Frustration setting in....

guitarvp · May 31, 2016

Thanks everyone. Things are definitely looking worse. It's painfully frustrating seeing everything deteriorate and not being able to do much. My plan is to get clean Saltwater from an LFS tomorrow and do a series of water changes. I'm hoping I'll at least be able to save some pieces. I've also seen a couple of snails that flipped over and look to be dead. I'm hoping this won't need up being a complete tank crash.

McMullen · May 31, 2016

Whoa, there must be a contaminate! This isn't simply water chemistry anymore. At this point you'll need big water changes! This sucks!!!!

guitarvp · May 31, 2016

McMullen said:
Whoa, there must be a contaminate! This isn't simply water chemistry anymore. At this point you'll need big water changes! This sucks!!!!

I agree...Going to do a big water change this evening and hope for the best. I checked the tank this morning and saw the tentacles on my purple tipped hammer sloughing off, and a couple of dead snails that I pulled out. The wife will be pulling things out as needed during the day to try and prevent a cycle.

guitarvp · Jun 2, 2016

Update: I did a large water change (75g) yesterday with freshly made saltwater from a nearby LFS. Afterwards, all of my parameters tested within a desirable range. At this point I've lost all of my SPS except for a forest fire monti which I still see some polyps out on, a ponape birdsnest which looks ticked off but hasn't bleached out yet. When I used a turkey baster to get sand off of my neon highlighter acro colony, the color was literally blown off of the skeleton. LPS-wise a couple of hammers are pretty much done, along with my space invader pectina which has flesh sloughing off. Three of my acans seem to be doing ok but they definitely don't look happy. As far as softies go, strangely my bubble tip and rock flower nems seem to be doing just fine, but the majority of my zoas are closed and definitely unhappy. As far as livestock goes, the fish, shrimp, and crabs seem to be doing fine however the snails seem to be stressed and we've lost 3 turbos so far. We'll see if things start to improve over the next few days. I purchased new water containers and ordered new RO/DI filters from BRS to hopefully eliminate the water being the culprit.

So now I am trying to figure out some courses of action going forward. I am waiting to receive my Triton test kit so I can send a water sample off and hopefully figure out what may have led to this crash. I'm still baffled by all of this especially since the nems and the inverts seem to be doing ok although they tend to be fairly sensitive to toxins/heavy metals.

If it is for some reason a heavy metal spike or toxins, will those things linger or leech into the rock like copper does? Additionally, I have two MarinePure blocks in the sump and I am not sure if I should remove them or not.

I know if this is the case I will likely have to start the tank over since the rock and sand would be useless.

Again, I appreciate all the input and advice I've received from everyone.

McMullen · Jun 2, 2016

I'm not sure I would change anything else at this point. Let it ride! No new livestock until this is straightened out though, IMO. Hopefully with that much dilution the rest of your animals will survive!

reefwiser · Jun 2, 2016

I second the Triton test to see exactly where the chemistry of your tank water is at. Using test kits can be not accurate. I always change RO/DI filters every six months and check the TDS of the water. Not doing a water change in a month you did you notice any color to the water? I always use a white bucket to see where the color of the water is at how much yellowing of the water there is. When you run carbon you should not see any coloring of the water if you do then the carbon is spent and needs to be replaced.

guitarvp · Jun 5, 2016

So I did a some testing today with my RO/DI unit. I removed the DI canisters and ran the water only through the sediment filter and the carbon blocks. TDS reads about 35 but the most noticeable difference is that the off smell/taste we previously noticed in the water, was no longer present. I added the DI resin again just to double check and sure enough I had the smell from before. This was brand new BRS DI resin and came out of a fresh vacuum sealed bag so I'm not sure if DI resin has an expiration date or goes "bad" but at this point this has been the only thing I have been able to pinpoint as an issue.

I'm going to do another water change tomorrow, along with setting up my hospital tank so I can try to salvage my zoas/palys and some of my acans. Strangely my blastos and my rainbow rose bubble tip are both looking great. I just don't get it....

guitarvp · Jun 5, 2016

I pulled the impeller from the Sicce Syncra 5.0 that I use to mix water to clean it as I could hear grinding and this is what I found. I don't think the impeller wearing out would cause a tank crash but I'm still trying to pinpoint the issue. After eliminating most other things, the only possible issues left are a bad batch of salt and/or a contaminant making its way into the mixing container.

guitarvp · Jun 15, 2016

Just wanted to give a quick update on the tank. Things seem to be looking a bit better since the two large water changes I did. I moved most of the corals that seemed to be doing the worst into my hospital tank in hopes of saving some of them. Sadly all of my SPS was wiped out and we lost about 5 or 6 trochus snails.

Strangely enough the only zoas that didn't seem phased were my rastas. My rainbow infusions, pink hippos, lithographs, vampires, and sunny d's are all still closed and some seem to be melting away. My palythoa grandis lost all of their green coloring and are rust brown colored at the moment. My rock flower nems seem to be back to normal while my mushrooms are still looking pretty sad. I had a chalice that was bright orange which has for whatever reason morphed to a deep green. Still waiting to get my results back from Triton which will hopefully show me something....I'm very hesitant to start adding any corals for a while or at least for a couple months and after a few more water changes. My hopes are that the contaminant wasn't anything that leached into the rock....Thanks again to everyone who responded and provided insight and advice.