My reef tank is slowly dying before my eyes right now, and I have no idea what is going on. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
I have a 40 gallon tank established back in 10/2004 that has been fairly stable until now. Here's what I have (or had):
Corals: Anthelia (still doing well), star polyps (closed and probably dying), green zooanthids (closed and probably dying), torch coral (just died), bubble coral (died), mushroom polyps (died), and maze coral (starting to die). Of note, algae has completely overgrown my star polyp skeleton.
Other invertebrates: coral shrimp (doing well), turbo snails (all dead), money cowry (alive), small sea urchin (dead), pink sea cucumber (alive), yellow sea cucumber (alive), sand-sifting star (alive), brittle star (missing). Also a long-tentacled anemone that is acting strange (ie., more retracted) lately.
Fishes: Ocellaris clownfish (alive), canary wrasse (dead), and yellow-tail damselfish (dead).
Here's the puzzling thing: my water test results (which I've double-checked).
Temp 79-80 F, pH 1.024, pH 8.2, alkalinity normal, ammonia 0, nitrites 0, nitrates 0, Ca 380, and phosphate 0.
Other possible clues:
Lighting: 192 watts of blue and white actinic bulbs, with automatic timer on for 9 hours each day.
I was recently out of town for 1 week, and had a colleague feed my fish once in the middle of the week. I overfilled the tank slightly with fresh water before I left to minimize adverse affects from evaporation. When I came back at 1am, I noticed my tank lights were on, so somehow the automatic timer got off track when I was gone. I promptly corrected that.
Also, I started erythromycin treatment for my tank for Cyanobacter right after I got back into town for 4 days, and had the protein skimmer shut off for awhile. A lot of the aforementioned carnage had already occurred before I started such treatment.
Thanks in advance for any help... :sad:
I have a 40 gallon tank established back in 10/2004 that has been fairly stable until now. Here's what I have (or had):
Corals: Anthelia (still doing well), star polyps (closed and probably dying), green zooanthids (closed and probably dying), torch coral (just died), bubble coral (died), mushroom polyps (died), and maze coral (starting to die). Of note, algae has completely overgrown my star polyp skeleton.
Other invertebrates: coral shrimp (doing well), turbo snails (all dead), money cowry (alive), small sea urchin (dead), pink sea cucumber (alive), yellow sea cucumber (alive), sand-sifting star (alive), brittle star (missing). Also a long-tentacled anemone that is acting strange (ie., more retracted) lately.
Fishes: Ocellaris clownfish (alive), canary wrasse (dead), and yellow-tail damselfish (dead).
Here's the puzzling thing: my water test results (which I've double-checked).
Temp 79-80 F, pH 1.024, pH 8.2, alkalinity normal, ammonia 0, nitrites 0, nitrates 0, Ca 380, and phosphate 0.
Other possible clues:
Lighting: 192 watts of blue and white actinic bulbs, with automatic timer on for 9 hours each day.
I was recently out of town for 1 week, and had a colleague feed my fish once in the middle of the week. I overfilled the tank slightly with fresh water before I left to minimize adverse affects from evaporation. When I came back at 1am, I noticed my tank lights were on, so somehow the automatic timer got off track when I was gone. I promptly corrected that.
Also, I started erythromycin treatment for my tank for Cyanobacter right after I got back into town for 4 days, and had the protein skimmer shut off for awhile. A lot of the aforementioned carnage had already occurred before I started such treatment.
Thanks in advance for any help... :sad:
