Almost had a system crash

[JonBoy]

So i've been slacking on my water changes. I mixed the water around 5 weeks ago and just got around to changing it last night and thats when it happened all my sps's started closing up, got a little nervous at that point but i thought maybe from sitting so long that the ph might of been low so i threw in a little buffer and shut off the lights. This morning my big green birdnest colony was out a little more but my green monti was dead and most all the other sps's were fading so i took all the sps's out and put them in my cube tank. I have 2 clams one almost died and the other was fine and it didnt seem to effect any lps's, fish, or zoo's so far but it turned my xenia stone white also, so I put carbon back on the system and did another water change this evening with freshly mixed water and it seems to be pulling out of it. Wanna talk about scaring the crap out of me! (scary) Im VERY glad i just set up the cube for transfering purposes. So i didnt think salt water went bad but ill never do that again! Any ideas what could of happened?

[Saltfinsax]

Scary. I wonder what changed in the water in that time. Did some of the water evaporate changing the salinity?

[JonBoy]

i kept it topped off and checked all that before i did the change

[Ryan]

Was the water circulating the entire time, or sitting stagnant?

[JonBoy]

it was probaly half and half i had my main circulation pump burn out so i had to dig up another what but it did circulateat least 24hrs before the change. What happens when if sits stagnant?

[undrtkr_00]

What params did you test just before making the change?

 

What are your tank params now?

 

Is it possible it got contaminated with some foreign substance during that time?

[Michael7979]

Was the mixing bucket covered?

Or could something have fallen in to it?

Or even worse crawled in and died?

[JonBoy]

i checked mainely the salinety but did a ph test on the tank after the change and it was at 8 and the water wasnt covered the whole time but its in its own room and nothing should of gotten in it but who knows. Best part is im in Lyle Washington so im relying on my wife telling me everything looks better as im asking how far out the polyps are then she gets mad at me because she has no clue, so im hoping its pulling out of it.

[undrtkr_00]

I was mostly thinking of testing nutrients (nitrates, phosphates, etc).

 

The only other thing that seems likely is the presence of metal (could your mixing pump or heater be falling apart?), though if things are improving, that's probably not it.