Why are my softies dying?

[Derlin]

The pulsing Xenia melted away and the waving hand became brittle and started breaking off. They both started quickly dying at the same time. Now the Kenya tree doesn’t look too happy. While the other corals (green nepthelia, mushrooms, zoas, lps, and sps) seem to be doing fine. How is that happening? 

 

Temp is 77, ph is 8, alk is 8, salinity is 36, calcium is 380, ammonia is undetectable, nitrates at 15 (when usually they are undetectable,) phosphate is also undetectable, magnesium is 1280.

 

As as far as tank changes in the past few weeks, I treated my bc14 tank successfully with chemiclean since cyano was persistently covering the sand in one of the corners. Got a peppermint shrimp and lettuce sea slug. There was also a huge brittle star mating event. I’m not sure what else to say. 

 

Has anyone else heard of this happening? I’ve read some suggestions on the forums about why the pulsing Xenia or waving hands abruptly crash, but it seems weird that those corals crashed at the same time. The toadstool was the nearest coral to them and was retracted for a couple days beforehand, did it release a toxin?

 

Thank you for reading my loooong post!

[burtbollinger]

did you do the recommended water change after chemiclean?

 

could the Ph drop from not aerating the water properly during the chemiclean treatment cause die off?

 

sounds like a packed in group of corals in a 14 (true mixed reef...challenging in a 14g imo)...could be chemical warefare too from that leather. 

 

you running carbon?  

 

[Derlin]

I did the 20% water change and used the display tank power head to agitate the water surface and a small air stone in the back third chamber when the chemi clean was used.

 

I also have a skimmer and uses filter floss, purigen, and chemi pure elite. 

[OPtasia]

The solution to pollution is dilution.

 

Filter floss needs to be changed often. Weekly or bi-weekly to remove coarse organics and prevent it from becoming a nitrate factory constantly feeding nitrates into your water column. Your nitrates are creeping up on the high side, that's why I bring it up. Using all three: Skimmer, purigen and chemi-pure elite is a little overkill. You might want to consider just running the chemical media or vice versa just the skimmer for a while. 

 

What I would do is perform a few larger water changes with RO/DI water and a good quality sea salt. I'd replace the purigen and chemi-pure elite with fresh media. I find i'm replacing my bags of purigen and phos-guard every month or so in my bio cube.

 

You might also want to consider creating a refugium with chaetomorpha algae that will help stabilize pH at night, remove organics and become a home for copepods.

[Derlin]

I think I’ll run to the store today and get new media and water and just clean the tank. I’d love to get cheato for the back chamber too, just can’t decide on a light 

[Andreww]

I’d run only Carbon nothing else just to take out whatever the corals discharged . If you’re a fan of chemi-pure, I’d rather get the blue not the elite.