Worst week so far on my 75g tank :-(

[G8trBait16]

Last night I tested and everything is within normal range now, still need to bring my p04 down a tad bit. I am at .04 want it around .02-.03. I lost my final Acro on Saturday. I haven't lost anything since then, so my fingers are crossed, but it bring the total # lost to 28 (including 1 Garf bonsai mini colony, large red monti cap, orange passion, main Walt Disney 2 1/2" frag), also lost a 4" maxima clam. I was able to frag my Walt Disney (1 inch), so far the frag has stayed alive.
Maybe a little overkill, but I have put locks on the cabinet doors, so no one except me and my fiancée can get under the tank. Can't have anything like this happen again. I did speak to the parents of the child that did this. Apparently she did it just to hurt my daughter, bc they were having an argument. Thank god the dad of the young girl that did it understood, bc he is 9 months into a 375g SPS dominated reef build.

 

[Brew12]

Last night I tested and everything is within normal range now, still need to bring my p04 down a tad bit. I am at .04 want it around .02-.03. I lost my final Acro on Saturday. I haven't lost anything since then, so my fingers are crossed, but it bring the total # lost to 28 (including 1 Garf bonsai mini colony, large red monti cap, orange passion, main Walt Disney 2 1/2" frag), also lost a 4" maxima clam. I was able to frag my Walt Disney (1 inch), so far the frag has stayed alive.
Maybe a little overkill, but I have put locks on the cabinet doors, so no one except me and my fiancée can get under the tank. Can't have anything like this happen again. I did speak to the parents of the child that did this. Apparently she did it just to hurt my daughter, bc they were having an argument. Thank god the dad of the young girl that did it understood, bc he is 9 months into a 375g SPS dominated reef build.

It's horrible that people would harm animals because of an argument. Kids or not..

 

[Duke4Life]

I've thought about locks on mine before and will probably add this week after seeing this. Sorry to hear this.

 

[Zoaeasy]

I was just told by our oldest daughter (9) that her friend was in the cabinet "looking" at the stuff under there and that might have been the cause, bc they had gotten into an argument that night. Kids will be kids, but that kid won't be allowed over for a very long time, especially if I am not there, lol. @jsker I turned off the doser, but I have cyano all over my rocks now and on the sand bed. @Wiz so you think I should just do a few smaller water changes (10g) until things get back to acceptable ranges. I know everyone has gone through something bad with their tanks and it really stinks that this had to happen, at one point I was honestly thinking about shutting down the system, but decided that things happen and all you can do is keep chugging along. Take the bad with the good or live and learn from past mistakes. I really do appreciate the help and I will let everyone know if anything has changed when I get home from work today.

So sorry , I feel your pain. Had a similar thing happen in my waiting room tank. One of my staff noted that the lid was skew and that one of the kids had been on one of the chairs messing with it earlier. Closer inspection showed that he ripped open an air freshener puck and dumped the puck in the tank. It was in for about an hour. I was able to get there about two hours later after a long night shift and did a WC and ran two full canisters of activated carbon. Luckily only had softies and fish in the tank. The softies are not doing well and have retracted since then. The fish made out ok. ( Just to add to it the next day we found out one of the toilets were backed up and the plumber found the plastic casing flushed down. !) I am going to pretty much lock down the screen on the tank that is replacing this one as I am planning a full mixed Reef.
Lesson learned that very rarely there are some malicious intent that may cause harm. Fully onboard with lockable door as well.

 

[eg8r210]

Well I haven't had much doser on at all since this happened, had 3 more corals die when I was at work today. Just tested the water and nothing seems terribly wrong anymore.
Alk: 7.2 dkh
Po4: .04
Mg: 1530
Cal: 390
Nitrate: .75-1ppm
So now I'm thinking could something else be in the water or bulbs be bad. could run carbon in my reactor and also buy 8 new t5 bulbs (current bulbs are only 2-3 months old). I am at a loss of words bc i have no idea what could be going on to still be making acro's stn and rtn.

I would recommend you stop doing water changes. This is a long "wait it out" process. When you have alk spikes your calcium/alk consumption is going to probably slow way down till the corals start to heal up. I have had a couple major alk swings and they have been different each time. No way to know how long it will take for SPS to recover. To give you an idea, I had an alk swing like this 2 years ago. My colonies all started with burnt tips and I couldn't do anything to get it to stop. They just continued dying. For my own piece of mind, i bought some real cheap frags of new SPS to try in the tank and see if it was a tank issue (after getting alk under control again) and those frags did fine. I expected them to because the water was back to normal. The ones that were dying, only one colony made it out alive and still kicking 2 years later.

Every tank is different. I have a buddy who only had burnt tips and he got away with snipping the tips and waiting till the corals healed up. Your corals might recover quickly or it might be slow and agonizing. I really hope everything works out for you.

 

[G8trBait16]

I had ordered corals before this happened from Frag house and they will get delivered on Thursday or Friday. I am really hoping that everything is up to par by then, at least it has been my main focus to have the water stabilized. For the most part it looks like it has, just taking it day by day.

I took out 15 pounds of my rock that had most of the dead corals on them to have them bake in the sun and dry out. Question is now: Do I put some of my extra Marco Dry rock into the tank, wait till the other rock is completely dry (put them back in) or order more dry/live rock.

