Emergency-Help Please

[jporter17]

Actually nothing right away other than the 1 Cardinal fish I lost that first day. I had some large acro colonies that started RTN/STN at a few weeks and it became real apparent I was going to have problems about a month later. Some of my mushrooms and chalices deteriated quickly once they turned for the worse. luckily most of my acros pulled through. My DKH was much higher than yours. I have since made some changes that safeguard this from repeating. Feel free to PM if you'd like to discuss in greater detail. JP

 

[slojmn]

Actually nothing right away other than the 1 Cardinal fish I lost that first day. I had some large acro colonies that started RTN/STN at a few weeks and it became real apparent I was going to have problems about a month later. Some of my mushrooms and chalices deteriated quickly once they turned for the worse. luckily most of my acros pulled through. My DKH was much higher than yours. I have since made some changes that safeguard this from repeating. Feel free to PM if you'd like to discuss in greater detail. JP

All that sounds like what I am afraid will happen for me. I am very heartened to hear that many of your acroporas made it. I am 80% SPS 18% LPS and 1% shrooms and 1% zoas. I lost one acro frag and a pectina frag the day of the incident and a second acro yesterday but it had been slowly wasting away for a month or two so it was already weakened. Everything else looks really good. I noticed a tiny strip of base recession on one or two acro frags. That is what I am looking at, the bases. This is day 5 so despite how healthy everything looks I am aware that underneath it all there are problems. As of this morning my alk is at 11.3 dKH. I figure by mid next week it should be back to where it was. Then it is just a waiting game.

 

[Apisto]

Alicia,
I just saw this and am so sorry. Especially after everything else that has gone on. Normally I would offer to temporarily take some of your prized sps, but I don't think that is the best solution.

I have had this happen twice and one was a severe swing a couple of years back. From experience, I will say that you are likely correct in having a prolonged influence of this to some of your coral. However, I think that you may come out better than you think. Thank god you did not over-compensate for this swing. It has been my experience that corals can handle pretty big changes in their environment, as long as it is only 1 change! Quite often the largest negative effects to sps from an alk swing is the immediate big swing back down. Let things change back to normalcy slowly and don't be surprised if everything looks fine for quite awhile. It could be several months before you get the measure of the incident. If you manage everything carefully and allow no other shifts of parms, you may not have widespread problems. Keeping my fingers crossed for you.

Good luck and let me know if there is anything I can do to help.

 

[slojmn]

Alicia,
I just saw this and am so sorry. Especially after everything else that has gone on. Normally I would offer to temporarily take some of your prized sps, but I don't think that is the best solution.

I have had this happen twice and one was a severe swing a couple of years back. From experience, I will say that you are likely correct in having a prolonged influence of this to some of your coral. However, I think that you may come out better than you think. Thank god you did not over-compensate for this swing. It has been my experience that corals can handle pretty big changes in their environment, as long as it is only 1 change! Quite often the largest negative effects to sps from an alk swing is the immediate big swing back down. Let things change back to normalcy slowly and don't be surprised if everything looks fine for quite awhile. It could be several months before you get the measure of the incident. If you manage everything carefully and allow no other shifts of parms, you may not have widespread problems. Keeping my fingers crossed for you.

Good luck and let me know if there is anything I can do to help.

Thanks Neil, you are the best, I appreciate your kind words. I expect it will be an interesting 3-4 months ahead. Someone said if everything looked fine now it would be all good. I thought "I WISH!!!" I think they were just trying to make me feel good. Having everything look fine for a while is the painful part. Each day I am so happy that everyone looks so healthy, great polyp extension, even growth. But I know it could all be an illusion. Oh well, it will be what it will be and I can only do my best to keep the params on track and stable from now on and hope for the best.

 

[slojmn]

One day shy of three weeks since the dreaded Alk spike. My Alk has naturally drifted down from 14+ dKh to 9 dKh. I am going to let it drift down to about 8.5 dKh (where my tank seems happiest) then start dosing again. The effects have been negligible. But I am most concerned with the 4-8 week mark. I lost one healthy SPS frag the day of the spike, two SPS frags at the 2 week mark and two other SPS frags I will probably lose soon, these two were so-so looking before the issue (some very minor STN and overall unhealthy looking). Two SPS frags have the dreaded base up recession but the rest of the frag looks helathy. I think I will frag those in a week or so if they hang on. I lost one small baby clam at the 2 week mark as well. My large JF Jack-O-Lantern lepto has lost its zeal, it looks unhappy but I don't see any STN. Polyps still out on it at night. My Colorado Sunburst nem has been acting a bit dodgy lately, just in the past week or so, moving around in its crevice, I thought it might split one night but no luck. It hasn't been as large by day but it still looks very healthy and color is excellent. I am watching it though.

