First Post!

[TheGeekyDad]

I wanted to say “hi” to everyone. I’m new to reefing and have really benefited from all of the knowledge on these forums. Things have been going really well, going on 6 months now with my tank and no big problems so far … until this past weekend. I thought I’d share and maybe finally contribute back.

Sunday morning and I did my normal weekly 10% water change on my 55 gallon tank. I use store bought saltwater and ro/di water. Went out for the day and came back in the evening … to a disaster! All my corals closed up, some of my LPS white, not bleached… we are talking white as snow All my fish were swimming downwards. I was seriously freaking out. The LFS was closed so I couldn’t call them. I was positive they sold me bad water. I immediately thought I should do a massive water change and had four 5-gallon jugs left but since it caused the problem in the first place I didn’t have much hope and couldn’t get any new water. I had to do something so I started draining 50% of the water. As I was pouring in the replacement water, I resigned myself to my first tank crash and all the money and friends lost in fish and coral that I had individually named with my kids.
Then to my surprise… a little color started showing up in some of my corals. The fish stopped swimming erratically. Polyps started opening… what the heck? I started having some hope.

The next morning, sadly we lost the very first 2 fish we had bought… a couple clownfish we had named Milk and Cookie. Milk was a Snowflake clown and Cookie was a smaller Nemo look-alike. The other fish seem to be recovering, and eating again. The corals seem to have some of their color back and only one small frag of Zoas aren’t opening.

I thought hard about what could have explained this. It was the same water morning and evening and I’m pretty sure there are no contaminants as the jugs are tightly sealed.

This is what I think happened, let me know what you guys think… so the last time I bought water I had a

 

[Bolicks]

Sorry to hear about your crash, but welcome!

Do you still have some of the water from the store? May be worth sending for ICP testing to determine what's going on...

 

[JVU]

Sorry to hear about this, but welcome to the club!

Your story text cut off just as you were telling us what you think happened; now you‘ve got me waiting in anticipation

 

[dochou]

Sorry to hear about the crash and loss of Milk and Cookie.
Did the 2nd water change come from the same batch of water as the first? ie did you buy the water the at the same time? If so did all the water come from the same container at the LFS?
Did you check the water parameters?
Could the temperature have been way off in the new water? Too cold or warm?

 

[TheGeekyDad]

Sorry! Went to visit family in LA for Thanksgiving and didn’t know my post got cut off

So I think the problem is that my local fish store sells reef water. It hasn’t been a problem so far, but I think I messed up when I got the last batch. I had 2 containers that were half filled. I figured I would pour one into the other so I could bring another container to be filled. However, one of the containers had ro/di water. I figure it would just reduce the salinity by half… no big deal. BUT I’m guessing it killed or caused a bloom of something toxic in the salt water. That’s my best guess of what happened… didn’t think it was going to be a problem but hindsight is 20/20. I still have a bleached lobo I’m trying to nurse back to health.

 

[BAYMAC]

Your second post came as I was typing that is sounded like salinity issues with the SW

 

[JVU]

So if half your 5g water change was RODI, it would reduce your salinity only a couple points, like 35 to 33. Not great to do all at once, but also not something I’d expect to cause a crash and fish losses. If most of the water change was RODI and it reduced your salinity from 35 to 31, that would be a different story and would be more dangerous.

My guess is there was something else unintended in the water you added, like maybe the water you mixed the saltwater with wasn’t just RODI but something else. Just a guess. You wouldn’t be the first reefer to think an unlabeled bucket of clear liquid was RODI or saltwater when it was actually something else.

 

[TheGeekyDad]

I didn’t add it to the tank right away. I poured 2.5 gallons of ro/di into a container of 2.5 gallons of reef water to free up a container. And it sat there for about a month before I used it. There’s probably all sorts of stuff in reef water and I’m just guessing it died or became toxic. I’m just guessing though. Bottom line is I stopped using reef water. I found another store that makes water from salt.

