Asking for help because I am at a complete loss

[Aqua Man]

I am not at all saying that isnt the case though. PAR meter rental is hard to come by anymore so I fear I am gonna have to just bite the bullet and buy one.

Instead of a PAR meter, I use a coral. Blue discosoma mushrooms work great.

 

[terraincognita]

For those who want to geek out on microbiome

Haven't watched it fully myself yet just browsing through but seems pretty good. Got it saved for later. Also good watch if you're struggling to understand what make a "mature" reef vs a "cycled" tank :-). Enjoy.

www.reef2reef.com

I just posted this as well btw. You should reach out to them and send a tank sample. see what they can come up with.

I forgot you did send them a sample. Surprised they didn't find anything. Yikes.

 

[hubble]

Any update?

 

[HWDylan]

Ok so it has been close to a year since I updated this.

I took everyone's suggestions to heart and didn't go into any idea thinking "I already tried this" or "I know better" and I am happy to say that I have SOLVED this. Honestly I am shocked. I was getting very down about this and actually close to the point of giving up. There were many times when I considered just breaking the whole system down and getting out of the hobby because of this tank.

So what was the solution/issue?

It was WAY dumber than you think. Turns out that the chest freezer I use for my frozen food was not keeping it frozen enough. So I have a large chest freezer and I keep all the food at the bottom in flat packs until I am ready to cut it up and feed it out. I make my own food and store it in large gallon freezer bags. I cut the whole bag up at once into daily feedings and keep them in a tupperware box in a basket at the top of the freezer. Everything stays frozen to the touch and it looks fine but APPARENTLY being at the top of the freezer is not quite cold enough. I figured this out because one day I was going to feed the tank and grab a cube of food and noticed a smell. I have noticed the smell before but fish food always smells kind of gross so I never payed too much attention. For some reason it hit me a little different that day and I got suspicious. I took the remaining food and tossed it out and cut up a new pack and stored them at the bottom of the freezer with everything else and went about my day.

The change in the tank was almost immediate. Within a week I noticed corals (what was left) coloring up and even things that I had taken for dead started to come back. There is a cyphastrea that has been straight up DEAD... like just a skeleton on a rock... for probably a year now and out of no where there are polyps. Corals are wild sometimes. I was so surprised that I started going through everything I did recently trying to figure out what I changed to fix everything. The moving of the food about 12inches deeper into the freezer didnt even cross my mind at first and then when I did remember I thought ... no way, that CANT be it. There is NO WAY some slightly funky food could do this.

but here we are...

So here we are about 4 months or so into the tank having a complete 180. Feels good to get back to my hobby and enjoying it. Thanks to everyone in this thread that contributed anything. I really do appreciate how much input I got on this.

Here are a few pics I took the other day of corals thriving in the tank now. A lot of these are new additions but many of them are corals that went through hell and back.

Thanks everyone!

 

[trsmith18]

Glad you figured it out. I had a similar experience recently and it was my Hanna salinity checker out of calibration…salinity was up to 1.041

beautiful tank

 

[Nano sapiens]

Ok so it has been close to a year since I updated this.

I took everyone's suggestions to heart and didn't go into any idea thinking "I already tried this" or "I know better" and I am happy to say that I have SOLVED this. Honestly I am shocked. I was getting very down about this and actually close to the point of giving up. There were many times when I considered just breaking the whole system down and getting out of the hobby because of this tank.

So what was the solution/issue?

It was WAY dumber than you think. Turns out that the chest freezer I use for my frozen food was not keeping it frozen enough. So I have a large chest freezer and I keep all the food at the bottom in flat packs until I am ready to cut it up and feed it out. I make my own food and store it in large gallon freezer bags.

Wow, quite a turn around! Glad to see things are on the up-and-up.

Considering your comments, I wonder if you might have had botulism spores in the vicinity of your food stores and by not freezing appropriately they became active and produced their toxins?

I couldn't find any specific scientific articles regarding botulism and corals, per se, but did find this reference on Wiki showing that the toxin affects a very wide range of animals:

Botulism can occur in many vertebrates and invertebrates. Botulism has been reported in such species as rats, mice, chicken, frogs, toads, goldfish, aplysia, squid, crayfish, drosophila and leeches.[72]

One might think that the salt content of seawater would kill germinated spores, but at 3.5% it's likely not strong enough (food canning recommends at least 10% salt). And the Wiki reference to 'aplysia, squid' reinforces the fact that oceanic organisms can be affected.

 

[salty joe]

It seems odd that botulism would affect your coral but not the fish.

 

[Nano sapiens]

It seems odd that botulism would affect your coral but not the fish.

Ahh, didn't see that the fish were unaffected...so something else more coral specific going on, apparently.

 

[InvaderJim]

I’m actually having eerily similar issues but the fact that it ended up being fish food is absolutely crazy. Never in a million years would I have figured that out

 

[Cthulukelele]

Ok so it has been close to a year since I updated this.

I took everyone's suggestions to heart and didn't go into any idea thinking "I already tried this" or "I know better" and I am happy to say that I have SOLVED this. Honestly I am shocked. I was getting very down about this and actually close to the point of giving up. There were many times when I considered just breaking the whole system down and getting out of the hobby because of this tank.

So what was the solution/issue?

It was WAY dumber than you think. Turns out that the chest freezer I use for my frozen food was not keeping it frozen enough. So I have a large chest freezer and I keep all the food at the bottom in flat packs until I am ready to cut it up and feed it out. I make my own food and store it in large gallon freezer bags. I cut the whole bag up at once into daily feedings and keep them in a tupperware box in a basket at the top of the freezer. Everything stays frozen to the touch and it looks fine but APPARENTLY being at the top of the freezer is not quite cold enough. I figured this out because one day I was going to feed the tank and grab a cube of food and noticed a smell. I have noticed the smell before but fish food always smells kind of gross so I never payed too much attention. For some reason it hit me a little different that day and I got suspicious. I took the remaining food and tossed it out and cut up a new pack and stored them at the bottom of the freezer with everything else and went about my day.

The change in the tank was almost immediate. Within a week I noticed corals (what was left) coloring up and even things that I had taken for dead started to come back. There is a cyphastrea that has been straight up DEAD... like just a skeleton on a rock... for probably a year now and out of no where there are polyps. Corals are wild sometimes. I was so surprised that I started going through everything I did recently trying to figure out what I changed to fix everything. The moving of the food about 12inches deeper into the freezer didnt even cross my mind at first and then when I did remember I thought ... no way, that CANT be it. There is NO WAY some slightly funky food could do this.

but here we are...

So here we are about 4 months or so into the tank having a complete 180. Feels good to get back to my hobby and enjoying it. Thanks to everyone in this thread that contributed anything. I really do appreciate how much input I got on this.

Here are a few pics I took the other day of corals thriving in the tank now. A lot of these are new additions but many of them are corals that went through hell and back.

Thanks everyone!

I'm a sucker for a happy ending

 

[Idech]

You are the most dedicated person and should get a medal for your patience ! Two years, and so much money and sweat… I’ve been having trouble too for a long time (beginner) but you are inspiring me to keep going !

Thanks for sharing your story and updating. It’s always nice to read a good ending.