Tank Meltdown!

[ReefLady]

I'm not really certain what the cause of this was, but I did want to add a thought ...

All of my starfish are dead. The red bali star's remains are nearly unidentifiable. He really did just melt. I'll post a picture after church.

I believe Reefrunner also hinted at what I was thinking ... mobile inverts, especially stars, are *extremely* sensitive to rapid changes in salinity, temperature, and pH. This is why many ppl drip acclimate stars for several hours. Too-rapid acclimation would produce almost exactly the symptoms you have described.

I'm wondering if somehow, your pH dropped or spiked (possibly along with temp/salinity). Intense pH fluctuations could also cause problems with your fish.

Not sure if this is helpful, but if you are 'reacting' to the problems by doing large water changes, make sure that the temp/salinity/pH match exactly, or you'll be inviting more problems.

HTH,

 

[Gauge]

This is an interesting thought...

The starfish and fish and corals all had this severely negative reaction before the water change. It was the addition of the sump that seemed to have caused this (or the 2-3 gallons I added when I added the sump). It seems that if I leave the sump off for a long time and then turn it on the tank reacts poorly. I thought that this was due to a contaminant in the sump.

Tell me how reasonable this sounds as an alternative theory...

My tank doesn't really have enough circulation, and thus not enough oxygenation. Perhaps when I turn the sump off for half a day the PH in my tank drops because of this, and when I turn it back on, it quickly comes back up due to the very effective gas exchange that takes place in a wet/dry. Also, the sump has a much greater surface-area-to-volume ratio than my tank, so the water in there is likely much cooler due to not being under the lights and having more evaporation relative to volume. Maybe these two things together make my turning the sump on after a while of having it off quite a shock to my tank.

 

[SpeedRacerXX1]

you're turning your pumps off in the tank??????