Tank crash

Icemam457 · Oct 10, 2018

So i have been keeping tanks for quite a long time and have never had this bad of a tank crash. All of my corals have white spots and some are dead. All my levels are fine and the only out of place thing was a orp drop the other day. I did not find any dead fish or any thing big in the tank that would cause it. I did 20 percent water change and and cleaned my sump out. This morning the water was milkey and all my corals are losing tissue. My fish are all fine and my skimmer is not going nuts. Any ideas. The only thing I can think of is a gas exchange problem as the room dose not get a lot of air. The total system is 350 gallons.
I have a bashsea sump reef octopus 220 int elite skimmer and kessil h380 refugium light. I am also running carbon. Any ideas.

Dom · Oct 10, 2018

Icemam457 said:
This morning the water was milkey and all my corals are losing tissue.

Bacterial bloom?

Your latest test numbers?

nautical_nathaniel · Oct 10, 2018

What sort of corals do you have? Any Leathers?

Milky water could be a bacteria bloom but also could be a function of dying corals.

#reefsquad, any other thoughts?

Billldg · Oct 10, 2018

Wouldn't a bacterial bloom kill the fish first before affecting the corals as it would deplete the oxygen in the water?

R u dosing kalk or any supplements?

Jason mack · Oct 10, 2018

Has anybod been spraying cleaning in the room ...anyway contaminants of any sort could have got in the tank ???
Anybody had there hands in there ??

Clownfish2 · Oct 10, 2018

do you think the reef tank lights are too powerful or maybe the lights stayed on continuously for days? Another possibility is a contaminant got into the water such as fumes from painting a room or a floor, or using bathroom cleaners, or mist from cologne or perfume got into the water?

Icemam457 · Oct 10, 2018

My alk was high the other day. I shut off my dosing pump. I was using me corals kh. I am still dailing in my calcium reactor put it’s dumping in to my refugium and the algae has been really off setting the ph of the calcium reactor. My alk was 12 and I did the water change and that brought it down to ten. No one has cleaned and no one had had there hands in there. I pulled all the corals out and placed them in my frag system and they are looking better. I know I will lose some. But I think I saved most of them. I will put carbon in all the tanks today and am going to order another Chamber for the calcium reactor and some co2 media for the skimmer

Billldg · Oct 10, 2018

Before we all get ahead of ourselves, I'm assuming you r using a apex or something of the sort to check parameters, what r your parameters using the old fashion way of checking, could your probes be out of calibration. Glad u were able to save most of your corals.

Icemam457 · Oct 10, 2018

Yeah I am using Apex. I calibrate the probes once a week.

Icemam457 · Oct 10, 2018

I use alk test salifrit and them for others tests as well

Billldg · Oct 10, 2018

#reefsquad, is their anyway of checking for materials in the water that shouldn't be there short of sending a water sample out to be tested?

Icemam457 · Oct 10, 2018

I am going to do a triton test today

DSC reef · Oct 10, 2018

Doing a Triton test is a good idea. Sounds like this is chemistry related to me. I did have bacteria blooms that didn't wipe out the tank however this might be a byproduct of multiple corals dying at once.

Billldg · Oct 10, 2018

Just throwing this out their as I read this has happened to someone not to long ago, how do your heaters look, I saw a post previously where a heater went bad and released toxins into the tank.

Icemam457 · Oct 10, 2018

Same here never seen any thing like this before. It’s why I posted

jsker · Oct 10, 2018

Where was the alk at before the spike?

WVNed · Oct 10, 2018

Billldg said:
Just throwing this out their as I read this has happened to someone not to long ago, how do your heaters look, I saw a post previously where a heater went bad and released toxins into the tank.

I had one fail/crack and it did exactly what you are describing.