mini tank crash....palythoa toxin the cause???

[marie]

Given that everything happened after the palys were added I would suspect chemical warfare of some sort going on.

The first thing I would do is remove the palys from the system and put them in a bucket of tank water or something, then do a huge water change (as big as your comfortable with) and aggressively run carbon. If it is the palys that are the cause of the problems then the tank should start to improve rapidly afterwards

[reefwars]

hey guys quick update before i go to work well i spent all last night with the tank and after all this i finally have some good news things are on the recover my elegance is showing signs of improvement and is opening up and my brain had his feeders out this morning and after my light was on for a bit they are both starting to open right up. it def was the palys.... like daniella said small tank things go wrong quick and i was forced to do 4 rather large water changes way more than i wanted to and lots of carbon through my reactor.it sucks that so much died in such a little time but time heals all wounds so im just glad i didnt lose my elegance as its my favorite piece. my feather duster is def dead the tube is melting away to nothing i doubt hes gonna return.fish are out this morning and nems still look great. against my better judgement i decided to remove the palys last night i did it very quickly and tried not to disturb them as much as possible so im not sure if it was the water changes which prob added up to be my whole tank maybe even more or the removal of the palys but in either case shes on the mend im going to frag the palys out side of my tank and keep a small piece and the rest are going in the garbage they are in my water change bucket right now.

not sure why my fish or inverts died maybe with that much slime there was a deplete in oxygen or somethings but i cant change that now so ill up[date again later and im hoping by the time i get home everything is back where it should be

thanks guys

[nlreefguy]

Yikes! That's too bad - I was going to message you to ask you how those frags were doing. Guess I know the answer now! Get 'er back on track and then we can try some more frags - I got plenty more where those came from!

[Wayne]

WOW umm that sucks! Sorry for the losses

[chris88]

There is no way it is from the palys. I have had them in my tank for years. Massive numbers in a 50g tank. I have cut and crushed tons of the pale green / brown palys right inside of the tank because I do not like them, and they never poison the tank. I think you may have caused an ammonia spike from added a large piece of rock. I honestly do not think it is from the palys but if you want to be safe just run a bunch of carbon.

[reefwars]

Originally Posted by chris88

There is no way it is from the palys. I have had them in my tank for years. Massive numbers in a 50g tank. I have cut and crushed tons of the pale green / brown palys right inside of the tank because I do not like them, and they never poison the tank. I think you may have caused an ammonia spike from added a large piece of rock. I honestly do not think it is from the palys but if you want to be safe just run a bunch of carbon.

amonia would show on my test wouldnt it???

besides its not like ive never added rock to my tank before im not new were talking about a 0.5 lb rock which wasnt out of the water for more than five seconds give or take a second and never came from a tank that wasnt taken care of it came from a nice reef and knowlegable reefer friend of mine, water from his tank never hit my tank and i acclimated the palys like i do any coral that goes into my tank i dont think this was a matter of die off from live rock, ive owned palys and zoas and have lots of different kinds so its not the first ones ive ever added and ive had them slime plenty as well but not all palys are the same and not all zoas are the same and being such a small tank who knows what effects they had or how ****ed off they made my other corals. ....


well im home now from work and both elegance and my brain are fully open they def will recover if not already have, ill sure say one thing within 12 hrs of taking the palys out and some water changes/carbon they have made a full come around....coinsidence???? could be the water changes or the fact they werent in there or maybe it was enough time for things to even out again who knows... the only things still not showing are the few zoanthids in there but im sure they will it looks like they are trying.


my thoughts are this.....it was late when i added the palys i had to handle them to coach them into their place in my tank which made them slime, since im not using a skimmer or running carbon aggressively the slime found its way into the usual flow of my tank in turn having to land on each coral and in the water column.the slime probably ****ed off my lps enopugh for them to close tight and caused the more sensitive coarls like sps and gorgs to get hit bad they prob tried to fight back but couldnt compete with the mass amounts the palys were dishing out.there was def some chemical warfare happening you could see it in the water and since im not running a skimmer or any other means of oxygenation during the night time when my ph dropped it prob cause my less hardier critterss to suffer, my clown and chromis were able to take the swing a bit better than my lawnmower and coral banded.


i ****ed off the palys and they did what they would do if they felt threatened they slimed in hopes it would deter me from eating them or invading their space .....i believe my other corals felt this and knew to wait it out for the ones that could anyways and once the water was clean again they have showed out for food and to continue to grow like they are supposed to do.


still a pretty shitty deal but i got to keep my most favorite coral sucks bad i lost my lawnmower and shrimp but it could have been worse.im fragging the palys tonight for a small frag and im gonna hope for the best but it should be fine with any luck

nice to see my elegance fully open under the light cause it really looked bad last night when i went to bed i thought for sure it was gonna be nothing but shell this morning so thats awesome