SPS turned white overnight!!

[atlorange]

My red monti cap and red digi looked horrible when I got home today (light pink). A couple of acros looked bleached too, and my eagle eye zoas are closed up tight!

No idea what could have happened. Temp is find 78.6. Alk has always been on the low side at 7, calc at 400, PH 8.3. Nitrate < 5.

I really don't know what could have happened in less that 24 hours. Everything looked great last night!!

The only thing I did last night was feed a small amount of Rod's Coral food, along with 3 mL of Fuel. This morning I added 10mL each part of B-Ionic like I always do.

I just did a 25% WC in a rush, that is all I had made up. I will do at least another 25% tomorrow.

Just don't know what could have caused this. I am going to test Ammonia and Nitrite just to be sure.

Any advice is surely welcome.

 

[atlorange]

ares;315639 wrote: ammonia/nitrite would be my first guess.

any chemicals been used in the area? extermination, painting, construction?

Nitrite and ammonia test 0.

No chemicals or construction have been in the house.

 

[dakota9]

When SPS dies, it doesn't fiddle around! my last tank Ritt had sold me a nice blue something or another...... it tripled in size in just 2 months or so. Looked good one day, looked like a white deer antler the next...... My first and last LE experience.....

 

[ralph atl]

what exactly is fuel, and how long have you been using it? Do you have a skimmer? Top closed? Whats ph? Check your alk again, I would raise it slowly, and what salt? How long have u had those sps? What flow do u have? Do u have a fuge? How low does your alk get?

 

[ralph atl]

Sorry, missed ph! U have that listed.

 

[ralph atl]

I see your flow down there, too! Hummm.

 

[ralph atl]

Is fuel a carbon source? Or food?

 

[atlorange]

mysterybox;315667 wrote: what exactly is fuel, and how long have you been using it? Do you have a skimmer? Top closed? Whats ph? Check your alk again, I would raise it slowly, and what salt? How long have u had those sps? What flow do u have? Do u have a fuge? How low does your alk get?

I will check the alk again. It stays around 7 usually. Lowest I have seen is 6.
Fuel is part Seachem's Avitro (sp?) line of supplements, for coral health. Been using for 3 months.

Top is closed. Salt is D+D Pro Salt. No fuge. Skimmer is Deltec MCE 300. Tank has been set up for 16 months with absolutely no problems with any corals until now. It's like someone poisoned it or something. No idea what could do this much damage in such a short amount of time. Especially, to the hardy monti cap.

I got the monti cap from Jin back in December. It has always looked great and is 4 times larger than when I got it. The digi is about 2.5 months old. My tubs, ORA green and ORA Bird of Paradise birdsnests all look okay.

 

[son of adam]

Fuel is Seachem: Carbohydrate, vitamin, fatty acid and amino acid suppliement for coral. Aquavitro line of products.

 

[ralph atl]

how often do you put fuel in your tank? how much do you skim out each day?

I would stop using fuel for now, just to rule it out. Raise your alk to 8-9 to be in the middle range. do that over a week. Your alk could have gotten really low, while your phosphates might have gone through the roof?

any aerosols spraying around? floor cleaners? burn a Teflon pan? what about cleaning the glass? do you test phates? (sorry before, but now I'm on my pc, so now I can read! LOL!)

 

[derek_s]

SOrry to hear that man. Good luck finding the cause. My suspicions always make me question nitrates and alk swings first when it comes to sps.

 

[atlorange]

Tested Alk with a different test it came back 7 as well. Fist was with API, second with Instant Ocean. I will take a water sample in to Creation tomorrow.

I add 3 mL of fuel twice a week. I will stop using it for now. Should I just use baking soda to raise my alk? Anything better? Would just dosing the alk part of B-Ionic be better?

My Deltec skimmer works okay. I feed my 3 fish very lightly. I get about a cup a week of dark skimmate.

I clean the glass with a water and vinegar mix, nothing else. No cleaners or chemicals have been in use. Phosphate tested undedectable, API (not the best but I am partially color blind and seem to read their colors better than Salifert and others I have tried).

 

[ralph atl]

alk portion of B-ionic is fine. use this calcualtor to figure how much here:

 

[ralph atl]

atlorange;315697 wrote:
but I am partially color blind and seem to read their colors better than

That could get you in trouble, but i'm not sure how bad it is. Do you have someone with you that can verify colors? You might want to invest in some pinpoint meters or some other ones that might be more helpful to you.

 

[atlorange]

mysterybox;315712 wrote: That could get you in trouble, but i'm not sure how bad it is. Do you have someone with you that can verify colors? You might want to invest in some pinpoint meters or some other ones that might be more helpful to you.

Ya, usually I have my wife verify what I think it is. So far with API I am always right. With Salifert they use a lot of pastel/subtle hues and that's no good for me.

 

[chauwall]

This may be basic, but did you check the salinity? The swing on a 28 gal tank can be pretty rapid.

 

[atlorange]

chauwall;315798 wrote: This may be basic, but did you check the salinity? The swing on a 28 gal tank can be pretty rapid.

Ya, it is 1.026 as checked with calibrated refractometer.

 

[lilrobb]

Anything missing in the tank?
Large snail rotting in the overflow or something?

Robb

 

[jamos5790]

Very Strange I just came home to a WHITE ANTLER, birdsnest frag. I just checked my params and
Ammonia=0
ph=8.2
nitrite=0
nitrate=0-5
calcium=460
My shrooms are inflated looking good, my 3 small xenia frags are pulsating away, zoas looking good, IDK what happened to it. All I know is the feather starfish I added likes sitting up there at night, but @midnight lastnight everything looked good.

 

[atlorange]

Happy to report that everything seems to be coming back after several large WCs. Eagle eyes are open and montis colors are coming back. The cap has almost fully recovered. Only the edges are still pale.

Still don't know what happened. My ONLY guess at this point was that I may not have shaken up the Fuel per instructions before adding it to the tank, but I have no idea whether or not this would cause a problem.