400 gallon project

[untamed]

Really tough times going on here. I'm losing coral all over the place. Mostly from the tips.

Desperate to try to figure out what is going on, I took a measurement of Nitrate and Phosphate yesterday. Historically, I've rarely been able to detect nitrate, and had barely measureable phosphate. Today...20ppm nitrate and 18ppm phosphate. Every other measurement I can make seems fine. I've turned my Ca reactor down a bit as my alk was reading 8.5dKh....but really...8.5dKh is not something I would usually be concerned about.

That's not the kind of numbers that cause coral to die that I'm aware of...but I suppose it is a signal that something isn't right. I'm running some ferric oxide to see if I can absorb phosphate, but so far it has made no difference.

So....I thought I would vaccuum out the main sump as it has become pretty filthy. I look into the sump at something I think is a fish poop...and learn I have sea cucumber babies! I bet there is 50+ of them in that sump. I was easily able to find about 15 once I started to look. Here's a shot of a couple babies. The larger of the two might be 1" long.



Since they most look like this cucumber, I'm assuming this is mom...or dad...or both...I'm not sure how it works for cuces! New promo...Free Donkey Dung with frag purchase!

[Rbacchiega]

Sorry about the coral loss, but the baby cucumbers is a neat little developent.

It does look like poop!

[High tide]

Perhaps there is a correlation between the coral death and the cuc's. Just a thought because cuc's are toxic and all. Maybe young one's getting sucked up the return? I have had a cuc nuke before but usually fish are affected as well...this could be a low grade nuking or I could be trippin' out.

[lastlight]

That's exactly what I was thinking. Sorry to hear about the troubles bro.

[High tide]

If it's cuc toxin, maybe time to do a really good water change and add a healthy dose of carbon.

[untamed]

Originally Posted by High tide

If it's cuc toxin, maybe time to do a really good water change and add a healthy dose of carbon.

I suppose anything is possible. I always run GAC anyway...I'll step up that a bit. I'm going to focus on the 'trate and 'phate because that is something I can measure to verify improvement.

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

My guess would be phosphates. The only time I have ever really had problems with sps was with high phosphates. Nitrates don't seem to bother them all that much (within reason of course). When I had a phosphate spike a few years back in a smaller sps tank I was keeping, everything browned out VERY fast. But nothing actually died off, so maybe its not that.

Man this is so terrible to hear! I hope you get things back in order soon...

EDIT: I have also had a cucumber die in my tank and it did kill all the fish but never effected the corals. Perhaps I was just lucky though.