3 Fish Dead and bleached corals

N

neostyles

New member
so, in the last 3 days I've lost 3 Fishes and yesterday all my corals went form color to completely bleached, closed polyps and were spreading mucus.

100 gal with 40 gal sump

ph 8.3
Nitrite 0.007 ppm
Phosphate 0.00
Calcium 567 ppm Never been able to lower it
Alkalinity 10.5 dkh
Magnesium 1600 ppm
salinity 1.026

I recently upgraded from a 50 gal to a 100 gal, about two months ago. i used the same live rock and most of the water from the old one. Can the tank still go thru a mini cycle? i did an ammonia reading using an API test kit and its about 0.25-0.50. can that be the reason? i have been doing weekly 15% water changes using rodi water.

any help would be most appreciated. as i still have some livestock in tank.
 
I'm not an expert, but it seems unlikely to me that a cycle due to a tank move would kill fish two months later. If you had a cycle, you would have seen problems in days, not months.

Seems like the ammonia is a result of the deaths or some other reason.


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Is it possible that some chemical got into the tank? Something maybe airborne like a cleaning liquid (windex), or could there have been residual stuff on your hands? Or, tobacco smoke or tobacco juice, something like that.
 
Hmm. Not sure about the cleaning chemical, but I don't smoke and no one here does. The reason that I believe the ammonia is to blame is cause of the sudden death of the fish and how they acted before passing, sitting still at the bottom of the tank gasping for air. But how if I'm doing weekly water changes and it wasn't a cycle how would the ammonia get so high?
 
ben01 said:
The API ammonia test kit often gives false positives for low levels of ammonia in saltwater. I doubt that was what killed everything.
Click to expand...

I agree. how are the rest of the creatures you have left doing? crabs, shrimp? Could bleach have gotten into the tank? did you recently clean something?

What other testing have you done and what are the readings?
 
My snails look fine, and the rest of the fish as well, hippo tang, red flame angel, lemon peel angel, domino damsel and my black and white clown are all active and eating well. Is just my corals that look sad no extension and no color on my montipora.
 
I haven't tested for anything else. A few day ago I cleaned my reactor canisters for gfo and carbon I use vinegar and rodi water. As far as for the rest of my fish they all seem fine very active and eating well. Corals look bad no polyp extension and no color on my montipora. I haven't had any other chemicals near the the tank.
 
Do you have small kids that could access the tank? Just a question, I have seen this happen to kids wants to feed the fish and puts stuff in the tank.
 
I've experienced similar symptomology from a couple of different sources...one occurrence was very quick and pervasive, which was a transformer plug for some LEDs that came apart and was dangling in the water...so, electricity.

The second occurrence wasn't as acute or pervasive, and mainly effected corals. That was from a magnet that developed a compromised seal and was rusting in the tank...
 
What was the temperature? Could you have seen a spike above 88° 24-72 hours prior to the bleaching event?
 
Timfish said:
What was the temperature? Could you have seen a spike above 88° 24-72 hours prior to the bleaching event?
Click to expand...



This ^^

My house doesn't have AC and if I'm not watching, the tank temp can easily go over 85. I'm guessing this is the culprit.


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I'd maybe try a different ammonia test to see where you're really at. Did you examine your 3 dead fish at all? If the fish have any red bruise like marks on their body, it can be a sign of ammonia poisoning.
 
My carbon filters on my rodi unit are fine my tds is around 8 before going to the final stage. I don't carbon dose just alkalinity and calcium. The temp on my tank is between 75-80 my chiller and heater are working fine. The one thing I did was right after my first loss (magnificent foxface) I did maintanance on my pumps and reactors, I also cleaned my uv sterilizer and re-plumbed it differently when I put it back, after moving it I realize that the lamp would go on and off, so I replaced it. After several hours it would go off again, so I decided to take it out. A while after was when everything went bad for me. Wondering if there was stray voltage going to the tank? I looked at my fish and the domino damsel looked grayish not its usual black, the yellow tang was perfect I tried placing it in a bucket with freshly made water and it would stay upright and was gasping for air. Now after removing the uv sterilizer my tank looks cloudy.
Not sure why.
Thanks for trying to help. Much appreciated
 
I would make sure you are not getting stray voltage.
It also wouldn't hurt to double check to make sure your thermometer and whatever you use to measure salinity are accurate.
 
My carbon filters on my rodi unit are fine my tds is around 8 before going to the final stage.

Have you ever tested the product water of the RO/DI for traces of Ammonia, Chloramine, Chlorine? If you never have then you might learn something about TDS meters and carbon filters. I'm just throwing it out there. It's a lesson that I learned the hard way. It's an issue not often discussed.
 
stray voltage, heat spike, or poisoning are my guesses. Carpet freshener, dryer sheets, scented candles, bug spray, or a sponge or gloves labeled antimicrobial....
 
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