 

[dankreef]

This is where it starts getting not fun. First if your getting cyano or a bloom that can take over your new frags. Don't add any new rock while it you have cyano or anything else it will explode alage growth. I would call frag house and have them hold the corals until your tank relaxes. Also check out this pic I'm posting thread for the cyano fix. I would stop doing huge water changes, if you have one big swing doing huge wc turns it into another big swing. Just focus on keeping the tank stable for a bit then dive back in bro. Good luck.


Keep your rock. I'd bleach it or clean it however you do before re-entry or it will leach everything that died on it when it dried out into your water . Wait to add until your system chills out

 

[Bps619]

I have two daughters as well. *note to self - build fence with barbwire around tank before sleepovers.

Sorry to hear about your terrible week. Sucks when you put in all the time and effort to care for these animals just to see them die so fast. Hope you'll get it turned around in no time.

 

[G8trBait16]

This is where it starts getting not fun. First if your getting cyano or a bloom that can take over your new frags. Don't add any new rock while it you have cyano or anything else it will explode alage growth. I would call frag house and have them hold the corals until your tank relaxes. Also check out this pic I'm posting thread for the cyano fix. I would stop doing huge water changes, if you have one big swing doing huge wc turns it into another big swing. Just focus on keeping the tank stable for a bit then dive back in bro. Good luck.


Keep your rock. I'd bleach it or clean it however you do before re-entry or it will leach everything that died on it when it dried out into your water . Wait to add until your system chills out

Yea I am dosing 10ml 1x per week of the Vibrant for the last month, to take care of a gha and cyano issue. The gha is gone now, just hoping the cyano will kick the bucket soon. Since the first 30g water change on Nov. 29th, my last water change was a typical one that I would do of 10g which I did yesterday. I am using Aquaforest Reef salt, also changed out the GFO and Carbon in my reactors yesterday. I'm trying to get back to the normal routine before all of this happened. I have had to tune down my doser, since the frags I have no aren't using as much as it once was.

 

[G8trBait16]

Well the tank definitely looks different than it did on November 14th. The newest picture I took after replacing some bulbs on my ATI. Went from 6 blue+ and 2 purple+ to 4 blue+, 1 coral+, 1 geis super purple, 1 geis super actinic and 1 ATI actinic. That is the reason why the zoas, acan and Duncan are retracted (no lights for 30 minutes). All of the parameters are spot on and are below.

alk: 7.2 - Hanna
Cal: 450 - Red sea
Mag: 1460 - Red sea
P04: .02 - Hanna
Nitrate: 2 - Red sea

11-14-16 - before alk spike

Taken last night 12-7-16

I want to thank everyone here for their help and advice on what to do and what not to do. It was definitely a very trying time for me, but had to push forward and keep chugging along.

 

[Brew12]

Well the tank definitely looks different than it did on November 14th. The newest picture I took after replacing some bulbs on my ATI. Went from 6 blue+ and 2 purple+ to 4 blue+, 1 coral+, 1 geis super purple, 1 geis super actinic and 1 ATI actinic. That is the reason why the zoas, acan and Duncan are retracted (no lights for 30 minutes). All of the parameters are spot on and are below.

alk: 7.2 - Hanna
Cal: 450 - Red sea
Mag: 1460 - Red sea
P04: .02 - Hanna
Nitrate: 2 - Red sea

11-14-16 - before alk spike

Taken last night 12-7-16

I want to thank everyone here for their help and advice on what to do and what not to do. It was definitely a very trying time for me, but had to push forward and keep chugging along.

Still looks a lot better than my tank, and I haven't had mine attacked by a child!

 

[G8trBait16]

Still looks a lot better than my tank, and I haven't had mine attacked by a child!

lol, well it has taken a lot of time, testing and moving things around. I have a great fiancée to put up with me these last 2 weeks. Apparently I am very OCD about the tank, I didn't realize I was that much until she pointed it out last night. But on a good note no matter what our tanks look like we always strive to make them look the best they can, it just takes time.

 

[Ortho281]

Well the tank definitely looks different than it did on November 14th. The newest picture I took after replacing some bulbs on my ATI. Went from 6 blue+ and 2 purple+ to 4 blue+, 1 coral+, 1 geis super purple, 1 geis super actinic and 1 ATI actinic. That is the reason why the zoas, acan and Duncan are retracted (no lights for 30 minutes). All of the parameters are spot on and are below.

alk: 7.2 - Hanna
Cal: 450 - Red sea
Mag: 1460 - Red sea
P04: .02 - Hanna
Nitrate: 2 - Red sea

11-14-16 - before alk spike

Taken last night 12-7-16

I want to thank everyone here for their help and advice on what to do and what not to do. It was definitely a very trying time for me, but had to push forward and keep chugging along.

On a brighter note, I like the changes to aquascape better! Your tank will be right back to where it was in good time!

 

[Perry]

Hey Matt,
Sorry for the losses man, I am surprised at how cool you are being over the whole thing. When my fiance moved in to my house, I put a lock on the sump and used a pad lock. I now have the kids dialed in to the idea that they are not to touch the tank for any reason unless they ask. I know how tough this must have been. I would think to do large water changes and also allow the tank to settle before adding acros again. Once you see the alk, ca, and mg consumption again, then you could put the doser online. As far as cyano, I find that Boyd's Chemi Clean Cyano Remover work very well, and it will not harm good bacteria. That said, you could discontinue the Probiotic method, then do a treatment, followed by a water change, then resume. I have done this myself with great success. Message me if I can help in any way!