Saved my tank from crash! I hope!
 

Well so for the last 24 hours, its been one of those days when your tank just goes against you! Two incident happened till now:

1. So I had a pump running to my reactor with pellets which I thought to be maxi jet 1200. I wasn't getting enough tumbling so thought something must not be right. I took out my backup pump which I saw was a max jet 1200 and I immediately knew I was running an underpowered one. No biggy! I replaced the pump with MJ1200 and the pellets started tumbling great! After a few hours, i was hearing funny noise coming from the sump. Upon inspection, I saw that the pellets were not tumbling and so I took out the motor and guess what! As soon as I took it out, it made some fizzy sound, tried pushing the remaining water through it and very slight smoke started coming out. I immediately replaced it and the reactor is now off. Will get a new MJ1200 in the evening. Lesson: I am not going to put any more 2nd hand stuff IN the tank.

2. Alongside the pump issue, I was afraid of contamination it might have released so I pumped up the carbon from one back to two back. I also noticed my xenia along with the adjacent corals were not looking good so thought something must have got into the water. Planned for WC and went to bed. Upon waking up at 8, I noticed xenia was not looking its best and so its neighboring corals. Upon closer inspection, I saw a brown buildup on its side and it was leaching! CHEM WAR! I immidiently removed the rock, cut it off and then let put back the rock in. 15 gallon water in making. Lesson learnt: no more "leach-able" softies in the tank. Some of the corals are a bit ****ed right now.

Crash
 

Should be all good I've had the xenia do the same thing and I just added carbon and changed the water with no ill effects

Yah I hope nothing's gonna get affected. The SPS are ****ed and retracted but others are fine along with the fishes. 15 gallon wc is being prepared and will do it once I go back home from university. Doubled up the carbon too.

I don't use carbon at all. Recently all my xenias melted away (skimmer skimm too well) and none of my SPS were affected, even without using carbon.

Many people lose corals due to biopellets. Could it be related to the biopellets rotting or wating going bad inside your reactor?

I don't think so. I use very low amount of pellet (about 50ml for my 60gallon+ water) in the reactor and the water runs clean through it. Plus I keep the outlet near the inlet so most of the bacteria going out can get sucked up in the skimmer. Haven't seen any cloudy water but my nitrate is in check (I keep it below 5ppm but not ULNS). The water was sticking real bad when the xenia started melting. Don't know the cause but there was brown jelly like thing (I doubt its algae) on the stem of the xenia. Sometimes, weird things just happen I guess............ :sad:

I think the xenia was affected by brown jelly disease.

I agree with Daniella . Too many reefers that had beautiful problem free tanks are now seeing very serious issues as a result of the use of bio pellets

If your issue is brown jelly disease a temperature swing may be the cause (Shimek)

That could be a possibility.....

I don't still know whether it was due to the pellets but I am a bit skeptical now whether I should turn it back on or not.

yes I think it's brown jelly the way you describe it. It is a bacterial attack and the protozoares takes over and finish it.

Did you have any rise in temperature lately? I am asking because many bacterias that cause brown jelly are not so active at lower temperature but will explode and grow out of proportion when temperature rise.

I read an article about that and the bacterias becoming virulent at temp of 25C or more:

http://www.marsh-reef.org/marine-ree...a-sps-rtn.html

Could this be the cause of your problems?

My temp generally remains between 77 to 78. Yesterday, after water change, it dropped to 76 and then went back to normal within few hours.

Kinda depressed right now. Most of the SPS are all closed up and also looks a bit faded (particularly the red planet). I have taken off biopellets and not turning it back on. Did a 15g wc and will be doing another 10g wc. :(

Again, sorry to hear about your rough weekend. Stuff just happens sometimes. I don't really know what happened to your tank, nor do I really have any suggestions that I could add, but I can help out by taking your bioPellets off your hands. I'm free all day so let me know and ill swing by and pick them up.

Haha. I was actually thinking about sending you a PM :) I will be home in the next few hours (possibly before 3pm) so you swing by anytime before that if it works for you.

PM me your address and we can set up a pickup time.