Tank has gone downhill! Please help!!

[CurtnStac]

Look at nitrate and phosphate. Is it in line with what your numbers usually are?

Slightly lower because I haven't been coral feeding like I usually do. And have been doing alot of water changes. This is something that pretty much happened over night.

 

[ycnibrc]

I've been using a 4 bulb t5 since I upgraded to this tank. It is a shallow! Bulbs are changed about 4 months ago

Lol u just answer your question u change your bulb 4 months ago and then your mushroom start to shrink. Your old bulb may be weak and your mushroom adapt to it intensity. Now u change all new bulb then the light intensity is changing so your mushroom don't like it. Raise your light up to lessen the intensity

 

[rlman41299]

you have a couple of nice anemone in there when the tank was doing great. What happened to them? Maybe an anemone got shredded and nuked the tank?

 

[CurtnStac]

Lol u just answer your question u change your bulb 4 months ago and then your mushroom start to shrink. Your old bulb may be weak and your mushroom adapt to it intensity. Now u change all new bulb then the light intensity is changing so your mushroom don't like it. Raise your light up to lessen the intensity

This, with the mushrooms and tank, started about 1 1/2 to 2 weeks ago. And it happened overnight

 

[Mykawl]

You said there was nickel and tin in icp results I’m wondering would water changes remove metals sufficiently? No idea if metals explain melting mushrooms though and all you’re experiencing

 

[CurtnStac]

you have a couple of nice anemone in there when the tank was doing great. What happened to them? Maybe an anemone got shredded and nuked the tank?

No they are all accounted for but super mad and all shrunk up.

 

[CurtnStac]

You said there was nickel and tin in icp results I’m wondering would water changes remove metals sufficiently? No idea if metals explain melting mushrooms though and all you’re experiencing

That icp test was done beginning of Sept. When my zoas were closed. I did end up finding 2 bad magnets. A few weeks ago the zoas started to open a little. Then overnight the wrath came down and now I'm left with this crap storm!

 

[Marlon C]

I had this happen mine was ultra low nutrients 0 to be exact killed all my sps and LPs

 

[CurtnStac]

It's there anything in a Tunze 9004 skimmer that can go bad and mess up a tank??
Cuz the daggum thing hasn't worked right in awhile. I had to keep the air valve closed to get it to skim anything. Then when it overflowed overnight is when everything went downhill. I have yet to take the skimmer out of the tank but it is off.

 

[Mykawl]

That icp test was done beginning of Sept. When my zoas were closed. I did end up finding 2 bad magnets. A few weeks ago the zoas started to open a little. Then overnight the wrath came down and now I'm left with this crap storm!

Overnight doesn’t seem to fit with metal from magnet but still can’t be helping, curious if the icp results will show the same ppm of tin and nickel.

you also mentioned feeding much less but your tank is packed, and unless I missed it didn’t give any specific numbers for nitrate and phosphate. Maybe they’re just hungry? This is combination with so many water changes system running too clean no food.
Of course just my inexperienced thoughts and opinion hope you get it figured out. Don’t think any of my ideas explain corals going south overnight though.

 

[living_tribunal]

I have tested salinity, always do when making up new water. It's right at 1.025
Alk is at 9, cal 420, mag 1350. Haven't looked at nitrate and phos cause usually it's high and my tank loves it.
The only thing I would suspect is ammonia spike and I don't have a test for that. Not a test I thought I'd need since my tank has been up and good for years. But even if it was an ammonia spike the tank should have processed that or water changes diluted it by now

I would take a look at nitrates and phosphates, these two are very underrated in this hobby and are more often the culprits in a stable system.

My corals look terrible when phosphates zero out for extended periods of time.

 

[Mykawl]

It's there anything in a Tunze 9004 skimmer that can go bad and mess up a tank??
Cuz the daggum thing hasn't worked right in awhile. I had to keep the air valve closed to get it to skim anything. Then when it overflowed overnight is when everything went downhill. I have yet to take the skimmer out of the tank but it is off.

