So it was as if I knew something was going to happen. I was out of town for three days and asked several reefers to give me a phone call if the power went out for more than an hour. Something tripped the line that one of my two large systems and two small tanks were on. The tank was completely stagnant for god knows how long and the whole house reeks of death. The tank contained a massive amount of Xeniidae corals like Red Sea Xenia and several color variants of “Blue” Xenia which probably died quickly and released a lot of toxins. Hundreds of corals were in the system, I am not sure what will survive.
My LFS opens in a couple minutes, so I’m headed out to buy more carbon and salt. Shockingly have a couple fish alive and my prized red star fish was just barely moving last night. Thought I could hardly see them through the cloudy water.
Thanks for all the offers for help. I’ve done pretty much everything that can be done.
Since I have two large systems I was able to do water changes out of the other one with well cycled water. Once things start to get balanced I’ll move some rock from the other system as well to help restore any lost microfuana and bacteria.(last night every snail and star fish in the system were at the top of the tank trying to crawl out of the water) I also always have plenty of water on hand and usually have mixed salt water ready for such an occasion. Moving corals to other systems would just stress them even further. I’ll just keep doing water changes and keep replacing the carbon. I picked up extra salt and carbon from DPA which tapped the last of my funds for my tanks.
It’s time to leave it alone and give things a chance to settle down again. Many corals are still melting away, but there isn’t much I can do to help them.
The purple tang is alright, it was in the system that had no power loss.
Thanks Tim. I flushed a lot of corals including two ~30" X 12" fields of xenia that were on the walls of some of my prop tanks. Things are still dying off, but the water starting to finally clear up. It will be a miracle if ever species of xenia comes back from the dead. Took me years to collect all of them and I only have 1-2 in the other system. I really should have gotten some hard IDs on them or just made up names for them and had back ups sold to club members.
Taking things slowly trying to let the system come back to balance on its own as much as possible. Checking back on it frequently. The anemones and the two small Sarcophyton(toadstool leathers) actually look oddly good. One of the toadstools is polyped out further then I’ve ever seen it before. I am not positive this means it is doing well, but an observation. My Discoma mushrooms have actually never looked better.(solid color and open really big) My large conch is still alive. That’s on the positive side.
Xenias are still melting and crashing. Only a couple weeks ago I realized I still had a species of xenia I thought I had lost(over grown by another species), but now I am not sure it is there any more. It’s not as sad that I lost 90% of the polyps and specimens I used to have, but scary that I may have lost some of the species. I no longer have any Turbo snails all though I lost at least one the week before. Cloves look horrible and I may have lost a couple species of green.(I have plenty of the orange and green in another tank)
So yeah, still not through it, but it looks like things are turning around. Actually surprised what survived from the smelly pea soap tanks. Being that it is a tank with xenia makes it a great deal tougher due to its’ tendency to crash and touchiness to drastic change. With Xenias this statement carries even more weight, “a sudden change even in a positive direction towards conditions that would regularly be preferable is not a good changeâ€ÂÂÂÂÂÂÂ.
These “super man” mushrooms are typically surrounded and shaded by Xenia. You can see bits of xenia barely left on rock which you can typically hardly see.
This image shows some melted coral next to some xenia that will likely survive.(though obviously not super healthy) The top left right in front of the base of a bubble tip anemone is a significantly distressed cespitularia.
This is a picture of some of the survivors. The anemones for the most part seem alright. The two larger “blue xenia” specimens stringy, distressed and small polyps, but not yet “crashing”.
Carbon change and water change tonight. I noticed that all of the colt coral specimens are probably 1/3 or less then the size they used to be and horrible coloring. GSP showing seemingly brighter colors then they had the last couple of weeks, but this may be because I had actually cleaned the glass well.
Cabbage leathers also look better than ever. Hard to tell exactly what all the leathers like, wither it’s death of xenia all around, excess nutrients in the water, or something they were missing which has been added back with the water changes. Could be a lot of different things, but they seem happy.
Yeah, those must all be high nutrient lovin soft corals, soaking up the new splurge of phosphates and ammonia and nitrates from the melting xenia. I still think you should put in a bag of the Chem Pure Elite you have lying around there, with the GFO included. its not much but will soak up some of that stuff until the tank stabilizes.
Well as you can see from the previous page, some things appear to like what is going on currently while others don’t. Polyp extension is often used as a judge for if a coral is, “happyâ€ÂÂÂÂÂÂÂ, but it may be caused by other things as well. I could be wrong that these corals are doing well, they could be stressed and require more food than normal and stretching out to reach any food they can, I dunno.
Wanted to say thanks for coming over Ken. Sorry I was unable to answer my phone. I had left it upstairs when I went down to work on my tanks. I was focused on the task at hand and wasn’t thinking about anything else. I may use some Chemi Pure this afternoon if I see any new stalks of Xenia beginning to melt.
I changed the flow a bit yesterday as well, over all increased it a bit in one of my 40s not too much though.
Sorry to be jumping in here late, but I just noticed this thread. You know if I have anything you would like you are more than welcome to some frags. I have plenty of the cespitularia that you sold me a while back and two or three species of xenia.
Thanks Ellen. When things get better I plan on better cataloging what I have. If it ends up I did lose some species of xenia I’ll be looking to replace them. I have both colors of the cespitulaira in another system though, so no worry if I lose all of that in that system. It seems as if most of the crashing/collapsing/or whatever you want to call it of xenia has stopped. Little worried I saw my conch upside down today just peaking out of his shell, hoping I had just startled him without noticing.
There is one other person I know that is pretty into collecting xenias and had hoped to drop off to him one of the species I have he didn’t and I don’t see around often in hopes to have a solid back up source. Unfortunately the last time he was remotely close Steph was very ill and I was unable to meet up with him. He also has a new find from the wild I do not have yet.
