Sniperhank's Red Sea S-series 500

[Sniperhank]

Well, this can be a lesson posting. I wasn’t paying attention to how much I was using with my newly arrived kalk. Put into paste form to kill green palys.
Hopefully, this doesn’t turn into killing everything. Whole tank is mad except for the sailfin. Inverts are locked up, coral retracted and throwing out mucus. All fish in hiding except the sailfin, but all at the bottom.


So, a 25 gallon water change was done with the reserve supply. Making up more water but it won’t be done in time for any assistance.

 

[Autumnsky]

I had all kinds of coral extruding slime a few weeks ago by mistakenly adding the wrong thing with out premixing, confused 2 products instructions and a big water change helped a lot. Ended up without apparent deaths.

Hoping all calms down with the mess your tanks inhabitants are making in there - 25G is a fairly good amount. With SW those types of things are hard when you can't get SW out of the tap like FW.

 

[Sniperhank]

I was able to make about 15 gallons of water before work and dumped all my remaining salt into it.
So far no visible coral death...
Sailfin and powder brown are dead. Couldn’t find the female anthias. Male would swim away from light.
It’s a mess. Might be my biggest to date.
On a brighter note, if everything is dead then I did succeed at killing the palys...

 

[Delapool]

Ouch! Fingers crossed

 

[Autumnsky]

I was able to make about 15 gallons of water before work and dumped all my remaining salt into it.
So far no visible coral death...
Sailfin and powder brown are dead. Couldn’t find the female anthias. Male would swim away from light.
It’s a mess. Might be my biggest to date.
On a brighter note, if everything is dead then I did succeed at killing the palys...

Wow. Oh my, that is a much worse condition than I first understood. Dreadful. Also the Paly can release toxins which can kill a tank. I had that happen in my nano a long time ago. Wear gloves, goggles, keep the mouth closed???, jic.

 

[Sniperhank]

The toxin can be potent, but easily solved by running activated carbon.
There are a wide range of how potent the toxin is. I’ve forgot about it and rubbed my eyes after working in my tank. Made for a strange conversation at work on why my eyes are so blood shot.

 

[Autumnsky]

The toxin can be potent, but easily solved by running activated carbon.
There are a wide range of how potent the toxin is. I’ve forgot about it and rubbed my eyes after working in my tank. Made for a strange conversation at work on why my eyes are so blood shot.

Ha, I can see that conversation would be unbelievable. Lucky it wasn't stronger and blind you!

Glad you will remember about it. I have read about the activated carbon - though long after my little catastrophic loss and complete tear down.

 

[Sniperhank]

Yeah, it was in the system prior due to me scrubbing a couple heads off and nuking the nearby chalice that it was already beating on.

 

[Sniperhank]

Just a quick update. All fish are dead along with all of my stony coral. As it stands, the current survivors are the conch and zoas. I’m sure the aiptasia didn’t care either.

 

[bribo12]

Sorry to hear that man

 

[Delapool]

Sad news

Only quickly read up on kalk - looks strong stuff?!

 

[Sniperhank]

It can be. I mixed up too much and tried to push it. I knew better.
But it isn’t like pulling rocks out to scrub will hurt anything now, right?

 

[Autumnsky]

Still be carefully of the play toxin.

 

[Dary421]

Ouch ,... sorry bud .,...I remember a long while back I had made up a whole jar full of kalk and set it on the top of my tank ,when I reached for it I knocked the whole thing into the tank ,....needless to say it was a mess , a lot of water changes eventually brought things back to normal . Good luck.

 

[Sniperhank]

Thanks Dary.
With everything being dead I think that the solution might be simple.
Large water changes until all kalk is out of the system.
Will also remove all rocks with unwanted corals from the system. A good run over with the pressure washer will take care of things and a follow up with a good brush down to get rid of the small particles.
Probably do all this with a dust mask Incase of play getting hit into the air by this...extreme approach.

 

[Dary421]

All in all once this saltwater hobby gets in your blood it’s tough to just throw it all away ,(although there’s been a couple of times when I thought about it !)
Maybe a fresh new build might be a positive step in the right direction , new rock work, no pests !!! ,....take a deep breath ,take your time and think things thru .
Maybe a tough lesson learned but sometimes those errors are what makes us even stronger and more determined than ever to make it right the next time .
Hang in there hankster !

 

[Sniperhank]

Yeah that’s kinda a let down, but no biggie. I’ll just need to get all this funk off.
All the hairy green mushrooms I hated are gone too. Just the palys and aiptasia left.

 

[Sniperhank]

As it stands, all rock with green play on them have been pressure washed. See what’s left tomorrow after work for scrubbing. I think the eye of ra zoas went out with them.

Pressure washers are the natural enemy of bristle worms. Slice right through them. Thumb for scale.

Also the Rasta rock that was in the tank. They are irritated, but that’s it. They have moved up onto the back glass enough to support the rock they came in on.

So far only the zoas and Duncan have survived. Everything is at a halt until my days off on Monday. It’ll be large water changes and removal of as much funk as possible that gathered up around the rocks.
Besides removing the green palys, the green hairy mushrooms are all gone as well and not a single aiptasia sighting.

 

[Autumnsky]

Surprising some of those are still alive. Glad some things good remain.

Huge amount of suckiness though. Hope the rest of the clean up goes well. Love pressure washers!!!

 

[Sniperhank]

Quick update. Things are stabilizing. All deceased have been removed except for a snail here and there.
Conch still doesn’t care. Duncan’s have been recovering. Most rock have been power washed and will be ready to re add to the system once I get more funk out of the water column. Hopefully this last 25 gallons will do it since I’m out of salt.