Im An idiot

so, i'm curious. how would sg drop, if not using ATO? did you recently do a water change, or any other idea on how the sg would fall like that (about 30%)? sorry about your loss.

 

it must be in the air today. I almost had the same problem. I did my water change and did not replace as much water as I took out. when I pluged it back in the ato kicked on and began pushing in freshwater. After I nearly soiled myself I quickly turned it off to prevent the sg drop. Yes I am a newbie and that was my newbie move for the day.

I am so soory to hear you did not catch your drop in time. if you figure out what it is let us know so it does not happen me.

 

That sucks sorry for your loses.....

 

Thats what Im trying to figure out. Did you add any top off like Cuttingras mentioned or did you just do a WC?
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Yea somthing had to have happned either with the SG plastic meters or the replacement make up water was not reading even near or the same amount what he had removed.

And as a rule i take a reading every week, even my large tank,
And when doing water changes, >

Sevral times of the make up water ( replacement water ),
and once to the main tank.

As far as the losses, i suspect if the SG had somthing to do with it Godbert, this SG reading had to have happned like all at once ( like in one water change ), Corals /fisf can handle suttle changes over time but not like over night
example> 1.025 to 1.018 in a single water change , BAD thing.

Now say if this happened over a course of a few weeks / months , It wouldint affect them so much, if even at all ( providing the other parameters are within reason, no large swings in short periods ).


Godbert, I don't want it to seem like i'm picking on ya or degrading in any way.
But with thall these losses in a day or two ?.

I would suspect that "a" coral/ fish would have shown you signs of stress , I.e corals closing up, falling apart, fish showing signs of stress, etc.

I think you may have had a coral start to go bad and your tank fell victim to decaying matter in the water.
making the water quality absoulutly terrible, along with other water params, etc.

Godbert , what im thinking your tank fell victim to poor maintanance, (sorry)
You have a 55 gallon tank, as with any smaller tank ( the smaller it is, the more vigalant you MUST be with it ).

And some times , spending money on the "proper" equipment may have helped prevent this SG problem, etc.

 

thanks all for the helpful advice, with the coral i believe the issue was that the sg was low and then i went out of town for two days and the person watching my tank did not dose it, i lost the leather and the frogspawn which then polluted my water and killed the fish?

 

Quite possible Godbert' if these corals were infact dieing/dead and decaying and they had not been removed/water change as well along with it in some time.
A couple of decaying corals laying in there "rotting away" along with old poluted water just made things worse, and your tanks just a 55 gal.
So it didint take long for it to turn to shall we say "puttrid/fouled water", poor fish and the other corals never had a chance once those corals started to decay.

If a coralbegins to slime/ooze/fall apart, its best to "take a hit" as it were and remove it, rather than potentialy make the whole tank suffer.
They must be removed ASAP! when those signs are noticed.

 

i just ordered a refractometer

 

none of anything that has been mentioned in this thread explains why your sg dropped so drastically.
I too however am clueless.