partial tank crash

[midgetwaiter]

Originally Posted by whatcaneyedo

Not my tank, someone elses.
What I think went wrong:
We've been letting new saltwater sit for a month before each water change un-oxygenated in a nearly sealed container with a small powerhead. The seachem reef salt probably had a very low pH by the time it was used. The low pH shock likely caused the anthelia colony to crash which began the tank crash.

This is pretty unlikely, the math won't line up. In order to trigger a pH shock like that the 30g from the w/c would need to be very very low, remember you have all that buffering capacity from the 100ish g of water still in the tank.

Chances are you'll never figure out exactly what happened but my money would be on a contaminant of some kind.

[whatcaneyedo]

The owner commented that he has seen patches of the anthelia crash occasionally in the past and although I've never experianced such a thing in my own system I have had Xenia colonies crash from time to time. So even if the water change water's chemistry wasnt too bad I think something about it did still trigger the anthelia to start dying (and this tank had A LOT of anthelia).

This tank is in a public institution and not a private home so there are a lot of unknown variables unfortunately.

[naesco]

Originally Posted by whatcaneyedo

The owner commented that he has seen patches of the anthelia crash occasionally in the past and although I've never experianced such a thing in my own system I have had Xenia colonies crash from time to time. So even if the water change water's chemistry wasnt too bad I think something about it did still trigger the anthelia to start dying (and this tank had A LOT of anthelia).

This tank is in a public institution and not a private home so there are a lot of unknown variables unfortunately.

If you can stick a powerhead near the water level to add oxygen to the tank