Not so fast with removing dead corals

[JaimeIsNew]

So...my protein skimmer was over skimming so i made a minor adjustment.
Went back to work ....from home on MS Teams/Zoom calls.
4 hours later i checked on the tank and 150gal eater gone.
Skimmer went crazy.
I started mixing new saltwater.
Added 100g of new water.
By now it was midnight. I added the lady batch of water.
Next morning i woke up to find everything dead.
Check and my salt level was 42ppm.
I typically maintain 34ppm.
I basically turned my tank into the dead sea.
I figured the salt was not fully dissolved before i added the new water to the tank.
Normally i mix my salt water 48hrs to do a water change but this was an emergency response.

Very, very costly mistake.
Not to mention some of these fishes and corals for over 10 years.

Needless to say i could not stop crying for 2 days.

Omg that is so heartbreaking! I’m glad you are finding joy in the new discovery though

 

[LegendaryCG]

Well technically all it takes is a single polyp to survive for the colony to recover. Glad you didn’t lose all your corals op, sorry about the fish!

 

[cancun]

Wow....so sorry! This hobby has a lot of highs and lows that's for sure! Thanks for sharing though. Now I will definitely hold off on throwing out a SPS that looks rough.

Years ago I bought two Red Goni frags with blue centers. I had them glued on the same rock, and for a year they were growing nicely. Then one day they didn't extend their polyps. They sat closed for almost 3 weeks. So I was going to give up so I put it in my sump. My husband who isn't into saltwater like me....yeah I know...lol...I am the wife that wanted a hobby....he was like OMG....and he took it our and put it back in the tank. A week later out came the polyps. That was 6 years ago, and it is huge and still in my tank. Here's a pic from a while back.

 

[Peanut]

Ive heard claims like this in the past, but no one has ever had the "before" picture to go along with the recovered coral. Amazing!

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

My very first batch of corals 3 years ago included a 2” diameter green fungia plate. I had a heater malfunction in my QT which I didn’t catch for a week and the water was at 55of in between weekly water changes. It lost all its flesh and turned completely white in a matter of another week

I put it in my display anyway. Kinda hidden away but just sitting in the sand. 2 1/2 years later, I now have 37 fungia plates of various sizes, spawning off the original ‘dead’ skeleton

don’t throw out your dead corals, people.

A bit off topic but if you take a plate does it regrow the skeleton or do you need the skeleton your regrow a plate?

 

[KrisReef]

A bit off topic but if you take a plate does it regrow the skeleton or do you need the skeleton your regrow a plate?

New clone plates start growing on the original skeleton. Plates start out as tiny dots that grow into new individuals. Where you had one dead plate, little dot-sized plates start growing and soon you have a plate skeleton covered in new clown plates.

 

[Buckster]

For mixing salt water I follow the instructions and add 2 cups per 4 gallons of RODI. I run the pump over night and test the next morning. I like 1.025. I adjust from there if needed.
I mixed one time and tested immediately and did not get an accurate result. It's unfortunate that you lost so many fish. Bummer!

 

[michaelmessinaglass]

I recently had a piece of mystic sunset monti growing like crazy. And then mysteriously it bleached out and was bone white with no skin... I was lazy and left it in there and a few weeks later I noticed some color and polyps were reappearing! Its now almost completely back to where it was!

 

[salty joe]

The pictures of the dead fish broke my heart. Very much appreciate the tip on 'dead' coral. Hang in there.

 

[User]

A bit off topic but if you take a plate does it regrow the skeleton or do you need the skeleton your regrow a plate?

The new polyps come out of the veigns in the Skeleton

 

[kcinnick]

A LFS in the 90's would buy plate corals and put them face down in the sand for a week to stress them to near death and they would spit out new plate corals like crazy after that. Corals are amazing.

 

[User]

New clone plates start growing on the original skeleton. Plates start out as tiny dots that grow into new individuals. Where you had one dead plate, little dot-sized plates start growing and soon you have a plate skeleton covered in new clown plates.

