Death of my 20g

[Samper]

Guys......I messed up real bad

As many of you know I've been having some problems for a little while on this system but I had em under control I think until this..
Yesterday I did a water change....all was well
Yesterday evening I mixed up a fresh batch of limewater to drip...about 3 days worth since I will be gone this weekend. My dad was gonna drip it at night for me.
Yesterday night I opened the valve on my homemade drip system to a slow drip for the first nights dose. I guess I broke the glue seal on my valve when I opened it and last night my tank overflowed with limewater addition. Either I broke the seal or the water volume I put in the container busted it. I'm estimating that it happened pretty fast since when I add more water to my drip container it leaks out about 1/2 a litre per minute. I have a huge mess on my hands both inside and out of my system. My xenia heads that were left in the nano have dissolved and all that remain are the stalks just looking like wilted flower stems. The base of them have marble size bubbles in the tissue. My zoanthids are closed up so tight that they don't even look like they will ever open again..... It's a good thing I got frags of all of them in my larger system or I would have lost some amazing zoos. 1 acro lost all tissue over night and I have 0 polyp extension in any of them....
My montiporas all look fine. My fish look fine but nothing else does.

I removed my serpent star from this system yesterday to my larger softie system or I'm sure I would have lost him. I made a huge mistake and it's making me consider leaving the sps world until I can afford a much larger system and all the necessary equipment to run it. I know it can be done in a small system because I did it for a while but the margin for error just isn't there and I'm about to pay big time for one such error. I'm making fresh RO/DI water now but don't have any at the moment to do a WC since I just did one yesterday. It's 10:40 am now and I have to leave here today around 4:30 pm. Any suggestions you guys have on what I might do before I leave will be done but other than that I'm waving a white flag to the sps gods.

[Reefland]

I would move everything possible over to the larger system, that is anything that looks like it might have a chance. The rapid pH change from this mishap will probably be detrimental to anything left in the tank. Just my thought.

Don't lower your head though, hold it high. Things like this happen to everyone eventually.

[Samper]

I moved over a couple of the rocks but to be honest I don't have room for any of my 20g in the 75. The reefscape in the 75 is so covered with zoanthids and shrooms that I can't really add to it without covering stuff up. I'm gonna do an emergency water change before I leave but other than that it's on its own. I'm nervous that I may cause more damage by doing the water change. The ph would be really high right now....and it jumped up there. If I do a wc it will lower it pretty quick causing even more stress correct?

Do you think turning the lights off right now in both fuge and display would help?

[Reefland]

It would surely help in lower the pH. What is the pH at now? If it is extremely high then doing the water change to drop it wouldn't be more stressful. Sometimes you have to figure out which is worse, leaving the animals in a stressful situation or changing the situation rapidly. In this case, another rapid change to bring the pH level to normal would be much better.

[Samper]

My ph probe is on the fritz and I've ordered a new probe but I don't have an exact number to give you. I used an old fastest kit and I'm sitting somewhere around 15. Those tests aren't anthing close to what I'd call accurate though.

[Samper]

The lights in both fuge and display are now off.

[Poseidon]

WOW! Chuck I am so sorry! THat really really stinks! Like Scott said though, keep your head high, we all make mistakes! I'll bet this never happens to you again!

[Ninong]

My ph probe is on the fritz and I've ordered a new probe but I don't have an exact number to give you. I used an old fastest kit and I'm sitting somewhere around 15. Those tests aren't anthing close to what I'd call accurate though.

What's sitting somewhere around 15? You can't possibly be talking about your pH or absolutely everything in your tank would be pickled by now. Besides, the scale only goes from 0 - 14 with 7.0 being neutral.

The pH of saturated limewater (Kalkwasser) is 12.4. It is quite possible that your pH jumped suddenly to something above 9.0, in which case you do have a serious problem but how you address it depends on exactly where is. If your pH is presently below 8.8, I would probably just wait it out. If it's above that, you could add vinegar gradually to lower it.

P.S. -- Read Dr. Randy Holmes-Farley's article for detailed instructions on how to add vinegar or soda water to lower your pH: http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-03/rhf/index.php

[Ninong]

We can estimate your pH if you tell us what your normal pH reading was, the estimated net volume of water in your system and the estimated volume of limewater that was added. To be accurate, we need to know if the limewater was saturated. In other words, were you using at least two teaspoons of mix per gallon of water?

Remember that pH is measured on a logarithmic scale. A jump from say 8.2 to 9.2 represents a 10-fold increase in intensity of the alkalinity.

[Samper]

Ninong I really appreciate the effort and had I been here to read your posts on time I would have maybe headed some problems off. So far some of my sps are holding in there but don't look the greatest. My digitatas look good, my millepora looks ok and so does one other acropora that I haven't exactly gotten an id for. My Xenia melted, my zoanthids look good. Fish, feather dusters, Asterina stars, snails, mysis shrimp and my rock anemone all seem fine.

I lost quite a bit but maybe not all of it.
Thanks for the help guys.

[Samper]

sad but true

[Samper]

but some hope

[Samper]

notice the hair algae....settled in very quickly after the die offs....argh

[Samper]

am still getting rid of the hair algae but it's going away. I'm doing weekly 3 gallon WC's and what corals I have left are doing pretty good.
Here are a few pics. Notice that in of them the encrusted base is still alive and well....I don't know why the branches of a colony would die and the base would remain but this is what happened to two different corals after this incident. Hopefully I can grow them back out.

[yankeebobo]

Wow - I've read about what happened. Considering everything, the tank is looking very good. It's always good to hear that things do work out in the end, despite what has been lost.

[Reefland]

All those frags should grow out in no time.

[Samper]

I don't understand the result though. Why would all the branches of a colony die but not the base? The coral colony is all connected and should have all died from the way I understand it.

[yankeebobo]

I do know that sometimes, a small amount of tissue is all it takes for it to stay alive and grow back strong.

[Reefland]

I don't understand the result though. Why would all the branches of a colony die but not the base? The coral colony is all connected and should have all died from the way I understand it.

I've got just the opposite. I have a coral that has died all except for a sinlgle tip which still has tissue. It probably won't last but I'm going to hang on to it for as long as it does.

[Samper]

I think I've figured something out......the corals that I lost all but the base of came from Chad at Reefscience and I was told that they were fragged from a wild colony so I assume all tissue I started with was wild....the encrusted part that lived after the accident was the part that I grew in captivity...that part lived!!