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Coming back from my holidays with a text from my friend who was tank watching tell me.. "your corals don't look to good, it was really hot last week when I came over and I had to float ice in your tank to bring it down from 36 degrees to 30 degrees. The fish are ok, but sorry about your shrimp..."

Thinking, oh that's ok it's cooler this week so they should have recovered hopefully. I walked in the house to find... all the SPS and LPS frags I've gotten the last few months since starting back into the hobby are now white skeletons. Some zoanthids are recessed, but hopefully will come back.. All of the softies completely melted except a couple of mushrooms.

The hobby of a thousand heartbreaks. Nothing like starting over again. At least I don't have to cycle the tank and the CA and Mg levels in the tank are still good. It's so heartbreaking since I was just starting to see growth in the corals that I got 2 months ago from some of the folks on the board, my frogspawn was starting to get a new head and the montis and birdsnest were just getting coloration... Sigh

I've changed the water and put some phyto in the tank but has anyone ever have a completely white skeleton come back? A few of them have some brown spots but over 95% of the coral is white. Would it be better just to take them out and crush them for substrate?

If they're bleached, they can come back. If they lost tissue, they're done. If you can remove one (or all) smell them, if they have tissue you'll know it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by KTV (Post 959150)

Oh man, that sucks..Sorry to hear about this.....

I had a Duncan and a Birdsnest turn white. I just left the skeletons in there, as I am always the optimist. lo and behold, about a month later the Birdsnest started to show signs of life and 6 months later it is looking ok. The Duncan was at least three months in my tank, being white, when we saw a tiny speck of green. It took about another 3 months and it is now larger and healthier than it was before "dying" I do not throw away anything now...It was really cool to see that they came back. I may be an optimist, but I did have my doubts, not anymore...

Sorry to hear man. It was brutally hot last week and event he week prior. Reefing in Calgary can be quite challenging. It's brutally cold in the winter (minus 30 or below), and can be brutally hot in the summer (plus 30 or higher). Curious if you had implemented any cooling for your tank ?

ya, if your corals are white due to colour loss only, that is, they still have flesh on them, then they can definitely come back.

However, if they've lost all their flesh then they are done :( Snap some pics and post them here if you're unsure. We can help you evaluate.

Sorry to hear about the tank. There have been quite a few fatalities this week. :(

Can never really tell by pics. Leave them a week, if tissue is gone, algae will start growing pretty quick.

there appears to be algae growing on most of them now. That's usually a bad sign.

Sorry to hear about your tank - I was also away on vacation and the same thing happened to mine. My Zoas are looking much better after 2 weeks though so hopefully yours will come back too!

So did the cleanup of the carcasses today since they definitely were growing algae...

Here's a picture of the Stony Coral Carnage... probably around 350$ of frags
http://s988.photobucket.com/user/vok...tml?sort=3&o=0

Not counting the softies that melted, as well as the cleanup crew members and shrimp that died. My wife's response... Could have bought a really nice Purse.