Holiday Crash

[Hairytank]

Well... I arrived back from my 10 day holiday at 12:50 Am lastnight and have discovered I have lost about 80% of my colonies...and the others are attempting to follow suit..
The house was hot humid and stank...just what you want to return to..

Parameters that I checked before water change (wanted to change water more than check parameters...)

PH: 8.3
dkh: 6 (low,but not tooo low)
Ca: 380 (low, but tooo low)
Po4: <0.25 but I am thinking this is more of test issue and actual amount is higher as there was a minor algae bloom and with all the dead coral, I would imagine it should be higher.

Lost:
large octospawn, 4 monti caps (1 purple, 2 orange, 1 green), tri-colour, 2 acropora, 2 monti superman and pokerstar (softball), 3 birdsnest (2 pink, 1 brown), 2 large misc corals, numerous frags.

Wounded but not out...completely ("I think I see a polyp.."):
large brain, candy cane, milipora, 1 large orange digi, 1 large green digi, 1 large purple digi, acan, 4 shriveled green hairy mushrooms..

The fish are all alive and looking healthy so the fishsitter did a good job...I guess I should have had a coralsitter...

Boy the tank is looking like the bad old days....
The smell is getting better in the house though....

My wife is starting to question the whole fishtank thing..:confused:

[kien]

Any idea what caused the crash? That sucks and I feel for ya. I was away for 10 days a couple of months ago and everything was fine when I got back but I've heard horror stories like yours. What causes a system to crash anyway? I guess I should do some research on the topic. I have yet to experience a crash *knock on some THICK heavy wood*

[Jack]

Maybe a temperature spike?

[mark]

feel your pain

[reeferious]

i feel for ya. for curiosity are you running an auto topoff and did you check your SG?

[Red Coral Aquariums]

anything we can do ??
Kevin

[Navarchus]

Sorry to hear ….it’s sad!

I put my finger on salinity decrease or as mentioned temperature spike.

[danny zubot]

Whatever the cause, sorry about your luck.

[Hairytank]

Thank you for the messages.

My guess is on a temperature spike as well. It can get pretty warm if the windows are not opened at night for a short while when it is hot out. Another problem was the protein skimmer fell "off-line" (plugged air intake) while gone...my bad, but was working while I was here.. The algae was not horrendous or anything and the Po4 was not overly high (<0.25) so I am sure while contributing this was not the sole culprit..

I have a Tunze ATO and it was working well, so the SG was bang on.

There was an acro looking a little washed out before I left due to some lower dkh levels, but was colouring up nicely when I had dosed and brought levels up (slowly) before leaving.

After looking at things, it is likely a heat spike knocked off a couple of the weaker corals and then overwhelmed the tank with the corals dying off and it continued throughout the week.

Unfortunatley, my fishsitter was simply not in a position to recognize the problem or that there was a problem , which is my fault not his..

More lessons to be learned the hard way.

[Delphinus]

Sorry to hear. :(

[fishytime]

You already know how I feel Aaron:sad: