Chemical Reaction -Lots of Deaths

[Acro-Phobia]

I am in total shock. I treated my system with Ultimate Reef Red Slime Remover yesterday. There was a small area of cyno growing and I wanted to stop the spread. We calculated the water volume, administered the correct amount of Slime Remover about 11:00 AM on Sunday. Skimmer, carbon and phosban were all turned off. Sunday night, it did not appear to have any effect on the cyno, so off to bed. Got up this morning and looked at the tank in absolute shock.

The tank was cloudy white, most of my Acro colonies were white, and there was slime all over everything. My Anemone (normally 10" across) was shiveled up in a little ball, my clam was crocked and all the snails were dead.

I have done one 15% water change and am getting a 20% change ready for tomorrow. The tank has cleared somewhat, but the destruction is vast. We can't figure out what happened. Here is the damage.

Snails are dead. All crabs and shrimp are alive.
Clam is dead.
Most Acropora lost all thier skin. The poylps appear to still be there, but all Most of the Arco's are skinless now.

LPS, Zoos and mushrooms are all alive but completely retracted.

All copipods in the refugium are alive and well scurying about.

Here's a strange one...All Aptasia's are dead.

Is there a possibility I had some sort of chemical reaction in the tank that fried everything? Stuff you would think should be dead is not, but other things are. The Acro (which is most of my corals) all look bad. Only a few very large colonies appear to have kept thier skin.

[bertoni]

I would do a bunch of large (20-25%) water changes, and check for ammonia. It's hard to say what happened at this point, but a toxin might have been released at some point along the line. The dead Aiptasia are a strange touch.

I'd also run a lot of fresh carbon.

[Acro-Phobia]

Ammonia, nitrite and nitrate are all testing Zero as of 8:00PM tonight. The only change in numbers of all the testing was Alk. It went from my long term average of 10.0 up to 11.2. PH stayed at 8.29, Sal 1.025, Cal 420, Mag 1450.

We pulled out several Acro's that appeared dead and smelled them....no smell just white. Poylps appear to be intact, just all retracted. I did have several large Aptasia in the connected frag tank and they with all the other Aptasia are gone.

Carbon gets replaced tomorrow AM after the next water change.

[bertoni]

Okay, well, at least the ammonia is zero. I'm sorry to hear about your troubles.

[Acro-Phobia]

I guess my question is, is it possible that the Red Slime treatment reacted with something else I normally put in the system that could have changed the chemical structure of the Red Slime treatment and cause the reaction I got? The corals appear to have been chemically burned. It seeems to be restricted to the Acro. The Montipora Caps don't appear to have been affected as bad and the LPS just look like somethings in the tank they don't like.

[bertoni]

I don't think so, but maybe. If that product has an oxdizer in it, which it might, that could be an issue. It's also possible that the decay released some toxins from the cyanobacteria, which then nuked something else. Or perhaps oxygen depletion was an issue. There's too many variables in the mix.

Were you using the UltraLife product? I'm not familiar with the Ultimate Reef product, if that's what you have.

[tmz]

Sorry for your loses. Tagging along,hoping to learn something.

[Acro-Phobia]

It was Blue line Red Slime Remover. A fellow reef keeper had used the same product the week before on his system with good results. I wasn't so lucky.

The damage is done and I can't change that. I just want to try and find out what happened. The tank seemed to be in great shape, but then I was starting to get Cyno, so something was not right with the system. This morning the system looks clear again and the skimmer has slowed down. I'll do my second water change and go from there. I guess only time will tell if the Acro's can recover.

[Acro-Phobia]

Correction. It was Ultralife Red Slim Remover.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I've used Ultralife Red Slime Remover myself without incident., It is, I believe, an antibiotic. I'm not sure why you had a problem, but killing a lot of cyano or other bacteria at once might lead to problems with released toxins.

[Acro-Phobia]

Agree.

The real damage appear to be isolated to the Acropora colonies. All the other corals, fish and invertebrates seem to be okay. We inspected everything with a Black Light last night to see how many colonies would still show some life. About 70-80% still have poylps. Almost none of them have any skin left.

I did a second water change this morning and changed out the carbon. Tank is starting to clear now and the smell is subsiding. I was able to see some poylps trying it extend on my big Tenuis colony and some of the Milli's. They just look really pathetic right now. It was under the Actinics so it's white skinless colonies with little florecsing fingers poking out. I should know by the weekend who is going to live and who is not.

I know with any medications, there are contradictions and possible reactions with other meds or chemicals present. I just want to find out what it was so that others can be aware. Frying our critters is not the desired objective.

[xraydoc]

The others theories on toxin release from dying bacteria would be my guess as well. It is not uncommon in medicine to see significant reactions (even death) in humans when treating things like parasitic worm infestations, some cancers (tumor lysis syndrome), and others.

