Seachem phytoplankton instant kill

hzheng33

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i have never seen this before and i would like to share this with my fellow ARC users: i have a frag of the red war coral in my tank for slightly over a month now. i have always wanted all of my corals to grow beautifully and i have never fed them phytos before. so one day out of whim i ordered the Seachem phyto from Petco online and as soon as i got it i used my Julian's Thing to target the phyto to all of my corals. when i squirted the phyto on the red war coral, i noticed immediately that the redness on the coral almost turned brown within minutes. the next day, the area where i directly squirted the phyto has fuzzy stuffs and needless to say that part of the coral is now dead. has anyone seen this before? my other corals are doing fine but just not the red war. now i only have a few (2 or 3) of the polyps on the red war and i don't know what i did wrong.

and the thing i can't wrap my head around is that the red war gave its death or sick sign IMMEDIATELY after dosing when it turn from red to redish brown to brown to fuzzy brown stuffs. my GSP, monti, digitata, birdsnest, and many others are fine.
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weird... had you been using your Feeder tube to kill aptasias recently? Just wondering if you had some sort of residue in there from something you previously did
 
SnowManSnow;914384 wrote: weird... had you been using your Feeder tube to kill aptasias recently? Just wondering if you had some sort of residue in there from something you previously did

Or is it possible there was a big temperature difference in the phyto?
 
Have you contacted Seachem? That would probably be a good first step. Give them a call or email and see what they have to say. you may need to send a sample of the product to them for testing.
 
I'd also look to petco. I bought a supplement from them recently in store, and when i went to use it, I noticed little strands floating in it. I then looked at the bottle and noticed the manufacture date was over ten years ago.
 
I use their phytoplankton weekly for the past two years. Never an issue. Target feeding or otherwise.
 
SnowManSnow;914384 wrote: weird... had you been using your Feeder tube to kill aptasias recently? Just wondering if you had some sort of residue in there from something you previously did

no, the julian's thing was used previously to deliver baby brine shrimps for the sps


dball711;914391 wrote: Or is it possible there was a big temperature difference in the phyto?

well, i'm not sure how much difference it can make, but the bottle of phyto was at room temperature (which isn't too cold or hot considering the weather lately)

Ripped Tide;914395 wrote: Have you contacted Seachem? That would probably be a good first step. Give them a call or email and see what they have to say. you may need to send a sample of the product to them for testing.
i haven't contacted them, i'm not sure how much further i can get since nowadays everyone seems to be getting "customer-no-service" from various vendors

Edit: also keep in mind that my other sps, lps, and softies are fine. but the red war coral was target fed first, not sure how much difference it made tho
 
hzheng33;914423 wrote:

i haven't contacted them, i'm not sure how much further i can get since nowadays everyone seems to be getting "customer-no-service" from various vendors

On the good side, Seachem has a pretty good and active C.S. department. Try shooting them an e-mail.
 
I doubt it as well, but at least they'll be responsive in trying to help you.
 
Ringo®;914432 wrote: I doubt it as well, but at least they'll be responsive in trying to help you.

+1 if there is an issue with the product, it will help them to know about it.
 
well, i was on the phone with Petco's manager and he said that he will "make it right". but while i was on the phone the aquatic specialist pointed to the fact that there's citric acid in the bottle (it's listed as part of the ingredients) and that could have killed the coral if in concentration. it makes me wonder, how could this be? how could this "concentrate" liquid kill one coral and not another. oh i forgot to mention that two of my cleaners shrimps have died as well because of the situation and next day of the incident, my nitrate skyrocketed for the first time since the cycling process.
 
hzheng33;914730 wrote: but don't corals like red war(my unfortunate casualty) and monti like to have micro planktons?

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=597+1464+3159&pcatid=3159">http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=597+1464+3159&pcatid=3159</a>[/QUOTE]

They typically will eat zooplankton, not phytoplankton. Its an entirely different thing. Unfortunately, forcing phyto onto a coral will likely only harm it.

[QUOTE=][B]Ringo®;914736 wrote:[/B] You're thinking zooplankton....phytoplankton feeds zooplankton[/QUOTE]

Exactly.
 
Contact Seachem. You WILL get a reply. Seachem's customer service is second to none.

Jenn
 
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