Disaster!

[Anonymous]

I just lost most of my acans and a favia. The acans polyp bailed , I cut the exposed skelton part of the favia off but I don't have much hope for it either. I've been working a lot lately and haven't had tons of time for the tank so it's my own damn fault. When I turned the lights on today I see one of the acans is totally gone (the purple one mentioned in my tank thread) and the green has only one polyp hanging on. The red only had 2 polyps, one is gone. The rainbow (the only confirmed Aussie I have) is hanging in there looking fine, no rescission at all.

I panic of course, grab the test kits and see my nitrate is over 50! Ohhh man. Don't have an ammonia test handy but I imagine it's up there too. Can't find a huge (2 inch) turbo type snail I had in there so I figure it's somewhere behind the rockwork decaying. Not missing anything else I can see, but I can't find the polyps that bailed either. Crap. The green alone had 8+ heads that are somewhere in my nano now!

Thank goodness my new RO/DI unit arrived yesterday. I did a +80% change, totally matched temp pH and SG. But I have to work tomorrow so any more water changes will have to wait until I come home Monday morning. The remaining stuff looks okay, even perky. Damn damn damn.

 

[Anonymous]

NOOOOOOOOOOOooo!!!

That's terrible. You think the missing snail caused the spike? Anyway, get that water change done ASAP. Hope it bounces back quickly for you.

 

[Anonymous]

I don't know what caused it, I'm only speculating. I just found the bigarsed snail alive, and all the fish and the pistol are accounted for. Unless it's the polyps that bailed are rotting someplace I can't see causing the spike? The rest of the tank looks downright happy, the duncans, the rics, the leather and the anchor are all fully extended. The zoas look fine. The other favia (the pineapple) looks fine. Just that one favia and the acans. Nothing new added to the tank, no skimmer failure or pesticides or temp spikes or any other "AH HA" cause that I can see. When I did the WC I pumped out the sump just in case. The total volume on that tank is only 24 or so gallons and I changed just under 20.

All I read online about acans popping like that was nitrate related, hoping that massive WC helps save what I have left. Ph, kH, Alk all looked good, I just don't have an ammonia test kit and am not driving 30 miles to get one when I know it's gotta be up there. Funny how the Aussies didn't...or haven't yet died :| I love that one 'rainbow' acan and will sob like a kid if I loose it.

 

[Anonymous]

That suxs. I hope the rest are fine. I know you will not give up. Stick with it and keep us updated.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks...

 

[Anonymous]

Bummer.

Louey

 

[MartinE]

Sorry... Hang in there hopefully you caught it in time.

 

[Anonymous]

That big-ass water change is about the only thing you can do, Tracy, BUT! it's also the best thing you could have done. I do think that it'll stop the hemorrhaging. Keeping my fingers crossed for you!

 

[Ben1]

Aww bad timing with you being not sure what to do with the tank too! Hope the remaining ones pull through, I hate it when this kind of stuff happens! Good luck Tracy

 

[Anonymous]

Well Ben, it's an argument to go bigger tank-wise due to water stability for sure. Something struck me yesterday as really odd but I couldn't put my finger on it. I realized today that the Xenia in the tank was still perfectly normal-pulsing and all. Usually that's the first thing to look sad if there is a problem :?

Well, I'll know more when I get back home tomorrow and see how things look.

 

[Anonymous]

Bummer!

Sorry Tracy, hope the WC stabilises things for you now.

 

[Anonymous]

That's got to really suck,Tracy, I'm sorry. It's always the one you like the best which seems to go downhill with no apparent cause. Fingers crossed it pulls through.

 

[Anonymous]

Checking it now that I'm home this morning two of the chalices are showing recession. The water is still testing 25+ for nitrates so I'll do another big WC later today....sigh.

 

[Anonymous]

Just keep plugging away at it. Keep changing and eventually it will stabilise. I bet you'd kill to find out the cause right now. :?

 

[Anonymous]

Do the WC, you will get things dialed back in, with minimal losses.

 

[Len]

Sorry to hear this. Yeah, the water change is about all you can do right now. Did you do anything differently lately? I find it odd this is happening out of the blue. Check all your equipment to make sure nothing is malfunctioning (like a cracked heater or bad pump/powerheads!).

 

[Anonymous]

I've checked everything I can think of Len (don't have a heater to crack, powerheads are all working, my hair isn't standing on end when I put my hand in the tank) and I can't for the life of me figure it out. Stopped yesterday and bought an ammonia test kit and another nitrate kit, no ammonia still 25+ nitrate. I have/had a huge stomatella population in the tank, but I'm not seeing nearly so many. They spawn regularly, and I'm wondering if that might have something to do with it of it they died off. Also, I was buying my RO/DI from the grocery and I wonder if their system might have been off, I didn't think to test that water. Ahh, who knows. All I can do is damage control at this point.

The other corals look okay, I'm still confused by the Xenia looking so good IME it should have been a gooey melting mess given the high 'trates. I'm cooking up another large water change, and seriously thinking of a bigger tank setup for stability. The 2 Aussie acans are looking okay so far, but the recission on the chalices is sad. The other chalice looks okay, color great. I will fire up the dremel later and see if I can't save the others.

 

[Anonymous]

Since you're so unsure as to cause, and I can't remember whether or not you have any chemical filtration going, I might suggest a bit of time using some good carbon.

 

[Anonymous]

That sucks. Best of luck in the recovery.

+1 on the GAC idea. It can't hurt.

 

[Anonymous]

Marina, I already run activated carbon and I've tweaked the skimmer to run wetter so it's pulling out more gunk. Like I said, everything else looks wonderful. The only thing I did out of the ordinary that comes to mind is I nuked some majanos about 2 weeks ago with kalk paste, but I siphoned as I needled the bastages then did my usual 20% WC. Wonder if that had something to do with this mess.

Bah, I'll prolly never know so I guess I'll quit worrying about cause and keep dealing with effect.