massive die-off

[flashmc]

I bought a rock yesterday that had 4 mushrooms on it, the whole rock was about the size of a baseball. It took me about 2 hours to get home and the water did get warm but not that bad, everything still looked good when I put them in. I also moved around some of my other corals, moved a mushroom and a small patch of zooanthids. I then fed a little too much cyclopeeze. I say too much because I only planned on one squirt, but the bottle was pretty much empty, so I unsrewed the pump and just swished the tube in the water and more than one squirt came off the tube. Everything seemed fine, I even was going to take some new pictures of the tank as it was really coming along nicely and I have been trying to take pictures every few days. Well, fast forward three hours and my lawnmower blenny and my green coris wrasse are up near the filter intake breathing very heavy. I just ran tests two days ago and I also performed an approx. 1.75 gallon WC then. My readings were all normal. I immediately get ready for another water change, maybe 2.5 gallons this time. I also pull some water for tests, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate are all way too high. I have a pond, so I keep Prime around since I don't fill my pond from the RO unit. I put in a small amount of Prime to neutrilize the ammonia, nitrite & nitrates. After an hour or two the new SW is up to temperature, so I do a quick 2.5G WC. immediately the lawnmower blenny looks a little better, breathing has slowed to almost normal, and the green coris wrasse is no longer hanging out by the intake. I watch them for probably the next hour, and my mushrooms, candy coral, xenia all look fine too. I go to sleep pretty much convinced that the danger has passed and things will be better this morning. I couldn't have been more wrong. I woke up this morning to a dead lawnmower blenny, green coris wrasse, two peppermint shrimp, a linckia multiflora. Some of the mushrooms still look fine, but a couple look sorta bad, my zooanthids haven't opened up yet, my gsp haven't come out either and my xenia looks very bad. The water is way cloudy too. I just did a 4G water change with water I prepared last night. I also prepared another 4G for either later today or tomorrow. This is the quickest bad turn of events I have ever seen.

 

I know that everyone says you shouldn't start in SW with a nano because only bad things go fast and with a nano that is even a quicker reality, but this tank was coming along so well. I had pods coming out of the woodwork after only 4 weeks. My water readings have been fine the entire time I have had the tank going.

 

What could have caused this to go bad so quickly? Could a new piece of rock with mushrooms on it send it into a new cycle that it wasn't capable of handling?

 

UPDATE:

The fighting conch and the astreas seem to have made it. My zoanthids have almost all made it through, and my GSP has partially come out.

 

Robert

[tinyreef]

Originally posted by flashmc It took me about 2 hours to get home and the water did get warm but not that bad, everything still looked good when I put them in.

transit is already stressful, heating them up doesn't help. better that they were a little cooler (not cold) than warmer ime. you have a greater range for tolerance below 78F~80F than higher (i.e. 88F-max temp for very limited times, while i've seen corals survive exposure down to 65F for extended periods).

 

I then fed a little too much cyclopeeze.

that wouldn't have helped the situation. people often think food unstresses livestock, sometimes it actually causes stress.

 

What could have caused this to go bad so quickly? Could a new piece of rock with mushrooms on it send it into a new cycle that it wasn't capable of handling?

adding livestock (any livestock) adds to the load on the biofilters. that's one of the reasons why i never get those 9 for $99 or whatever group-buys specials unless the intended system is actually understocked.

 

in addition, most livestock will mucus up during transfers besides their normal body processes. :x

 

wc's and careful monitoring is what you need now until the system stabilizes again. make sure the wc's are gradual too. hth

[coralreefer]

Originally posted by flashmc

It took me about 2 hours to get home and the water did get warm but not that bad,  

Robert

 

i've been involved in tanks *a long* time. learned years ago to bring a small ice chest with me when purchasing livestock and not rely on bags etc. that the lfs give us to bring 'em home in. this keeps your purchase cool, shaded and from roling around in the car. hope all turns out well for you.