Please Help. Everything shrunk!

[ger]

I just got back from a two week vacation and found everything shrunk... Everything means one Xenia (one smaller one disappeared), two colonies of Anthelia (one is almost gone), one colt coral, one 4 headed Frogspan and a bunch of Discosoma (the smaller ones look somewhat normal, the ones 3" in diameter or more are pretty shriveled up). Everyhting has been established for over a year in this 125G tank. (I know my lighting is a little low with 220W of power compacts).
The girl who took care of my house said we had a power outage but couldn't remember how long it lasted. I did a water test and everything seems OK except of the low Ca.
Calicium 370
Temp 78
Den 1.0225
PH 8.3
NO2 0
NH3 0.02
KH 11
So far I did a small water change (10%). Anybody have any ideas what could have caused this and if there is anything I should look out for or what I can do?

 

[Carpentersreef]

Probably just keep an eye out for any corals sliming or receding to the point of exposing skeleton. Keep the circulation up and make sure that all your mechanical systems are working properly. Make sure no powerheads fried, the reactor (if you have one) didn't get stuck on, ect. Some corals should be inflating back up within the next day anyways.
Keep us posted and supply more equipment details if you can.

Mitch

 

[ger]

As far as equipment is concerned, it's pretty low tech. I use 4 powerheads for circulation, have a built in wet/dry system and a protein skimmer.
I guess my button polyps look slimy. They are all closed up. At what point should I take them out. It's a hard decision to remove something, it may come back. A little while ago one of my colt corals was at a point where it looked dead for a some time and suddenly came back to life...
Do you think it could be the low light intensity?

 

[Carpentersreef]

After a year, the corals s/b acclimated to the low light level that you have, and if any could not adjust, they would have died already. I doubt that it would be light alone, but it would be a good idea to up the lighting, IMO.
I'm not a fan of wet/dry, but again, with it operating for a year already.....
Point a powerhead at the corals that appear to be sliming for a few hours to clear the slime away.
Make sure that you have a grounding probe hooked up.

Mitch

 

[LFS42]

check the lights.
I had a similar experience. It was just my bulb spectrums shifting when I was gone.

I'm not saying that this is the problem, but nothing like a 2 week vacation to make you notice bad bulbs. :lol:

 

[Anonymous]

when doing a water change in order to correct a possible chemistry problem, a large one is the way to go-at least 50% of the volume of the system-a 10% change will not remove any appreciable amount of anything that could possibly be stressing the critters.

also ime, inverts love big water changes-they really get happy and 'pumped up'

 

[Kendall]

There could be stray electricity in the tank. Unplug everything electric except the lights, see if there are any improvements. It does not take much hurt corals. Could be a cracked heater or bad power head or water pump.

 

[ger]

Just another thing I have noticed that might help you guys help me: I have several colors of discosoma and it seems that only the GREEN colored ones are shriveled up. The Red, Orange, Blue and Green Wagonwheel colored look normal.
Also, I have had some flatworms before, but now I have a S@#%load.

 

[Derek]

According to te original post you had an ammonia level of 0.02. I normally tell people not to put anything in a tank as long as they see measurable ammonia. Not sure what, but something happened in the tank and now there is a mini-cycle going on. In a 125 with a normal amount of live rock I would be surprised to see ammonia spike up from a small xenia colony melting down in that size reef.

Has the ammonia gone back to zero?

If not I would keep up the water changes and watch the tank. Do you have ammonia in the water you use for water changes?

Derek