Please help!!!!!

[JMar101786]

Hello All,

I'm frantic right now so i'm sorry if this comes across as a bit of a mess but i woke up this morning and found that 75% of my sps coral look as though thier polyps have been removed. you can see some color in some of the pieces however most of the pieces look almost white. the water also has what seems to be a haze to it.

As for my soft and lps they haven't opened at all but they don't look as bad as the SPS do.

Yesterday everything looked great as always then overnight this happens. I haven't done anything different lately and i dont know what to do.

The tank is 75 Gallons with a 15 gallons sump. i keep temp at asteady 77, i have two 400 watt 20,000 k metal halides (i know its overkill but they have been doing great for the past 6 months with it). all the equipment is working great (skimmer, phosphate reactor, pumps and powerheads)

As for maintence, i do a 20 gallon water change every week with brightwell salt and i dose my tank accordingly.

I really am at a loss here and have no idea what happened. if anyone can offer any advice or information that would be much appreciated.

I did a water change this morning; approx 30 percent changed out. Before I did a water change i took a sample to have tested.

Parameters are as follows:

Salt - .024
Phosphate - Undetectable
Ammonia - Undetectable
Nitrate - Undetecctable
Nitrite - Undetectable
PH 8.4
Alk - 8.5 DKH
Calcium - 375 ppm
Magnesium - 1170 ppm

The owner of the store where the water was tested had said to check the equipment that maybe the tank has electrical current running through it. He also advised that if the corals have cavities where the polyps should be that i should remove them from the tank (not sure what to do here as I’m getting mixed opinions)

After the water change and a few hours of the lights being on the LPS have yet to open and my zoas are closed. I'm scratching my head here and have no idea what to do at this point.

All my equipment seems to be fine so i don’t think there is any electrical current going on.


I know and understand that doing too much is not a good thing but I fear that if I dont do enough tomorrow morning will be worse than this morning.

Please Help


Thanks,
Joe

 

[JMar101786]

Here are some pics I took this morning, you can see that in some pictures where the polyps extend out that they are empty cavities.

 

[Master Shake]

mass bleaching, the change in temp usually has problems for tank, i say its the heat. I know you said its at 77 when you said that but did you watch the thermometer all night? and all day? since the other day was warmer your tank can overheat which caused the sps to bleach releasing chemicals and mess up other corals like the lps and softies not to open. do another water change and frag off of your sps what you can

 

[Master Shake]

o and add extra carbon

 

[JMar101786]

I understand where you're coming from however i just can't believe that if in fact there was a temp change that it would cause such an issue. Especially in a matter of only 12 hours.

I added some carbon this morning after the water change, i'll be doing another water change in the morning. Unfortunately as for fragging that wont be a possibility as those pieces that were affected are totally gone . I'm afraid that I wont be able to find them again either as those i brought back up from florida when i moved back to NY back in october.

Thanks for your input though. I really appreciate it

 

[JMar101786]

Is the general consensus that these pieces are in fact dead?

 

[fishman1069]

That sux dude!! Im not experienced with SPS, so Im not going to try and guess whats going on, but I do hope you find the problem. Could it be a bug of some sort munching on them?

 

[JMar101786]

That was my first thought, but this happened over night and these corals have been in this tank for like 4 months without any problems at all. Due to $$ i haven't been able to afford putting anything in so i couldnt have introduced anything into to tank that could of done this

 

[fishywoo]

Did you add any phosphate removing products like Phosban lately? Reduceing phosphates to quickly will cause corals to bleach.

 

[JMar101786]

Nope, no phosphate removal media of any sort . I'm scratching my head so much on this one that i think i'm going to be bald

 

[Master Shake]

its the fact that it did happen within 12 hours that would make it more likely to be a temp change. any drastic change is bad for a tank even if it is in a short period of time. the best thing for a tank is stability... ex: if you wanna keep your tank at 83 degrees, go ahead and do so, just do it gradually and make sure it stays there.

I understand where you're coming from however i just can't believe that if in fact there was a temp change that it would cause such an issue. Especially in a matter of only 12 hours.

I added some carbon this morning after the water change, i'll be doing another water change in the morning. Unfortunately as for fragging that wont be a possibility as those pieces that were affected are totally gone . I'm afraid that I wont be able to find them again either as those i brought back up from florida when i moved back to NY back in october.

Thanks for your input though. I really appreciate it