I have found noticeable growth on all of my other SPS frags and they are all looking good with excellent polyp extension and color. I'm not sure if it is just an illusion to come crashing down on me in another few weeks though. All in all so far so good. The next three to four weeks will be interesting. I am crossing my fingers and hoping for the best over this next month.

 

[Apisto]

That is really great to hear, Alicia!! As you realize, I don't think you are out of the woods yet, but what has happened so far is no illusion. The slow drift back, coupled with consistent conditions, may produce a surprising result. I really believe that it is secondary stressors that do the widespread damage. The initial spike could weed out the weaklings though. No more issues for another month or so and IM(hopeful)O you can close the book on this chapter.

Fingers crossed for ya,

Neil

 

[slojmn]

Update- 6 weeks and two days since the Alk over dose. I have had base recession begin in just the last 5-10 days on four SPS pieces. I have a good sized CC Needle in a Haystack acro that had a large encrusting base, it is showing significant recession on the base. A small frag of the Ice Fire Echinata and another deep water piece are all showing base recession. I lost an SPS frag yesterday that showed base recession since the second week but was holding. It appears that in the last week or so a few things are starting to show the effects of the over dose. I am hopeful that I can stop most of the base recession by snapping off the corals and remounting them. Other than the base recession they are healthy and showing growth at the tips. I have a rather large JF Jack o Lantern colony that has been unhappy for weeks, I just keep thinking I will come home to a white skeleton but it just keeps hanging on. It definitely took the ALK overdose bad. It isn't receding or anything, just very little color and looking a bit thin all over, and no night time polyp extension. That is the most concerning. We shall see. On the bright side the rest of my SPS, LPS, and shrooms are all looking happy and healthy. I began dosing ALK again about 10 days ago, I am testing every few days to see if it creeps up or holds steady. Any other swings will not be tolerable!!! Still crossing my fingers and know another few months of wait and see are on the horizon.

 

[slojmn]

Update- 10 weeks and 1 day since the dreaded Alk overdose. Not a great update...Two weeks ago I found my Calcium line had slipped out of its holder and was on the stand bottom next to my sump. My calcium was down to 250 ppm so I figure it had been that way for quite a while. Another hit to the stability of this poor situation. I got it back in place and I have slowly been raising the calcium, It is currently around 360 with a target of 425 in the next few weeks. I have lost a number of SPS frags since my last update. About 60% of the SPS pieces I have left are showing base recession. I think this is more about the alk than the Calcium but it didn't help . I have fragged some and they are holding, others I have glued the affected area and a few of those have held as well. Today, during my water change when some affected corals are exposed, I plan to glue about 10 frags around the affected base area and extend up into healthy tissue since this seems less intrusive than cutting and remounting. I have about 15 frags that are holding fine but only about half of those are showing growth, and great growth at that. Its so weird. Some pieces are just kind of stalling out but look healthy and then these few are just growing great guns. My JF Jack-O-Lantern colony that was super unhappy for many weeks after the alk overdose has finally returned to its usual self, color is back and it appears happy. I thought for sure I was going to lose that big colony, it was practically white. All of my LPS, shrooms and fish are totally fine. I noticed the other day that the ALK was starting to creep up just a bit so I am adjusting as needed. I am testing Alk and Ca every 3 days. It's the best course of action given my lameness!!! So all in all I am a bit bummed out. It's painful to watch and I did expect this. I am super grateful for those SPS that seem to be humming along and overall I have only lost about 20% of my frags. It will be interesting to see what the final count is. I will know things are better when I see a lot more of my SPS frags laying down a base as opposed to the slowly receding bases I've got going on now.

 

[zemuss]

I did this and just let it run down by its own. Took a few days but once it hit 8 i started dosing again.

 

[larangcon]

I just saw this post today, I am so shock; when you told me last month you had a crash, I had no idea it was this bad, I didn't want to dwell on the severity of the crash because I know how much it hurts to talk about it. How is the tank now, sounds like you're on your way to a normal routine.