need advice please

[mnml]

one of my snails knocked over my birdnest colony which fell on a ric and a favia. the ric looks like it's melting and the birdnest is starting to bleach pretty bad. the favia has this white coating all over it as well. all my acans in the tank are closed and starting to slime a bit. i performed a 10% water change yesterday and things are starting to look a bit better today. the acans are still closed but some polyps are starting to show its tenticles again.

my question is should i do another 10% water change today or wait a few days?

i don't think the birdnest will recover as it is completely bleached this morning. should i remove it from the tank so it doesn't contaminate the water any further?

any advice on what to do is much appreciate. i also tested my water parameters to make sure things are okay.

specs:

temp 76-78
ph 8.3
salinity 1.025
nitrate 0
amonia 0
cal 430
dkh 9.7

[Sk8r]

First, run carbon for 5 days, and skim wet. That will remove some problem. Remove the birdsnest and use it later for a coral prop. The ric may recover if the mouth is uninjured. but if it were mine, I'd consider slicing off the bad part with a new, sharp razor.
Test for ammonia and nitrate. Carbon remediates ammonia and other biological products. So do water changes, but carbon will take care of ongoing coral poison-spitting. If you REALLY find a disaster in the chemistry, Amquel plus is a good product. I've used it with fussy acroporas in the tank and had no problems.

To prevent this in future, get a tube of reef epoxy/green/white stuff, follow prep instructions, stick a ball of it into a crevicewhere you want the critter to be, then jam the end of the specimen into the ball. No more reefslides.

[mnml]

thanks Sk8r for the fast reply. i have carbon running that's about a 2 weeks old. should i add more?

i'll remove the birdnest since i think there's no way of it recovering. i have my razor blade handy for slice off the melted part of the ric.

since i did a 10% water change yesterday, should i do another 10% today? i'm not sure if too much water change can mess with my tank's balance.

thanks again for your advice, much appreciated!

[mnml]

here's a picture of my birdnest...do you think i can still frag the tips and save some of it? or is it a goner?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v192/Zenit/_MG_1751.jpg