White slime... tank crash????

[joshh81]

:help: Hey.... please help!! :help: I came home tonight from flying and walked up to my tank and noticed that my clam was totally receded. When I left this morning he was fat and happy... tonight he looked ethopian. All his white stuff (not the mantle) was gone. I picked him up to get a closer look and all of a sudden a huge glob of white slime came off some live rock. I was like WHAT THE !@@#$ happend? I ran and got the fluval (to run extra filtration and carbon) and by the time I had it hooked up there was slime comming off from everything possible in the tank. What is this stuff. It commming off every coral, every mushroom, every piece of live rock. I turned the fluval on high and hopefully this is not my tank crashing.

I took water measurements and i see that there was an ammonia spike.
Ammonia .25 ppm
Nitrite.. barely readable. Looks like zero but could be a tiny shade of the next level up.
Nitrate 30 ppm. ( WHAT HAPPENED HERE!! IT WAS 5 PPM 4 days ago! I havent feed them in 2 days!!!)

PH 8.2
Salinity 1.026
temp 79 F
What is this white slime? I added some amquel to hopefully stop the ammonia from rising before the morning when i can get some more salt. Everything in the tank looks like its dying..... looks like co

ebs everywhere. God i pray everything is not dying. I am just getting ready to deploy over seas in 2 weeks... and this is not how i wanted to head over there. Please... any info would be greatly appreciated.

 

[joshh81]

also.. any advice on how to stop a crash... i know it may not be possible... but anything i can do to stop it.

 

[the sherm]

Dont Worry Clams Are Not Poison One Died In My System And The Same Thing Happend A Coral Defense System Or Somthing. Clams Most Likely Dead Take It Out For No Ammonia Build Up. GO AND BUY SOME SALT WATER FROM YOUR LOCAL LFS ABOUT 10 GALLON WATER CHANGE SHOULD DO THE TRICK

 

[xoxox]

It sounds like something died and bombed your tank, I've had it happen with a sea cucumber. I know of someone else who had a colt coral take his tank out, maybe one of your corals decided to jihad.

 

[joshh81]

The slime is starting to stop. The fluval is on high, however the carbon in it was used and was going to be discarded.. but its all i had at the moment until things open in the morning. I was about to sell the fluval on ---- tomorrow since the refugium is all i have been using. I do have fresh nitrate sponge... but thats the least of the issues. This tank was near perfect a week ago.... it all started with the damn bubble coral dying. It looked like it was dying but I turned the light on for a few minutes and a few bubbles inflated, so i thought i would give it another day to either go positive or negitive. Negitive it went. All this other stuff is collateral damage from the damn bubble coral.

 

[jbair]

Hey Josh, how are thing down at Hulbert? Good to see someone else from the community on here.

 

[joshh81]

Things are great.... except for the almost nightmare last night. Looks like everything made it ok. Ammonia is subsiding but doind a 30 % water change today and again in 2 days.
Other than that... you in the military Jbair?

 

[jbair]

Just retired last year after 24 years. Went to Hulbert in 97 with 7th Group for an exercise, first time down there and loved it.

 

[jbair]

Glad to hear everything turned out OK with the tank.

 

[joshh81]

ok peeps.... i am actually scared now. :scared:
The ammonia kept sky rocketing and lost the rose bubble tip, 2 feather dusters, both baby flower pots, and some snails.

I couldnt take it anymore... nothing was working. So I am gambling big time. I did about an 80% water change. I took everything out of the tank and put it in a QT tank for a few hours. I removed all the rock and removed all the water. I mixed in a new bag of live sand, and mixed it with the sand all ready there. I made all new water for the tank, leaving about 10 gallons of the water all ready in the refugium. I added a pouch of Bio-spira marine, and put everything back in. I guess it gave me a reason to redo the rock work I have been wanting to do.
I pray to god my tank doesnt cycle again. It probably will... but with the coarse it was on... the ammonia was climbing to places were I could have confused it with windex. I check the ammonia and its .25 ppm. I am going to do another 9 gallons tomorrow to try and get it down a bit more and will add a little more bio-spira.

If anyone has any suggestions please shoot them my way. Has this every happened to anyone? Any tips or advice? :help: