I'm stumped... most corals looking rough...

[tjm80]

I just got home from work to find most of my corals looking deflated and sickly. All zoas are closed up (I've never had any zoa's that will stay open more than partially), my frogspawn is more closed than normal - no brown jelly. Bubble corals not looking as vibrant as normal.

I've got a 75 gallon tank with a 20 gallon long sump.

Water test results:
Temp: 78F
pH: 8.0
dKH: 8
ammonia, nitrite, nitrate: 0
calcium: 440
phosphates: reading 0

The only thing I can think of is I took my skimmer out of the sump yesterday so I could clean it because it wasn't making bubbles as vigorously as normal and had lots of coralline growth in it.

My lights are a 4x54T5 fixture with less than 6 month old ATI bulbs (2 blue plus, 1 purple plus, 1 white).

My 3 fish (lol) are doing fine! 6 line wrasse, yellow watchman goby, and one percula clown. (there's more in qt )

If you can think of something I haven't, please let me know!

 

[TLTGF]

Only thing off the top of my head would be stray voltage, but I would imagine that would have an affect on the fish as well.

 

[Gti_Leo]

stray voltage woun't cause a problem unless the water was grounded, then everythign would die

 

[tjm80]

lol, weird you mention voltage. We've had 4 lightbulbs blow in our house in the past 12 hours.

I'm going to go pick up some carbon and try that.

Also my galaxy coral isn't as open as normal...

 

[mr_X]

I once had a heater break in my tank and I didn't know it, until it turned on. It looked like someone was arc welding in the sump for about 5 seconds till I managed to pull the plug (gfci did not trip). the fish were unharmed but all of the corals looked terrible, and later browned out. They all recovered, but I'm just saying this for conversations sake.

 

[tjm80]

I once had a heater break in my tank and I didn't know it, until it turned on. It looked like someone was arc welding in the sump for about 5 seconds till I managed to pull the plug (gfci did not trip). the fish were unharmed but all of the corals looked terrible, and later browned out. They all recovered, but I'm just saying this for conversations sake.

I'll check on that when I get home. Then going to get some carbon, and a heater if need be lol.

 

[tjm80]

Heater's fine.

And make that 6 light bulbs... (not tank bulbs).

On my way to go get some carbon... Hopefully this will help...?

 

[mr_X]

If there is some toxin or something in the tank, yes, it will. I would just do a water change and see if that helps.

 

[Gti_Leo]

in that case doug your main breaker shoudl have tripped out and if it didn't i would check that out before anything. a dead short lasting that long is a bad breaker and a good way to burn down your home.

the best type of protection to have for an aquarium is an arc fault breaker, it is similar to a ground fault, but it detects arcing and with the slightest arc it trips out. a ground fault senses a leak in voltage between the line and the neutral, if there is no ground and the system is isolated a GFI won't trip at all, in your case the dead short was causing currnet to return on the neutral so all was the same. in that case a ground probe would have benifit you.

but in this case i highly doubt there was stray voltage and im sure the reason your corals browned was a sudden change in water temp, an arc gets to 20 000 degrees celcius and no doubt shot up the temp in your sump

 

[mr_X]

No way would that change 400 gallons of water in 5 seconds. the xenia turned as white as paper in a second. it was shocked.

 

[tjm80]

The crazy thing is I did a PWC yesterday! About a month ago I did a large water change, about 20 gallons. Used that water to fill up a quarantine tank. My zoas weren't opening before or after that. But everything else has been doing fine up until today... Even the mushrooms are shriveled up.

 

[Gti_Leo]

sure it would, 20000 degrees is a huge amount of heat and would melt your skin instantly even if the water temp changed 4 degrees for corals thats a bit much.

we would never know what fully caused your corals to brown we can just speculate what did but in your case it was totally possible that the short out caused it. in the case of the ops corals deflating i doubt its stray voltage because if the voltage was just sitting in the water the corals and live stock would be sitting at the same potencial so there is no current (amperage) flow, which is what kills. if there was a ground probe i can see it killing things as the voltage would take the path of lease resistance to the source, and when a voltage flows it is being pushed by current through the resistances of the water and conductors

 

[Gti_Leo]

The crazy thing is I did a PWC yesterday! About a month ago I did a large water change, about 20 gallons. Used that water to fill up a quarantine tank. My zoas weren't opening before or after that. But everything else has been doing fine up until today... Even the mushrooms are shriveled up.

do you have any cucumbers or snails that could have died and released a toxin or even an urchin that could have taken a stroll around the tank over the corals?

 

[Tomchong22]

Another thing is.. check salinity. A sudden change will cause corals to close up for a few days. I went away for a weekend and for some reason my ATO did not work that weekend. When I got back I had to do a big waterchange and drip fresh water for the next 48hours to bring it down. It went to like 1.030. But after a week everything is fine and back to normal. Just something to keep in mind

 

[tjm80]

Leo, I have a small little yellow filter feeding cucumber that attached to the first rock and has been happy chilling there with his little tentacles outstretched. I also got a black and pink cucumber a few weeks ago to help with the sand bed. He's definitely not dead, as he's roaming around on the front glass right now, which I've read isn't completely uncommon and not necessarily anything to be worried about. Other than that, no urchins or sea apples. I have a green BTA who's content sitting in a pile of rocks towards the bottom of the tank, he doesn't wander around at all. Now that the lights are out, the frogspawn actually look like they normally do at night.

This is baffling... My finger leather are standing upright for the first time in I don't know when, my yellow fiji coral is looking like a champ, the galaxy coral seems to be doing better since the lights went out. My duncans, which I've never had any problems with were closed up most of the afternoon, but have also opened up since lights out. Xenia are pumping away (good luck killing them, right? lol)

Maybe it was just an off day for my tank... who knows...

 

[tjm80]

Another thing is.. check salinity. A sudden change will cause corals to close up for a few days. I went away for a weekend and for some reason my ATO did not work that weekend. When I got back I had to do a big waterchange and drip fresh water for the next 48hours to bring it down. It went to like 1.030. But after a week everything is fine and back to normal. Just something to keep in mind

Salinity is 1.024.

 

[Gti_Leo]

its totally possible. maybe soemone stuck a hand in and they didn't liek the unknown and got pissy

 

[KcTx]

I'm having the exsact same issue's with my corals? I guess this has been going on in my tank for about 2 1/2 weeks. I'm stumped as to what it could be? I've done 2 water changes and gone over everything? This all started for me after I suddenly had a couple of fish die, I was told by a reputable lfs that I had snails spawn causing something some sort of change in water conditions?? Since then I've added a phosban reactor with bio pellets and have seen no changes.

 

[mr_X]

Naa. Snails spawning isn't going to kill fish..lol. The things these stores come up with just so they have something to say.

 

[Gti_Leo]

could it be flow? maybe your power heads are a little dirty and less oxygen is beign spread around, cyano can start to form because of this too