Maybe this is the problem, stagnant water in the skimmer body, low oxygen environment breeding bad stuff.
Initially caused by dumping the skimmer cup water in. Maybe a bad bacteria growing in tour tank.
I would definitely pull theskimmer if it’s not on I’ve read horror stories of stagnant water.

 

[CurtnStac]

Overnight doesn’t seem to fit with metal from magnet but still can’t be helping, curious if the icp results will show the same ppm of tin and nickel.

you also mentioned feeding much less but your tank is packed, and unless I missed it didn’t give any specific numbers for nitrate and phosphate. Maybe they’re just hungry? This is combination with so many water changes system running too clean no food.
Of course just my inexperienced thoughts and opinion hope you get it figured out. Don’t think any of my ideas explain corals going south overnight though.

I just stopped feeding when this started. So I've only missed a few coral feedings. I haven't tested but I know it hasn't zeroed out cuz my gsp is still green. Whenever my nutes would get too low my gsp would lose its color.
I know for a fact this was literally overnight because everything was fine, zoas were kinda making a comeback, and the skimmer was making noises. It's done it before so I knew what made it stop... Just open up the air valve. But that made it overflow. The next day foamy skim mate was all in the back of the tank and the corals were closed. So I was just did some extra water changes. But here I am almost 2 weeks later and there's no improvements.

 

[CurtnStac]

Maybe this is the problem, stagnant water in the skimmer body, low oxygen environment breeding bad stuff.
Initially caused by dumping the skimmer cup water in. Maybe a bad bacteria growing in tour tank.
I would definitely pull theskimmer if it’s not on I’ve read horror stories of stagnant water.

I did plan on removing the skimmer and return pumps tomorrow to have a look at everything. Thanks!

 

[Mykawl]

I just stopped feeding when this started. So I've only missed a few coral feedings. I haven't tested but I know it hasn't zeroed out cuz my gsp is still green. Whenever my nutes would get too low my gsp would lose its color.
I know for a fact this was literally overnight because everything was fine, zoas were kinda making a comeback, and the skimmer was making noises. It's done it before so I knew what made it stop... Just open up the air valve. But that made it overflow. The next day foamy skim mate was all in the back of the tank and the corals were closed. So I was just did some extra water changes. But here I am almost 2 weeks later and there's no improvements.

Currently the skimmer is sitting in the tank off?

 

[CurtnStac]

Currently the skimmer is sitting in the tank off?

Yes

 

[CurtnStac]

Currently the skimmer is sitting in the tank off?

A, day after it overflowed it stopped working all together. So I shut it off but haven't removed it yet

 

[CurtnStac]

So I just checked my apex and I shut down my skimmer on the 9th. So that's when all this started. So actually it's only been a week.
And the pic with my bta looking all happy was taken on the 24th of Oct. which was only 2 weeks before the started.

 

[Mykawl]

Honestly I’m so convinced and my gut is telling me it’s that that I’m gonna take my skimmer out too lol, I leave if off too often and I always pour it back into the tank no idea why haha guess I like to explore the bad as well as the good.

Curious if there’s any research into stagnant salt water in the presence and lack of light.

update if things get better I just removed mine it really doesn’t seem to prduce very dirty water anyways and with a nano water changes are easy enough

So I just checked my apex and I shut down my skimmer on the 9th. So that's when all this started. So actually it's only been a week.
And the pic with my bta looking all happy was taken on the 24th of Oct. which was only 2 weeks before the started.

hopefully that’s the answer it seems most likely since you said both the overflow and it breaking preceded the tank going south

 

[vetteguy53081]

Melting away too points to either salinity ir lighting. Regarding your readings, i used two refracts that were calibrated and a digital unit which all indicated. 1.023-1.024.
Water sample to LFS WAS 1.031. I used calibration solution by brightwell