Please help!!!

would the cloudy water be caused by all of the dying and/or dead coral?

 

Hi Jim sorry to hear.
I noticed in your first post you didn't put the dkh (alk) , not that I think that would cause this because your cal and ph are on. Just curious if you tested for that also.

yes with that much stuff dying your water will become cloudy, I would remove as much of the dead stuff that you can.

 

I actually did not test alk, come to think of it don't very often, but yea ph and cal are always spot on.
I'm gonna remove as much as I can when I get home along with a large water change. I cant get home for about another 6 hours, so i feel like its making things worse with everything just rotting in there. i wouldve liked to removed it all this morning, but of course I was already running late for work.

 

I'd be surprised if it was the store, in general, since you said the corals looked so good before and just after placement in your tank. But it could have been the employee specifically, or not.

I'd be curious to run over to the store to see if all their stuff still looks ok, and to learn what that employee thinks is a good procedure for bagging corals.

That little slug you mentioned -- could I have read somewhere in the past that some slugs can give off a toxin when stressed or when they die that will kill corals??? I'm not sure.

 

I'm not too sure about the slug, but I will do some more research about it. It seems to be perfectly healthy through all of this.

For an update of the damage..
I did a 10 gallon water change last night. All the my fish seem to be eating fine. The feather dusters are still alive, but the majority of their crowns look like they melted away. A few mushrooms look a little better(still alive, but folded over), one large rock covered in zoas is completely wiped out, the other rock has a few survivng polyps. Xenia is completely gone, green button polyps are all closed up but don't really look dead yet like the other corals. Of my 3 ricordias only one looks somewhat still alive.
Should I do another 10 gallon water change tonight, or wait a day or 2?

 

hey Jim
whatever is in that tank to have caused this situation, is now diluted
I would change my carbon every 4 or 5 days now for the time being until the corals that are left show definite signs of improvement - you dont want the carbon to absorb and then leach again as that puts you back to square one

I would also do another 25 % or 10 gallon water change to further reduce whatever the polutants in the water are

I would try and get a Polyfilter TM (chemical impregnated filter pad ) as these things remove heavy metals and other toxins that carbon does not remove

if you save some corals, thats a bonus IMO as 2 days ago, you thought you where going to lose them all

Steve

 

did you add the water from the bag of corals into your tank? Copper from the store? Though I would find it highly unlikely that it would cause death that fast. In past I would say I would find it hard to believe a LFS would add copper to coral tanks but I saw a LFS recently wipe out a whole system of fish because the owner poured a bunch of copper into their main system (Brand new tanks, new pipes, several hundred pounds worth of rocks, sand, etc)

Also, you said you did a water change, how did you test the salinity. Did you use a hydrometer or a refractometer. Temp matches, buffer, etc. Please dont take offense, I am just trying to figure out what could have happened. I dropped salinity way to far when I had my first tank because I read the hydrometer wrong. Smaller tanks only takes smaller swings of salinity to cause problem.

It seems odd that the corals died that fast. RTN (rapid tissue necrosis) can wipe out corals that fast, but that usually affects SPS (though I have seen LPS) . I cant think of any bug that can kill that much that fast.

Bacteria can wipe out tank fast. I know of a large system of corals wiped out because someone poured water into the tank that had dead corals in it. They got a shipment in and some of the bags of corals had RTN'd and they just dumped the water into the tank.

Stray voltage from what I heard actually can cause corals to grow, fish dont like it but corals do (In low amts). I would think if it was stray voltage you would have lost your fish, inverts first. But is always a good idea to have a ground probe in all tanks!

I would also get some Prime and add that to your tank every couple days because you will most likely get a cycle

Good luck to you

 

Hello everybody,
Another update on the tank crash...
As I said the other other day, a few of my corals seemed to be doing better since the incident, but the wife just called and found a few more dead guys. My mexican turbo, the smaller of my two clowns, spotted cardinal, and royal gramma all laying on the bottom. This is driving me insane!
When this first happened I changed out 10 gallons the first two days and have been changing out 5 gallons a day everyday since as well as replacing the carbon every 2 to 3 days. I can't understand why some of the corals are starting to do a little better but all of the sudden today I lose three fish and a snail? I can keep changing the water and carbon but Im wondering if in another few days the entire tank will be wiped out....

 

Not sure how to help you out in your time of need or give you an answer to your problems. But this is one reason quarantine tanks are important. That would rule out the possibility of contamination. I'm sorry for your loss. I cannot imagine how heartbroken I would be. Make sure you keep us updated so we can find out what caused this and help prevent it.

Hopefully the lady that came in from outside to bag your corals wasn't previously cleaning windows or something??????????????:-/

 

yeah, outside contamination is something i always worry about, I didn't let my girlfirends use hairspray in my bathroom where I filled my ro bucket for years. Since then I plumbed a line to where my tanks are since I'm about to marry this one.