And once they get to be about dime sized, they start moving around, break off and go find a place to call home. It’s very cool

 

[Freenow54]

My disaster was with the skimmer as well. I was removing the cup, and I dropped it. All the filth went straiht into the main tank. The fish died immediately, except for the clown. Those fish are tough.
Skimmers scare me. The same skimmer decided to overflow. Luckily my wife had just left for work, and I arrived home shortly after to the ozone smell. The water ran down the cord, and fried my power bar, burnt to a crisp. Could have lost the house.
Lesson GFIs do NOT prevent this. An Arc protector will. You can add it to select circuits or the entire home. Also Drip legs on power cords, and bar mounted higher. Lesson learned
So I have a huge concern putting a in sump skimmer in my sump on my new tank. Any suggestions?

 

[elysics]

Edit: I can't read

 

[enzo]

Went my lfs a couple of weeks ago and bought a small sps glued to what looked like a skeleton sps. I put it in my tank and couple of days later the sps that was thought to be dead starts to regrow in my tank.

 

[HB AL]

If an acropora colony, frag, etc... is actually completely dead it cannot come back to life. I suspect the ones coming back bleached and are now coloring back up. Keeping an actual "dead" acropora in your tank is not gonna bring it back to life. If bleached or if a little good tissue exists then it could regrow.

 

[User]

If an acropora colony, frag, etc... is actually completely dead it cannot come back to life. I suspect the ones coming back bleached and are now coloring back up. Keeping an actual "dead" acropora in your tank is not gonna bring it back to life. If bleached or if a little good tissue exists then it could regrow.

Well, yeah, I’m pretty sure everyone understands that there needs to be *some* viable tissue that may regenerate; the point is just how *little* tissue is needed. My fungia had zero visible flesh on the skeleton, other than a tiny piece about the size of the half circle in this letter ‘e’, deep in a ridge of the skeleton. I could literally look through the hole in the middle. Even being a stem cell biologist that does tissue regeneration studies in my work, the fact that such a minuscule amount can give rise to 38+ (And counting) grown fungia is astounding.

 

[HB AL]

Well, yeah, I’m pretty sure everyone understands that there needs to be *some* viable tissue that may regenerate; the point is just how *little* tissue is needed. My fungia had zero visible flesh on the skeleton, other than a tiny piece about the size of the half circle in this letter ‘e’, deep in a ridge of the skeleton. I could literally look through the hole in the middle. Even being a stem cell biologist that does tissue regeneration studies in my work, the fact that such a minuscule amount can give rise to 38+ (And counting) grown fungia is astounding.

It's amazing!

 

[stubigdog]

Thank you for posting this! Have thrown out one or two frags that I thought had bleached out. Won’t be so quick to toss them next time.

Yes I'm watching some of my frags that are bleaching out but some of them are just gone completely my mushrooms do well

 

[mslabonik]

So...my protein skimmer was over skimming so i made a minor adjustment.
Went back to work ....from home on MS Teams/Zoom calls.
4 hours later i checked on the tank and 150gal eater gone.
Skimmer went crazy.
I started mixing new saltwater.
Added 100g of new water.
By now it was midnight. I added the lady batch of water.
Next morning i woke up to find everything dead.
Check and my salt level was 42ppm.
I typically maintain 34ppm.
I basically turned my tank into the dead sea.
I figured the salt was not fully dissolved before i added the new water to the tank.
Normally i mix my salt water 48hrs to do a water change but this was an emergency response.

Very, very costly mistake.
Not to mention some of these fishes and corals for over 10 years.

Needless to say i could not stop crying for 2 days.

I feel your pain, lost many, many fish through the years, sorry for loss. One that hurt alot was losing my Vilingi, tang that would come up to me every morning and evening for me to tickle him, my husband called me the fish whisper lol. The other was my snow flake eel, had him for 7 years, I cried like a baby with these two.