reef tank. The other day she did a 20% water change but she roughed the sand up A LOT. The water was very murky during the change. She said it was to remove methane buildup in the sand. After the water change, all the acros looked very unhappy. No polyp extension and it looks like the start of bleaching. It has been 2 days an no improvement. Any idea why this happened and how to fix?

 

[KrisReef]

Acros don’t like detritus clouds. Stn is not an uncommon result from these storms.

 

[Lavey29]

Does it smell like gotten eggs? That hydrogen sulfide in the sand. You should only clean like 25% of your sand at one time during a water change.

 

[ElementSquaredLLC]

Acros don’t like detritus clouds. Stn is not an uncommon result from these storms.

Thanks for the reply. What do you mean by STN? Short term? I rinsed all the filter media and turned on skimmer. Not sure if that did anything or not. Anything else to do besides wait? Will they typically recover?

 

[ElementSquaredLLC]

Does it smell like gotten eggs? That hydrogen sulfide in the sand. You should only clean like 25% of your sand at one time during a water change.

I didnt notice a smell.

 

[Uncle99]

I do a “hurricane” treatment every month but only 1/3 of the rockwork, and lightly on the sand.

Keeps sand from trapping detrius over time and puts it up in the column for collection and removal.

At first corals seem annoyed, but days later, look full.

It’s probably not good to do the whole bed.

 

[KrisReef]

Thanks for the reply. What do you mean by STN? Short term? I rinsed all the filter media and turned on skimmer. Not sure if that did anything or not. Anything else to do besides wait? Will they typically recover?

Sudden tissue necrosis, with the sticks starting to die losing tissue from the base up. When it gets bad coral can die overnight. Other times it stops dying before the entire stick is lost. How and why is not well understood.

 

[Lavey29]

Sudden tissue necrosis, with the sticks starting to die losing tissue from the base up. When it gets bad coral can die overnight. Other times it stops dying before the entire stick is lost. How and why is not well understood.

actually STN is short for SLOW TISSUE NECROSIS

https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/cont...al-tissue-necrosis-the-mystery-of-rtn-and-stn

 

[I never finish anythi]

You are better off doing you own tank maintenance tbh. Not sure on your situation but I'd start doing things yourself. Out of curiosity how deep is the sand bed in the tank ?

 

[KrisReef]

Sudden tissue necrosis, with the sticks starting to die losing tissue from the base up. When it gets bad coral can die overnight. Other times it stops dying before the entire stick is lost. How and why is not well understood.

I am getting old.

actually STN is short for SLOW TISSUE NECROSIS

https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/cont...al-tissue-necrosis-the-mystery-of-rtn-and-stn

Yes, I realized my mistake as I was falling asleep. Thanks for the correction.

 

[Lavey29]

I am getting old.

Yes, I realized my mistake as I was falling asleep. Thanks for the correction.

Actually your acronym is appropriate also because you wake up in the morning and "Suddenly" realize your acros got a problem.

 

[ElementSquaredLLC]

You are better off doing you own tank maintenance tbh. Not sure on your situation but I'd start doing things yourself. Out of curiosity how deep is the sand bed in the tank ?

Sand bed is probably 3-4 inches deep on average. The water looked like milk. It was stupid. I asked her if that was ok for the corals and she said she was being gentle. I am doing more and more of the maintenance myself but its a tank in my office so I have other things to do there as well :)

 

[ElementSquaredLLC]

Here is an image of one of the acros. The day after it looked like its flesh was darker and its got kinda a scaly look to it on the lower half. This is a Green Shaggy Dog acro. Its usually green. Its still green but some parts are darker now. Sorry for the awful pic.

 

[KrisReef]

A uv filter might lower bacteria levels in the water and may help recovery?

Lots of theories about bacteria being involved in these things.

Might make it worse? Just thinking out loud about the situation and hoping for the best going forward.

 

[bobnicaragua]

You don’t want to disturb deep sandbeds. This was common knowledge back in 90’s when they were popular.

 

[ElementSquaredLLC]

You don’t want to disturb deep sandbeds. This was common knowledge back in 90’s when they were popular.

Are deep sand beds no longer popular?

 

[bobnicaragua]

Deep Sand beds reduce nitrates, but can release poisonous gas when disturbed.

Most people use around an inch or less of substrate these days.

 

[RiverChad]

I have a tank maintenance person who maintains my office reef tank. The other day she did a 20% water change but she roughed the sand up A LOT. The water was very murky during the change. She said it was to remove methane buildup in the sand. After the water change, all the acros looked very unhappy. No polyp extension and it looks like the start of bleaching. It has been 2 days an no improvement. Any idea why this happened and how to fix

Does the salt mix match the parameters of your tank? When I just into the hobby I bought premixed saltwater from my lfs and didn't realize they use red sea salt, which is stupid high dkh. Needless to say I had very unhappy corals and a couple casualties.

 

[brandon429]

a sixty page thread fixing this issue for 300 tanks/preventing it

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/official-sand-rinse-and-tank-transfer-thread.230281/
there are some steps you can do that are missing

such as: lower your light levels a week ago and ramp up. during insults, too bright light is your first bleach issue. lowering the light is the very first move in all reef crash prevention, before any other move.

second issue: you need to rip clean your tank, because dangerous stuff is in it.

the irony of sandbeds: partial disturbance is risky. as mentioned, those who routinely do it to a clean bed prevent buildup and and releasing mainly oxygenated waste. your deep dive was not oxygenated, it was stratified waste and that's a tank killer we can see.

*see the first readable thread examples in the thread: tank wipes from detritus upwells. yours is in pattern, but it means we know how to fix your tank for sure.

100% surgical disturbance ( a rip clean, that's what the thread is, taking your tank apart and rinsing it out using no chemicals or bacteria or reef testing: pure skip cycle biology is at work) is the only safe way, it's what runs the sixty page thread, and skipping that here cost the tank potentially.

running exactly what any job here shows how to fix your tank

simply awaiting and hoping the tank stabilizes means the very waste that harmed you gets to become re stratified, left in the tank, this is wrong. what works to run the 60 page thread is what will save this tank. nothing else is as safe ironically. the hard thing you don't want to do, remove all the waste vs entertain it, is the sole requirement to win.

you can easily maybe get lucky and it stabilize with all rotting mass left down low to resink...next disturbance is full wipe. you have a eutrophic tank, this link shows the fix.

after the rip clean you have a perfectly clean system

you drop the light levels, increase feed, increase water change work/exactly like a reef workout plan vs sitting idly on the couch/ and sustain this for twelve weeks and it will heal



*it doesn't have to be you. make that same person come back and follow the rules we will type out. tell them verbatim: no customizing, do not deviate.

 

[JonoH]

Would a Reef Snow treatment help - should bind some of the particles floating around in the water.
May also just irritate the Acro's more though at this point.