 

[JVU]

I didn’t add it to the tank right away. I poured 2.5 gallons of ro/di into a container of 2.5 gallons of reef water to free up a container. And it sat there for about a month before I used it. There’s probably all sorts of stuff in reef water and I’m just guessing it died or became toxic. I’m just guessing though. Bottom line is I stopped using reef water. I found another store that makes water from salt.

When you say “reef water” do you mean ocean water? No one sells water actually from reefs, but there is a guy who filters local ocean water and goes around and delivers to the LFS’s. I saw that you mixed them first, I was just commenting that I think something else is going on since that percentage of RODI added in a water change wouldn’t cause a crash in my opinion. It is possible that ocean water made to half salinity and sit for a month could kill some of the tiny amount of microbes in the water that make it past the filter, but I‘m skeptical that would then cause a die-off in your tank when added. I would imagine that many of the microbes that live in Northern California sea water would not survive when added to a reef tank, but I don’t recall hearing of the filtered ocean water provided to the LFS’s crashing a tank.

 

[TheGeekyDad]

When you say “reef water” do you mean ocean water? No one sells water actually from reefs, but there is a guy who filters local ocean water and goes around and delivers to the LFS’s. I saw that you mixed them first, I was just commenting that I think something else is going on since that percentage of RODI added in a water change wouldn’t cause a crash in my opinion. It is possible that ocean water made to half salinity and sit for a month could kill some of the tiny amount of microbes in the water that make it past the filter, but I‘m skeptical that would then cause a die-off in your tank when added. I would imagine that many of the microbes that live in Northern California sea water would not survive when added to a reef tank, but I don’t recall hearing of the filtered ocean water provided to the LFS’s crashing a tank.

You’re right, it’s ocean water. The LFS says it’s pulled from Half Moon Bay. It was just a guess on my part. I wish I had some left but I poured it all into the tank.

I hope my lobo recovers. Anything I can do? It’s still losing color slowly… I’ve moved it down to the bottom of the tank and am target feeding it. Also have it protected with that plastic cup in the picture.

 

[JVU]

You’re right, it’s ocean water. The LFS says it’s pulled from Half Moon Bay. It was just a guess on my part. I wish I had some left but I poured it all into the tank.

I hope my lobo recovers. Anything I can do? It’s still losing color slowly… I’ve moved it down to the bottom of the tank and am target feeding it. Also have it protected with that plastic cup in the picture.

I wish I had useful advice for you. Lobos are sensitive, and I’ve had them both recover or not after an insult, for reasons I can’t tell. I agree with lower flow and lower light. I don’t think you need the cup protection unless you have something in the tank picking at it. It could make it worse if the jagged edges rub on the flesh.

 

[TheGeekyDad]

I wish I had useful advice for you. Lobos are sensitive, and I’ve had them both recover or not after an insult, for reasons I can’t tell. I agree with lower flow and lower light. I don’t think you need the cup protection unless you have something in the tank picking at it. It could make it worse if the jagged edges rub on the flesh.

Thanks! I’ll hope for the best. The cup is to stop my shrimp from stealing food from it. But I’ll remove it when it’s not feeding. I didn’t think about the edges rubbing against it.

 

[TheGeekyDad]

Is it just me or does this hobby just kick you in the arse every now and then?!? I was literally just about to post about how much I love my tank… things have been stable for months now… everything growing happily… even my acros have polyps extending and good colors. Well… I woke up to this this morning. NO IDEA where the ick came from. Nothing new added to the tank in weeks. He’s happily swimming around and eating but WHAT THE HECK?!? Other fish are all completely fine…

 

[H2OPlayar]

My blue tang will pick up ich every now and again. After a few days of multiple little feedings a day to bring its strength back up, it usually kicked the ich on its own. Nori or other macro algaes fed routinely will help.

 

[TheGeekyDad]

That’s for posting. I didn’t want to stress her out even more by trying to catch and quarantine her so I did what you said of more frequent feedings. I also soaked food in Selcon. She still has some spots but is getting much better now! I think she’ll recover just fine.

 

[NickRoseSN1985]

My blue tang(in he/hers early 20s) is the same. Some times it’s twice a year other times it might be 3 or 4 times year. I don’t change up the feeding. Normally goes away in a week or so.