My opinion would be that you likely experienced such an event. Sorry to hear about your loss.

By the way, I have also heard that Ultralife Red Slime remover is erythromycin, a macrolide antibiotic. However, I have no objective proof to confirm this.

[Acro-Phobia]

I am starting to look at another possible scenario. We had discovered I had a Red Bug infestation. The plan was to start treatment next weekend. Now that the dust has settled, everything in the tank appears to be pulling thru except a few snails, my clam, the Aptasia which are all dead and the lose of all the skin on the Acropora. I'm starting to think now that all the Acro was under severe stress from the Red Bugs and when I did the Cyano treatment it sent them over the edge. As a last ditch survival effort, they all sluffed thier skin which trashed the tank.

We looked as hard as we could last night and couldn't find one lousy Red Bug. Of couse, no Acro has skin left so the bugs got sluffed with it. I'm sure they are still in the tank so I'll still have to treat that, but this scenario makes since to me. All the major damage was limited to the Acro. And that could have been a defensive reation by the Corals.

[Runfrumu]

I've used red slime remover without an issue as well.

Sorry for your troubles.

[bertoni]

I agree that the extra stress from the red bug infestation might have played a big part in the problems you've had. Sigh!

[Acro-Phobia]

Well I keep trying to be positive, but the worst I guess is not over. All my Monti Caps are losing thier skin and the hammer and frog spawn's are shriveling to nothing. I have a feeling I haven't seen the end of this.

The skimmer has quit working overtime so the system is slowly getting cleaned out. I'll be ready for another big water change Thursday.

One strange thing. We have been cheaking Ammonia, NO2, NO3 constantly since Sunday and all are flatline Zero. They never inched up at all. I guess the good bacteria didn't get hurt.

[bertoni]

Erythromycin doesn't affect the ammonia cycle bacteria, as far as I can tell, and that's what I've heard is in that particular red slime product, although the company isn't saying.

Did you add the fresh carbon? That might help some.

[Acro-Phobia]

Yes, put in new carbon this morning. The tank is actually looking very clear and normal now with the exception of the SPS. Fish seem happy, big LTA is starting to open up again. Just got to watch the SPS and see who survives. Probably do one more big water change Thursday and then back to my weekly change on Sunday.

I've had a reef tank for nearly 6 years now and this is my first big loss. I felt pretty devistating but I still have critters in my tank. I know others have had far worse loses. Time to move forward and nurse back the critters I can. All my local reef keeping Buds are standing by with frags. I'm sure glad these are fast growing critters.

[Bonebrake]

With any red slime remover I have always read that oxygenation is essential otherwise you can get a meltdown such as this. Did you have an air stone running and plenty of water flow during treatment? People who did not use an air stone frequently have corals and/or fish die.

[Acro-Phobia]

Your choice of words.."Meltdown"...is very appropriate. That's exactly what it looked like with the Acro. Several mistakes on my part. The biggest was laziness. Instead of reading up on the medication, I just took the word of another reef keeper and followed his method. Big mistake. Contrary to the prescribed techniques, I turned my skimmer off and did not use an air stone. As my hobby experience says below, I have just enough experience to be dangerous. But I am still learning.

This was a bad piece of education. I hope this thread will help others protect thier critters a little better than I did.

On a positive note, the tank looks pristinre this morning. Water is crystal clear and several Acro colonies are showing poylp extension. Things are starting to recover. I did try to draw them out last night with a good helping of cyclops-eeze. Seems to have worked.

[Bonebrake]

Albeit a bad outcome, I have read of several complete system crashes with red slime remover and lack of use of an airstone, the fact that most of your creatures seems to be pulling through and the tank looks pristine already is a good sign - it could have been a lot worse. Keep up with the water changes, activated carbon, and keep that skimmer going full bore and everything should pan out in the end. :)

[Acro-Phobia]

Thanks Bonebrake. I'm working all of those. I've also cut the halides to 3 one hour periods a day. Since all the Acro's are naked now, I don't want to fry them more or let algae start moving in.

Some of the corals will make it, but I'm seeing a lot of them give up. I'm leaving them in the system until I see no chance they will make it. I don't want to give up on them until I have to.

[Bonebrake]

No problem! Good luck! :)

[darthwall]

well reading this forum has made me think about alot of things im doing a red slim treatment right now and everything is going well so far this is the second time i have treated in the past month and a half any body have any key tipps to stopping the cyno all together that is farely safe and effective acro sorry for your loss I might be on the same track if things get out of hand (cucumber) might act up but i would like to reed more

[Mark426]

I am sorry for your troubles...very sad.
When all else fails .....read the friggin directions.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

There are no easy long term answers for cyano. Antibiotics like this one can knock it back a lot and may be helpful to reset the balance of uptake of nutrients to some other method (like macroalgae, skimming, etc), but if you do not have adequately low nutrients, the cyano may just come back.