What could have went wrong...

[1nefertari1]

Greetings all!

First post on R2R! Yay ... T_T ... well unfortunately it is not about something good and exciting, but about a tragedy that happened today which I still don't know the cause. Since I'm a newbie who has only been in this hobby and browsing the forums for about one year, I am hoping that I can get some help or suggestions here. Thanks in advance!

I did a tank upgrade today. Moved livestock from my old 20 gal to a newly cycled 90gal and things went bad... All the corals were dying (shrunk until only skeleton can be seen and had white floc coming out of the mouth) and inverts stopped moving immediately after I acclimated them and moved them over to the new tank. Almost like the water was poisoned... I spent the whole afternoon acclimating them by floating them in a container in the new tank with old water and slowly adding new water so I don't think acclimation is causing this issue. I moved them back to the old 20 gal after observing this but there is no sign of recovery.

I think the issue might be with the water in the newly cycled 90 gal, so here is a detailed version of what I did during the cycle and prior to moving livestock in:

I started the cycle one month ago with mixed saltwater (red sea coral pro), caribsea livesand, dry marco rock. Dosed Dr Tim's fishless cycle to 2ppm and used Fritz turbo start to begin. Also added another bottle of Dr Tim's one and only and several live rocks from my old tank for seeding after a few days. It took around a week for ammonia to start reducing and another two weeks for it to reach 0 (had seneye for monitoring). Nitrite also reached 0 after one more week. Then I added one bottle of copepods and dosed 20ml live phyto daily since then. The cycle was lights off with reefmat running only.

Several days ago I did a 50% water change, dosed microbacterclean and did a water test with the following results (api test kit is used for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, hanna checkers used for alk,phos,cal, and refractometer used for salinity):

salinity: 1.025 sg
ph: 7.8
alk: 8 dkh
ammonia: 0 ppm
nitrite: 0 ppm
nitrate: 10 ppm
phos: 0.06
calcium: 460

Today I went to my LFS to do a water test to make sure mine is accurate but got the following results:

salinity: 1.022 sg
ph: 7.9
alk: 7.8 dkh
ammonia: 0.1 ppm
nitrite: 0 ppm
nitrate: 6 ppm
phos: 0.2
calcium: 400
mag: 1224

There was a big difference with the salinity and phosphate results so I took a sample of the natural sea water that they had for sale and checked the readings with my test kits back home. Turns out refractometer was reading 1.027 for sea water, so I raised my salinity in the new tank to match this reading by adding more salt. Phosphate was reading crazy high at 0.27 for sea water (maybe it is broken...) so I did another test of the water in my old tank and it was 0.06, so at least the new tank had same readings as my old tank. Alk was lower than expected so I dosed 30ml red sea sodium carbonate and raised it to 9dkh. I also added a bag of RowaPhos in the sump to keep phosphate in control (rinsed several times with rodi, had very dirty and red wasted water coming out at first but eventually got better).

And that's about it. After a few hours when params are stable I started acclimating the livestock. And then ... (XoX)

I can't seem to identify what went wrong and i have no idea what to do next. any help would be appreciated!

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

So I understand that all fish are fine, this is a coral only problem? The only description you give is corals shrink and inverts stop moving... so there's not much to go on, but I'm thinking salinity and temperature difference will bother the inverts, and salinity, temp difference, flow and lighting difference all have a role with the corals, a 90 gallon is very different than a 20 gallon. The corals will take time to acclimate to the new tank. Pictures will help provide visual clue's, sorry if it seems like I'm simplifying the problem.

 

[1nefertari1]

So I understand that all fish are fine, this is a coral only problem? The only description you give is corals shrink and inverts stop moving... so there's not much to go on, but I'm thinking salinity and temperature difference will bother the inverts, and salinity, temp difference, flow and lighting difference all have a role with the corals, a 90 gallon is very different than a 20 gallon. The corals will take time to acclimate to the new tank. Pictures will help provide visual clue's, sorry if it seems like I'm simplifying the problem.

Thank you for responding! Yes it is a coral only problem, I haven't added any fish to the system yet. As for temperature I made sure that it matched during the acclimation, and salinity tested same between the old and new tank water... Wavemaker and lights were not turned on after I moved things over. I know it will take some time to acclimate but it just seemed like they were dying... never seen a coral react so extremely to an environment change..

Took some pictures for reference. Moved everything back in a hurry yesterday night and some of them recovered and showed a little polyp extension this morning

 

[BristleWormHater]

The only description you give is corals shrink and inverts stop moving..

@1nefertari1 Any way copper could have gotten into the tank? Was this tank used or did you buy it new?

 

[Asm481]

Why the microbacter clean in a new setup? When I have used it in a running system my corals take a step back.

 

[MoshJosh]

Corals retracting and releasing mucous is not entirely unexpected when doing a tank change/making any big change in the aquarium. That said, without detailed pictures it is hard to say what was "normal" stress, and what was not. Given the parameter issues you listed though and given a few of the corals in your picture look pretty rough, I assume it was more than normal stress.

If the salinity was truly that far off, I would venture to guess that was the biggest problem, but it is hard to say given the other parameter discrepancies.

When in doubt I run carbon, a metal remover, and do a big water change. So if it were me, that is probably what I would do in the new tank.

Also, I agree with the above, microbacter clean may not have been needed (and after using it a bunch I have not been impressed with it haha)

Anyway, keep at it, sounds like you are doing a lot right and once you get the new tank up and running I am sure it will be awesome!

 

[1nefertari1]

@1nefertari1 Any way copper could have gotten into the tank? Was this tank used or did you buy it new?

It is new... copper never used

 

[1nefertari1]

Why the microbacter clean in a new setup? When I have used it in a running system my corals take a step back.

was told that using a little before turning on lights could help with the uglies

 

[KTTX]

Not sure...sorry to hear this.
Maybe it needed more time to cycle and take advantage of the established rocks bio that was moved over.

Also, depending on the coral you have changing alk needs to be gradually change as it will cause coral issues too.

 

[ajmckay]

So how long we talking here before corals and inverts started to freak? Were they already starting to show signs of not doing well as soon as the new tank water started being added?

I wonder if you have some type of unknown chemical contamination. Like something in the tank is poison. Maybe the rocks were exposed to some pesticides for example. I'm not sure how to test that but from what you described I didn't see an issue with how you started the new tank other than the waste away stuff seems odd to add so soon.

Are the new and old tanks in the same room? Could some cleaning spray or airborne contaminant affected just the new tank? Was the reefmat sealed up? Is this new equipment? Check for voltage. Do you feel tingles in the water?

It also kinda seems strange you had to buffer new saltwater... Are you sure you didn't mix up your ALK readings? Because all swings can *** stuff up pretty good.

 

[KTTX]

Any update