SPS Tank melt down only

[reefdude]

Got home the other day to see my SPS corals turn white. Boy, was i mad. I thought it was one of the kids again. remember i was the one with the boy who dump laundry soap in the tank like two years back. The fish and so far all LPS and softies look ok. But all 30 or so SPS and my blue tort are dead. Tank was doing really well that morning.

I did two 55 gallon water changes and added 21 ounces of carbon to the system. So far things look normal.

Two things i can think of that killed it.

1) I had a new bag of Mrs, Wages pickling lime that i used the day before for top off water. Maybe something bad in the bag?
2) I changed out the XM 10K DE bulb in the middle of the tank. During changing the bulb the end plastic piece broke off the end of the bulb and it fell in the tank. On that piece there was white power stuff. Maybe that was it? Note sure what the power looking stuff is. Anyone know.

I can't think of anything else that could have caused it.

I am thinking maybe number two cause the rapid die off of the SPS. From look so great in the morning to white corals that night..

 

[~Flighty~]

Wow, that really bites. Could a piece of metal have fallen in? Did you check your parameters before the water change?

 

[stevenp]

Flighty, what affect would a piece of metal have to a reef? Just curious.

Sorry for the partial high-jack reefdude.

Steve

 

[Moe_K]

Whoa Reefdude, that sucks!
Could it have been a salinity issue?

 

[gordonzoo]

I know copper will kill lobsters and inverts not sure about coral though.

 

[reefdude]

No the salinity issue i had a couple of months ago was fixed. After i fixed that with in a month the corals had grea color.

No metal fell in. just a piece of hard molded plastic with white power on it.

I might send XM an email to find out was the white power it is. After looking at all the bulb they all have it..

 

[starrfish]

So sorry for your losses - that really sucks.

 

[~Flighty~]

The metal was just a thought because a little metal piece popped off when we changed a bulb once. There could be copper in it, but I don't know how fast a piece of mettal would put copper into the water.

 

[NateHanson]

Argh! That sounds horrible. Were you replacing the bulb with an identical bulb? Was the old bulb very old? Could this be bleaching due to a much more/less intense bulb?

 

[mikestod]

I wonder if the white stuff was lithium grease....I'd imagine lithium would be really bad to introduce into a system.

 

[reefdude]

yeah i'll ping them an email later today to find out what it was. I only replace the center blub that was close to a year old. The SPS where all over the tank.

I am going to break the tank down this weekend. Should be fun to take out about 400 pounds of rock out to make sure nothing else is left in there.

Whats Funny it seems all the LPS lived.

 

[scavdog]

Do you know what your tank parameters were at around the time of the crash?

Did you add any new corals recently? If so, were any wild caught?