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My tank crashed big time while I was away, I'm sad

Hi All...

It's been a while since I was on here. I'll start by saying that my tank was doing very well at 18 months of age. I battled and defeated cyano 3 months ago but sadly the tank took a downhill turn roughly 6 weeks ago.

First, my corals were closing. I changed the light and tested the water.

PH 8.4
Salinity 1.025
Kh cant remeber but it was in the right range I want to say 8
calcium was 300
Amonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 20

I did 20% water changes until the nitrates read below 5. No change in corals, still closed and loosing heads on both frospawns. Fish were fine, no problems

Then I started loosing all my snails. Parameters were same as above except nitrates had climbed back up to 10. I continued water changes to keep nitrates low

Lost all snails but one or two, and all but two pieces of coral at this point, hair algae was present and I'm thinking I might have a small amount of dinos on the sandbed because I found a turbo snail that was alive and well but had fallen off a rock. I uprighted him and put him on the sand bed on top of a small brown patch. He was dead two days later and never moved.

I cleaned as much hair algae as I could then noticed that my pseudochromis may have been stressed but the clowns were fine. I was headed out the door for vacation with no turning back so I decided to dose 10 mL of Melafix per 25 gal of total water volume knowing I would return 2 days later.

When I came home I found the tank at 90 degrees. All fish and coral were dead (very sad about this). I did not turn on the air conditioner and I believe that was the fatal blow. I did not run it last summer while away and I was fine so I thought I would be ok this time.

The only good news is that My coral banded shrimp, sea urchin, emerald crab, and a handfull of hermits survived. I have changed 40% of the water at this point and only tested for amonia and nitrates.

Amonia 0
Nitrates 15

I want to bring this back and save the remaining inhabitants. I'm at a loss on how I should continue. I need help.

One side note, I did switch to red sea coral pro roughly 6 months ago in order to try and beat cyano. Now that I think about it my tank slowly declined after that. Should I go back to reef crystals?
 

mnat

Officer Emeritus
Staff member
Moderator
Do you use and rodi unit? Did you change anything else but the salt?

It sounds like something was poisoning the inverts and the corals which could be copper or some other contaminate. I would absolutely switch back to reef crystals if you think the red sea coral pro was an issue.

The 90 degree temp was without a doubt the fatal blow.

How is the sand and the rocks?
 

falconut

NJRC Member
I didn't notice a phosphate test result, unless I missed it. That could be feeding the hair algae. I've read of others that had issues after switching salt mixes, so maybe.
 

Fish Brain

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Do you by any chance have an Eshopps frag rack in your tank?

It sounds like the same thing that just happened to my tank. All but one or two snails dead, major hair algae with a touch of cyano and lost 95% of my corals.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free
 
Do you use and rodi unit? Did you change anything else but the salt?

It sounds like something was poisoning the inverts and the corals which could be copper or some other contaminate. I would absolutely switch back to reef crystals if you think the red sea coral pro was an issue.

The 90 degree temp was without a doubt the fatal blow.

How is the sand and the rocks?
I use a 5 stage rodi. The DI part may need to be changed as the color has almost completely changed. I will change this today just to be sure. I changed only the salt over a gradual period. I'm switching back to reef crystals

It definitely looks like something got in there but I don't know what it is. I'll ask OGII to test my water for copper

The rocks and sand look pretty good. Rocks have some hair algae on them but no dino's or anything. The sand has a touch of cyano on it but nothing to cause alarm
 
Do you by any chance have an Eshopps frag rack in your tank?

It sounds like the same thing that just happened to my tank. All but one or two snails dead, major hair algae with a touch of cyano and lost 95% of my corals.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free
nope no eshopps frag rack
 

magic

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Do you by any chance have an Eshopps frag rack in your tank?

It sounds like the same thing that just happened to my tank. All but one or two snails dead, major hair algae with a touch of cyano and lost 95% of my corals.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free

Brian

What's up with Eshopps frag rack? I have one and lost all my the sps about a month ago.

Bob
 
I think I found out what was killing my corals prior to the crash. I was using a hydrometer to measure salinity and it was way off. On an off chance I used my refractometer to check the salinity and the tank was at 1.021 the hydrometer was reading 1.024

I double checked the refractometer with RO water and it read 0 so I know it is calibrated.

Lesson learned, I will always use my refractometer from now on.
 

mnat

Officer Emeritus
Staff member
Moderator
That would be a problem as well. Go pick up some calibration solution for the refractometer. We got in trouble by using RO water and setting it to zero, even that was not good enough.
 

mnat

Officer Emeritus
Staff member
Moderator
Give AO a call, I am 99% sure they carry it but give a quick call before you head over.
 
Just to let everyone know, the tank is back on track. Refractometer is calibrated and I'm slowly bringing the water up to 1.025

I added a couple of snails at first and they survived. A week later I added a maroon clown, he's doing fine. This past Friday I added another maroon clown and a wrasse. They all seem to be doing just fine. Once the salinity is up to par I'll start adding corals again
 
Yeah, that was a tough one. Now I know not to trust hydrometers and always leave the AC on when on vacation. The heat was the final blow. The salinity is what made me start loosing corals.

Definitely looks like I've got the tank back. I have to say it's looking better each day. Once my mexican turbo snail got going it started looking much better.
 
maybe for future, as a double check... you should also estimate how much salt you use to make your mix for the fresh RO water and try to use the same amount, as well as, check your salinity with a refractometer... just incase if something is off... you'll know.
 
I used to know how much by heart, but I got thrown off when I was switching salts. By the time I was all the way on Red Sea coral pro the tank was crashing. I now have figured out it's 2 and 1/2 level cups to get to 1.025 with a home depot bucket filled to roughly 1.5" from the top
 
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