Phosphates killed my SPS?

well this is sad.... this week must have tossed out 7 of my sps coral. Also fragged off about 90% of dead monti. Rest of sps and coral visibly not happy. All fish are fine... swimming fine and eating like kings.

I replaced my bulkheads last weekend on my overflow and in the process i dribbled some pvc glue in my sump. It floated to the surface and was able to get most of it out. Finished the project like nothing ever happened. The day after I get home from work and look into the tank and see my blue tip acro is solid white . Noticed all other sps not lookin so healthy. My lps were visibly pissed off. I freaked out..... I had no Idea wtf happened. nothing out of the oridinary has taken place except for the glue dribble in the sump and some new pvc piping. wed and thurs I did 25% water changes. added 1/2 cup of carbon thurs night.

Friday night came around and no significant improvement. So I said I need HELP.... took some water to my trusted LFS... and had test for my phosphates since everything else checked fine. phospahtes were at .3 after I had performed the large water changes. I suspect it reached .5 - .6. I purchased a phosban reactor to rid my phosphates. Keep in mind all other levels were fine.

Now today is sunday.... all my other injured sps are coming back to life. Lps coral starting to open up nicely again.

I have overcome a huge hurdle for me and my reef.... .... I think :-/.
Even though the tank looks a little less empty I still have 75% of my coral.

Now my point of this thread.... could the pvc glue dribble in the sump cause such a high phosphate spike??? and if so would that be the answer to the mass homicide on my sps?

 

Glad you got through everything, but I suspect it was not the P4. Aside from getting algea, I believe this is harmless to fish and coral alike. Before my water system, my P4 was 2, and everthing was fine, but the agea that is.

My guess is the PVC glue is bad and the water changes cleared it up for you. If you have a skimmer, I suspect it was / is going nut clearing it out as well.

Either way,
cheers.

 

Sorry to hear about that man I would think it was something with the glue not the Phosphates. PO4 isn't good to have high levels of, but it will always exist. Everything we put in the tank pretty much has phosphates, including the poo from the fish. If you have eggcrate it also releases phosphates. We just remove it as best we can but even if the tests show 0 there will be trace amounts. A Hanna Photometer will give you accurate readings.

My guess is the glue.

 

I agree, it is unlikely to be phosphates that caused a problem, I would have thought it would have been a chemical in the glue or the resultant bacteria breaking the glue down and releasing/producing byproducts.

 

Well I dont have any algae problems.... never had except for my newb days.

And well all know that sps are far less forgiving for anything wrong in the water chemistry compared to lps and softies.

But yea it could just be the pvc glue and whatever toxins may exist within the glue.
Thats why I introduced carbon thursday night.

I cant say if its the carbon that is helping things out or the phosban reactor. Just not quite sure.

 

I don't know if that PO4 would kill corals but above .1 corals stop growing.
I've never heard of PO4 getting that high. What kind of test kit/ brand did they use to test the PO4?
It's really hard to see what the PO4 is on those API cards.
Mine has always read 0 on the API cards , but it's really .02 - .03 on my Photometer.

 

The best way to read PO4 tests are to use ten times the water amount and then divide the result by ten.

I have always called it zero, but after doing the above I got a clear .2 result. With API... instead of 5 ml, use 50 ml. Result came to a solid 2. Real result is .2

Soory if I'm just stating the obvious.

 

that was a curve ball... i thought this thread was done.... brought back bad memories... -k for you

 

sorry. having my own little issue myself.;D

 

I'm not following you. Do you add 10 X the drops to 10X the water?