Partial Crash

[ErikH]

Ok so I had a partial crash. You may be asking yourself what this is and I will explain. First off, it's not that bad. Why? Because the corals lost were not as nice as my main colonies. Colonies of SPS did die while other SPS was unaffected. I caught it right at the right time, if it had gone on for another 10-20 minutes, I probably would have no corals left.

Here's what happened...

I took out a rock that was completely covered in nasty gross overbearing brown palys. They crowd out SPS and zoas. I decided that I was going to go and buy a BERNZOMATIC torch and burn them to death. To get the rock out of the tank required turning off a fan and moving a halide. Got the rock out and burned the undesireable palys with great joy watching their insides boil. It was great. I put the rock back in quickly as not to damage any of the SPS. Got the light back on and I was good to go. This was about 6-8 PM the day before last.

So they palythoa toxin released by the dead palys were to blame eh?

Nope.

I forgot to turn the main fan back on. The two smaller fans were not enough to keep up. Yesterday, I noticed my caps were lighter, much lighter, but not white. Tested for nitrates0, trites0, ammonia0, checked PH8.3 CA380 Alk7.5 and Mg1300. Well the CA and Alk were a little low, but not low enough to crash anything. It wasn't till about 9 last night that it got hot enough for me to notice. I bagged some ice, shut down the halides, and everything else is fine.

I lost a red cap , my ugly coral :( , an undata, Birdsnest, a suncoral :(, but other than that everything is good.

It's all about luck sometimes. Double check your fans and make sure you have enough!

[Kristy]

Hmmm... I think we happen to have the same ugly coral and red cap that you lost. Could probably spare a little to get you started again! Let me know if you are ready for them when I see you this week to drop off the laptop.

[ErikH]

Oh yeah, the tank is totally fine minus the losses. I literally caught it within what must have been minutes to an hour before it all went bye bye. Very, very scary situation though. Will you just bring me some ugly? LOL that red cap was getting unmanageable, but blue tip valida beats it.

Big thing that I noticed, corals with a fleshy outside (ie birdsnest and digis) go first. It's at least proven in my tank. Oh and a brain got killed :( I really liked that brain too. The duncans are super stressed, hopefully they will fully recover.

[stoneroller]

Sorry to hear. Hope the palys don't come back!! They are very resilient you know.

[ErikH]

Yeah they are PITAs, but I am more resilient then they are! I did miss a few, but once my other stuff gets a little bit better hold, I am going to fry them again. It seems to have worked like a champ, but all the dead palys look gross! That German is doing GREAT so far Kevin The grandis does not like the bright lights...

[ErikH]

WHEW, what a pain. Lost my large valida colony (I managed to frag a HUGE piece) and my other green with blue coralite and polyp stony colony. Still have a colony of purple that's fine the Paletta Lovelli right next to it is fine and the blue tipped valida is fine. I think I needed more flow. I believe Jack remarked about it... Since one of my K4s snapped at the post, there is much less flow now so I added a crappy little powerhead over on that side of the tank and the blue tip is polyped out ALOT now.

[ReefCube]

this is the reason I frag my own corals just in case one dies on me. I had a temp problem when my ac went out. My t5s dont need a chiller but when my ambient temp jumps up to 90 it can do some damage my corals just lost color they all made it

[ErikH]

this is the reason I frag my own corals just in case one dies on me. I had a temp problem when my ac went out. My t5s dont need a chiller but when my ambient temp jumps up to 90 it can do some damage my corals just lost color they all made it

Yep thank God for making a xerox capable of copying corals. Even though I lost some stuff, I consider myself lucky because I still have the large majority.

[Gilbert]

I have a frag and a plug encrusted with your ugly coral thats starting to branch out. Yours if you need it.

[txav8r]

Erik, only you would think to use a blowtorch to blast corals! LOL