vokda and vinegar - major disaster?

[MarcoPolo]

I'm feeling really bad...2 years of hard work down the drain. I returned from a business trip to find several of my corals ded in just a few days, the skin removed leaving the calcium body bleached. My aquarium shop tested the water for me today, all parameters are Ok (just calcium was a bit low). I immediately changed around 15% of water and hope the worse is over but the corals seem to continue to die. But what could have been the route cause of this catastrofic disaster? I usually add 5ml of vodka, and a week ago started adding also 20ml vinegar (in addition to vodka). could this combination have had this deadly result? I also noticed my temperature had drop to less than 15, now back to around 25%. The skimmer was also not skimming...as if there was something strange in the water. Now it is working again. What should I do...?:(

[philbo32]

I also noticed my temperature had drop to less than 15, now back to around 25%.

What do you mean by 15 and now its back to 25%? Should this be temperature in degrees centigade? If it is then that is probably the cause of your losses. Overdosing vodka and vinegar will usually cause the water to go cloudy with bacterial bloom and this can lower oxygen levels through bacterial respiration. This bacteria will be removed by your skimmer and will cause your skimmer to fill quite quickly.
What size is your tank?

Sorry for your losses,

Phil

[MarcoPolo]

..sorry, typing mistake. Indeed, temperature drop down to 15 degrees centigrade. I've pushed it back up tp 25C. Could this really have caused all this damage?

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Any chance there was a power failure?

Check the water for ammonia now.

[MarcoPolo]

no, power was Ok. What I noticed when I returned home after 3 days absence was that skimmer, though still on, had not skimmed anything during my absence. It is skimming well now, but for the last days it was doing nothing

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Hard to say what might have caused it, unfortunately.

[MarcoPolo]

should I resume the vodka dosing, or best to leave the aquarium alone for a few days?

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

If there is a tank crash, I might stop dosing anything, and closely monitor ammonia for a bit.

[MarcoPolo]

thanks for the advise. marco

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

You're welcome.

Good luck!

[happysak]

..sorry, typing mistake. Indeed, temperature drop down to 15 degrees centigrade. I've pushed it back up tp 25C. Could this really have caused all this damage?


Yes, 15 centrigate= 59 fahrenheit

[Laith]

15 degrees C? I think that would not be very good at all...

Given that this is the only parameter that seems to be off, I'd say this is what the problem was.

15 is very low for coral.

[JGYEAR]

15 degrees C? I think that would not be very good at all...

Given that this is the only parameter that seems to be off, I'd say this is what the problem was.

15 is very low for coral.

I agree with Laith a 15 degree drop is not good for coral.

[Pcrain]

I also agree temperature caused this crash a drop by 15 degree is huge and could easy stress out corals...

your fish are alright yes?

[Genetics]

It's difficult to say what exactly caused the issue. If your skimmer wasn't working for a few days and the temperature got cold enough I would lean towards these as the culprit. Why did it get so low? How did it get so low without a power failure?

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

A broken heater exposing metals inside could also cause a tank crash and low temp.

[Lobb4920]

Seems temperature is the problem ime.

[philbo32]

A temperature drop of 10°C will cause the salt water in your tank to be slightly more dense and mess with the water level in your protein skimmer. This will cause the water level to be lower and your skimmer not to work. This is just an idea of how temperature might have affected your water and its effect on the performance of your skimmer. A 10°C drop in temperature will shock corals especially hard corals and I believe this is the culprid as I suspected in my first post.