mark_d
Member
Ok... so ive been caring for mah babies for the last 3-4 months now... i HAD some xenia, zoos, stars, sun coral, and gorgonian... and then 5 days ago... all dead! in one day too!!
Now, Im posting this mainly for 2 reasons
1) to apologize to those with whom i was going to trade cause now i cant T__T
2) to see if anyone can provide a little insight on what might have happened.
Now, the tank I have is a 24 gallon aquapod. Additives and food are mostly purple up (for the calcium and iodine (among other stuff) in it), phyto, cyclopleeze, ... what everyone adds. Nothing fancy, no weird chemicals either.
All my levels are normal, little high on nitrates (20). PH 8.2, temp is always 79-80, trites and ammonia are zero, Calcium was a little high (dont ask, i dont remember but it wasnt much over the normal range), alk is slightly high but still good too.
I had been using IO salt.
Now... when i did my water change last week, i switched from IO salt to Oceanic, cause the IO ran out. Made sure my salinity was ok in my tank and in the water change as always, did my water change, blablabla, everything was normal.
Next morning, the xenia was completely shrivelled up and looked darker than normal. 4 hours later when i got back from school, it was melting, the tank smelled like crap. I removed the xenia immediately.
Took me... say 20-30 min to remove the xenia from the rock it was on.. left the rock out and returned to see the tank... and then...
A) the gorgonian's polyps were all shriveled and weird looking, it also was sorta melting (its yellow and there was yellow stuff oozing from it). VERY smelly too >_<
B) my sun coral.. the color was washing off of it.. more and more it looked like a dead skeleton. also smelly
C) my zoo's were closed and smelly (same with stars.)
So i take all these out since i wasnt positive about some being dead and quarantined for the last few days. All got worse, None opened. what could melt started melting. Other stuff just lost color.. etc.. They all died...
I did a 60% water change after removing all the corals. So its been 5ish days since the water change and coral death.
Now, I HIGHLY doubt switchin brands of salt would kill them cause none of my fish or inverts died...ok fine, an emerald crab i had died. but he was pretty big and probably old. Also, he died today, so it's probably unrelated In my tank i got:
Fish
1-royal gramma
1-sixline wrasse
2-clownfish (ocellaris)
1-mandarin goby (dont mention him. eats pellets and stuff, its doing fine).
Inverts
1- skunk cleaner shrimp
1- blue coral banded shrimp
1- anemone crab (who hosted the xenia.. but it's been months since i got him so he cant be the cause)
1- porcelain crab
several hermits (forgot how many.. not a lot at all.. like 5, 6 or so
2 mexican turbo snails
2- nassarius snails
1- longspine urchin (only eats algae, never even came close to the corals)
Now, as a final note. a month ago I saw something which resembled a blisted on the stalks of some of my xenia. These went away in a few days. One day before they died, they reappeared, but dissappeared the same day. I do not know if this is a sign of anything important. (also, these xenias must have been healthy since they grew and split many times)
Now, Im posting this mainly for 2 reasons
1) to apologize to those with whom i was going to trade cause now i cant T__T
2) to see if anyone can provide a little insight on what might have happened.
Now, the tank I have is a 24 gallon aquapod. Additives and food are mostly purple up (for the calcium and iodine (among other stuff) in it), phyto, cyclopleeze, ... what everyone adds. Nothing fancy, no weird chemicals either.
All my levels are normal, little high on nitrates (20). PH 8.2, temp is always 79-80, trites and ammonia are zero, Calcium was a little high (dont ask, i dont remember but it wasnt much over the normal range), alk is slightly high but still good too.
I had been using IO salt.
Now... when i did my water change last week, i switched from IO salt to Oceanic, cause the IO ran out. Made sure my salinity was ok in my tank and in the water change as always, did my water change, blablabla, everything was normal.
Next morning, the xenia was completely shrivelled up and looked darker than normal. 4 hours later when i got back from school, it was melting, the tank smelled like crap. I removed the xenia immediately.
Took me... say 20-30 min to remove the xenia from the rock it was on.. left the rock out and returned to see the tank... and then...
A) the gorgonian's polyps were all shriveled and weird looking, it also was sorta melting (its yellow and there was yellow stuff oozing from it). VERY smelly too >_<
B) my sun coral.. the color was washing off of it.. more and more it looked like a dead skeleton. also smelly
C) my zoo's were closed and smelly (same with stars.)
So i take all these out since i wasnt positive about some being dead and quarantined for the last few days. All got worse, None opened. what could melt started melting. Other stuff just lost color.. etc.. They all died...
I did a 60% water change after removing all the corals. So its been 5ish days since the water change and coral death.
Now, I HIGHLY doubt switchin brands of salt would kill them cause none of my fish or inverts died...ok fine, an emerald crab i had died. but he was pretty big and probably old. Also, he died today, so it's probably unrelated In my tank i got:
Fish
1-royal gramma
1-sixline wrasse
2-clownfish (ocellaris)
1-mandarin goby (dont mention him. eats pellets and stuff, its doing fine).
Inverts
1- skunk cleaner shrimp
1- blue coral banded shrimp
1- anemone crab (who hosted the xenia.. but it's been months since i got him so he cant be the cause)
1- porcelain crab
several hermits (forgot how many.. not a lot at all.. like 5, 6 or so
2 mexican turbo snails
2- nassarius snails
1- longspine urchin (only eats algae, never even came close to the corals)
Now, as a final note. a month ago I saw something which resembled a blisted on the stalks of some of my xenia. These went away in a few days. One day before they died, they reappeared, but dissappeared the same day. I do not know if this is a sign of anything important. (also, these xenias must have been healthy since they grew and split many times)
