Salinity jump...

[fishguy_8]

Yesterday we added a sump to my already established tank....and we had a salinity jump from 1.025ish to over 1.030....today everything looks awful all my xenia's, hammers, frogspawns and leathers are all looking terrible and my trumpet looks like its decayed almost....the water looks a little cloudy .....so i went ahead and added almost 3 gallons of h20 to drop the salinity to 1.025 again and im hoping everything bounces back.....the mushrooms have expelled these stringy things from their bodies and its just been a bad day. the water i put in the sump must have had too much salt per gallon or somethign for a jump like that.....i hope my fish dont die.....they are all active but they wont eat....any ideas on what else i could do....my plan right now is to wait and see and keep an eye on my salinity and no3s.....and maybe do a water change tonight or tomorrow to try and get rid of some of the crap these guys are shedding into the water....i also tossed my skimmer on to try and drop the no3's a little too......hopefully i got to it in time.....
Jon

[bongobrian]

Jon- sorry to hear about your misfortune with the tank. First thing you should do is test everything and post your results if you can. The reason for your corals being closed could be caused from something other than the salinity, but it's probably unlikely. We just want to make sure we rule out everything and that we know the salinity is, in fact, the problem we should be troubleshooting. Also, tell us what the temperature is in the tank, since that goes hand in hand with salinity. How quickly did you drop the tank back to 1.025 from 1.030? rapid changes in salinity are never a good idea. Don't worry though, I understand you probably got the reading of 1.030 and freaked out and wanted to bring it back down into normal range. Usually this type of thing will affect your inverts first... like crabs and snails. I think the fish should be fine. Corals should probably be ok too, but like you said, just keep an eye on em. The damage is done, so there's not much else you can do right now. Hope your day gets better.

[fishguy_8]

yea i tested everything and it all came up normal ......had 2 deaths so far.....my brittle star kicked it....i spent an hour picking peices of him up from the tank this morning.....he was big enough to wrap all the way around a volleyball....poor guy.....and my little yellow tang that was going to be in my new 65g tank died as well i saw red marks on him last night and i told myself if he lived the night itd be amazing.....i added a gallon every hour to try and keep from making a huge change but.....2 six point changes in a 30hr span is rough on them i know.....everyone else looks good. today my aleveopora and hammer/frogspawns are looking a little bit more perky....and the lights have only been on for an hour so i think we are back to business....xenia looks like crap still shrooms look like they just got kicked in the teeth......im confident they'll bounce back though....i'll tell ya more as the day progresses. thanks for your help.
Jon

[fishguy_8]

ive been thinkin......w/ all this stuff dying and releasing its zooxanthellae (sp??) should i do a water change??? seems like thats what got me into this mess but at the same time i dont think its good for that stuff to be floating around in the water.....i have the sump and skimmer running so what do you guys think? change or let it all settle down?
thanks again
Jon

[bongobrian]

I would definitely do some water changes. It's the ammonia you should be worried about getting released into the system.

[fishguy_8]

did the h20 change ....decided the xenia was dead so i pulled it out....also decided my cuke was dead he along with my giant star that died were the last two members of my original tank they will be missed. i have another 2 gallons mixed ready for a change tomorrow. i dont have an NH4 test kit so im going to just do another change tomorrow to make sure and go get a kit in the afternoon. everything looks like its coming back though. shrooms are looking better and so is the hammer. each day the hammer expands more and more hopefully by the end of the week he'll be back to full bloom. my other star my fall victim to this as well...i noticed his tips on his arms are busted off and he's not acting quite right but he was like that yesterday too so im going to let him try to tough it out. right when ya think you've got things under complete control and youre doing things the best they can be done.....you make some bone head mistake like that and you get knocked right back down....hopefully this is the end of my deceased list. i'll keep ya all posted.
Jon