Tank Emergency!!!

[DuhJeepster]

Not mine (thank goodness), but a very good friend from another board has a problem with 72g bow front reef tank.

Here is what she posted:

"I got up this morning and checked my 72-gallon reef tank's overnight kalk drip, as I do every morning, and all was fine. In fact, all has been fine with this tank since it was set up about 2 years ago, and changed over to a reef tank last spring.

About an hour later, I glanced at the tank as I was getting my boys out the door for school, and it seemed a little hazy. I took a closer look, and it was REALLY hazy. I turned on the actinics, and was not expecting to see the sight I saw -- my corals are slimed, my clams are mostly closed, my xenia is puny and barely pumping, my urchin is immobile, and my poor BTA is shrivelled and sagging. NOT a good scene.

I quickly did a water change, cleaned and cranked up the skimmer, and threw a HOT filter on the tank jammed with carbon. Five hours later things are no better. In fact, things look a little worse.

I have no idea what's going on. There is no ammonia, no caulerpa that could have crashed, nothing. But obviously something triggered it, and I'm afraid of a chain reaction that my lead to the demise of the BTA, which could wipe out all the tank's inhabitants.

I'm not sure what to do at this point. The BTA's still attached to the rock and doesn't appear dead, although it may be close. I've seen 3 of the 4 fish that reside in the tank -- my maroon clown pair and female mandarin are occasionally out and about, but my beautiful male mandarin is unaccounted for as of now.

Ugh. Any thoughts/advice would be appreciated."

I'd appreciate any advice you guys have on this.

Thanks!
Duhjeepster

[Maxx]

Wow.....need more info...water parameters?
Could be many things from something spawning in a confined system (which would usually produce ammonia) to precipitation of Calcium from the water caused by over saturation of the water column.
We need to know all water parameters first though.
Nick

[DuhJeepster]

Yea I figured as much. I asked here to test ph, nitrates, nitrites, calcium and alkalinity; she already tested ammonia Can you think of anymore?

TIA

[Michael_Lambert]

How old are her clams?

i have not heard it too often.. But Clams can spawn in home aquariums.. and when they do i have seen this.. they PUKE out all kinds of WHITE milky stuff.. really really messes with the tank.. major water changes are needed when this happends.. they poduce alot of not sure the word..

How many clams and what kind?

[DuhJeepster]

Not sure, maybe one or possibly two at the most. Would that cloud a 72g tank? I mean if she has only two?

[Curtswearing]

Tony,

It sounds like a snowstorm POSSIBLY. If so, a waterchange just adds more fuel to the fire.

Also, something could have died that is poisonous (some cukes, some fish, anemone's, etc.)

Definately get those readings. I can't think of any more tests.

[DuhJeepster]

Ok thanks Curt! I appreciate the replies thanks guys.

[SunnyX]

Maybe she is experiencing the "Magnesium effect". Julian Sprung conducted tests with many Kalk mixes. He for that unpure Kalk put too much magnesium into the tank. The tank inhabitants would look great for a while and than suddenly take a turn for the worse. This was caused by a breakdown in the calcification process. Calcium is quickly depleated and all hell breaks loose in the tank.
Just a thought.

[DuhJeepster]

Thanks SunnyX for the insight!

[Travis]

I would guess that she's looking at a pH issue. Hard to tell without the tank params. Especially, in this case, alk and pH.

If she stopped the kalk drip and then turned on the lights and an hour later the tank started crashing, that could very well be that the kalk had the pH unnaturally high, then of course the pH goes up after the lights come on.

[DuhJeepster]

Ok her tank seems to have taken a turn for the better . . . thank goodness.

Here is her post:

"Well, that was an interesting 12 hours. And I still have no clue what happened.

Things seem to be improving, albeit slowly. The haze is starting to diminish. The corals seem to be releasing less slime, the clams are open a bit more, some polyps are starting to open, and my fish are now coming out. They've been in hiding all afternoon. I even see some movement from my little tuxedo urchin. The BTA still looks awful, but it is responding to touch so it's not dead. The xenia looks to be on the brink of death, however, which is too bad. This xenia is a lovely silvery-pink with non-stop pumping. I really like it.

As I mentioned, everything happened within about a 1-hour timeframe this morning. I dripped my usual nightly kalk, which I've done exactly the same way for several months now, and nothing out of the ordinary happened in or around the tank. My first thought this morning was that perhaps the kalk drip had emptied the entire 2.5 gallons of kalk solution into the sump. But a near-full container proved otherwise.

I did some testing this afternoon and there was zero ammonia, calcium is at 435, and alkalinity is at 3.0 meq/L (8.4 dKH). So the kalk doesn't seem to be at fault, as nothing appears to have precipitated out. The pH is currently low, about 7.9, but I believe the drop is a result of this unexplained event."

And another update:

"Twenty-four hours later, the water is crystal clear, and most of the critters appear to be okay. There are a few exceptions, however. The BTA and xenia are still having big problems, and my trumpet and frogspawn corals have some dark areas on them. Looks like it might be some necrotic tissue.

I considered some sort of reproductive event as a possible cause, too. In fact, I've seen my urchin release white milky stuff into the water, but it caused minimal cloudiness and was gone in an hour or so. Can't think of anything else in there that might do that, but I could be wrong.

Fortunately, I've got a pretty good grasp on the calcium/pH/alkalinity relationship, but it took a while. Everything is where it should be. I haven't tested the pH yet today, but I'm sure the overnight kalk brought it up. No, I haven't been saving the skimmate, and I'm not sure what I could have done with it had I saved it. I had to turn down the skimmer's airflow a bit, because once it kicked in the skimmate kept overflowing the collection cup.

I'm about to go change out the carbon. I'm sure the corals released plenty of nasty stuff into the water. It'll be interesting to see how everything responds when the MHs come on a little later."

Thanks again you guys for the replies!


DuhJeepster

[Curtswearing]

Wow----there's so much going on in our tanks that we don't understand. Maybe it was the clams. Maybe some household cleaning product got into the tank. Who knows???

I have a feeling if she wouldn't have jumped through the hoops she did, the ending could have been very different.

[EdgeKrusher]

Weird...

[DuhJeepster]

Yes I agree Curt, if she hadn't jump on the problem quickly I would have not wanted to see the outcome, if you know what I mean.