WAR5150
Guest
Hey folks, I’ve got another question from the far reaches of my dad's tank. He had two strange and sudden things happen in his well-established 75 gallon. I found out after the fact or when things were already too far in motion but we’ve asked around and didn’t get a lot of great answers, so I told him I’d throw a line out here to see if there are any thoughts. Enough of my rambling..
Event 1: He has a rock fully covered with GSP and some anthelia. For some reason, the GSP all died off. The anthelia is still there and nothing else in the tank is affected, the BTAs, zoas, fish, inverts, heck, the clownfish are laying eggs. He hasn't added anything new. Only change was a slight placement alteration of a powerhead to adjust flow path, but that was minor. It took about a month all said and done. He noticed it looked a little different, looked a little different, then boom, all gone. So it took a month, but it wasn't exactly gradual either. I found out when it was all gone. In the picture you can see a couple polyps still but I am visiting right now and there is none left.
Video of the rest of the tank I took the screenshot from.
Event 2: About 2 weeks later, GSP completely gone, his flame angel began acting funny. It started swimming vertically at the surface of the water. Swimming is a strong description of what it was doing. If you came up to it, it would freak out and try to jump out of the water. There is a lid, so it would just keep hitting the lid, but the fish was very frantic and clearly not doing well. We could tell it was on its way out and unfortunately had no clue what to do to try and save it, or if it even could be saved. A day or two later, the fish had died overnight. He probably had the fish for 1 1/2-2 years, but I don't know how old it actually was. Some water testing was done and it seemed like nitrates were high, but ultimately stable from usual. You can read my note about his testing "regime" below. Again, this was an isolated event as in all the other fish are doing fine and nothing else is exhibiting any strange behaviors.
Video of the sick flame angel. NOTE BEFORE WATCHING: The sick is clearly sick and will die soon, so it is not pleasant to watch.
Notes about parameters: He has never kept records of any parameters so there is no baseline. There have never been crashes or anything since even before he upgraded tanks so he has the consistency, even without the data points. He'll take his water to the LFS occasionally when they start talking numbers he basically says "is it where it needs to be?" and the answer is always yes. He bought some API test strips as event 1 unfolded and even though he may have some parameters outside of "ideal", the advice is to not change things because otherwise, everything else is thriving. The only real changes he has made during this ordeal, is increases the amount of water changes instead of adding/subtracting anything to try and chase numbers since his tank is otherwise running well.
So what I am really asking: does anybody have any thoughts about what may have happened? We're just trying to spit-ball ideas because the LFS didn't have anything much. It seems weird that one specific coral, GSP at that, would suddenly die off in an area while the others are fine. And then the fish acts funny and dies suddenly. We are not convinced the episodes are related, although the time frames are worth noting so we wouldn't rule something out.
Event 1: He has a rock fully covered with GSP and some anthelia. For some reason, the GSP all died off. The anthelia is still there and nothing else in the tank is affected, the BTAs, zoas, fish, inverts, heck, the clownfish are laying eggs. He hasn't added anything new. Only change was a slight placement alteration of a powerhead to adjust flow path, but that was minor. It took about a month all said and done. He noticed it looked a little different, looked a little different, then boom, all gone. So it took a month, but it wasn't exactly gradual either. I found out when it was all gone. In the picture you can see a couple polyps still but I am visiting right now and there is none left.
Event 2: About 2 weeks later, GSP completely gone, his flame angel began acting funny. It started swimming vertically at the surface of the water. Swimming is a strong description of what it was doing. If you came up to it, it would freak out and try to jump out of the water. There is a lid, so it would just keep hitting the lid, but the fish was very frantic and clearly not doing well. We could tell it was on its way out and unfortunately had no clue what to do to try and save it, or if it even could be saved. A day or two later, the fish had died overnight. He probably had the fish for 1 1/2-2 years, but I don't know how old it actually was. Some water testing was done and it seemed like nitrates were high, but ultimately stable from usual. You can read my note about his testing "regime" below. Again, this was an isolated event as in all the other fish are doing fine and nothing else is exhibiting any strange behaviors.
Notes about parameters: He has never kept records of any parameters so there is no baseline. There have never been crashes or anything since even before he upgraded tanks so he has the consistency, even without the data points. He'll take his water to the LFS occasionally when they start talking numbers he basically says "is it where it needs to be?" and the answer is always yes. He bought some API test strips as event 1 unfolded and even though he may have some parameters outside of "ideal", the advice is to not change things because otherwise, everything else is thriving. The only real changes he has made during this ordeal, is increases the amount of water changes instead of adding/subtracting anything to try and chase numbers since his tank is otherwise running well.
So what I am really asking: does anybody have any thoughts about what may have happened? We're just trying to spit-ball ideas because the LFS didn't have anything much. It seems weird that one specific coral, GSP at that, would suddenly die off in an area while the others are fine. And then the fish acts funny and dies suddenly. We are not convinced the episodes are related, although the time frames are worth noting so we wouldn't rule something out.
