300 gallon tank die off

[Bbentler]

I just was posting because sometime between Friday at 9pm and Saturday at 7pm my entire tank was killed of. I had a 300 gallon fully stocked tank with a dog-faced puffer, several tangs, and school of chromis's, and a beautiful full grown emperor angelfish. My friend called me during the snowstorm while she was checking on the tank and said that everything was dead. The power was out, but the temperature was at 74 degrees, which shouldn't be cold enough to kill everyone. I thought it might be electrical shock, but when my friend fliped the power back on, the GFI didn't trip. Everything died, except a few chormises according to my friend ( I am currently out of town). I did have a small cowfish in the tank as well, so maybe it was the neurotoxin they emit? Could it have been an amonnia spike that killed everything so fast? I guess I'm posting this because I want to know why. I was very fond of my puffer especially and will miss him a lot so I just would like to know why because I am very deep in the hobby but am at a place where if I don't understand this I just might quit altogether. Any help or thoughts on this would help me right now.

Two things to note is that I take incredible care of my tanks and their water quality (tested daily), and I feed my fish at least 30 different foods in order to insure their health. I just wish I could understand why.

 

[Covey]

Thats horrible.

I guess you won't know until you get home but power outages are never good for tank.

A bunch of big fish with no water movement it could even be low O2. Most reef fish are not very tolerent of low O2 situations.

Good luck

 

[leeweber85]

Sorry to hear... My guess would be lack of O2 or the cowfish. Either one could have done it. Hope you stay in the hobby.

 

[Double-J]

that's tough man, Sorry to hear about your losses... I would think its an 02 problem as well. If you ever decide to go reef I could give ya some frags to lift your spirits. I know the fish you had are irreplaceable.

 

[Bbentler]

Thank you tiny! But I am too in love with puffers to do corals right now. I am going to miss my three year old puffer. He was my buddy.

 

[RobynT]

I'm really sorry about your loss. Typed words are not adequate when it comes to the loss of your buddy. I do not have any ideas to help you as to what happened.

I was stuck in a hotel on my way home from the Rockford frag meet and if that wasn't bad enough, my husband told me our power went down at appox 6 pm. I worried all night that I would arrive home with new frags for a dead tank. The power was restored at 6am so my tank was totally without movement or heat for 12 hours. So far so good, everything looks fine. I'm almost glad I wasn't home because I would have had a manual eggbeater in that tank trying to help it along. Who knows why things make it and don't make it sometimes.

I hope that you can survive your disaster and rebuild what you once had. So sorry this had to happen to you.

 

[atram]

It's alway's a good idea to get some battery operated air pumps for power outages. I used one when we moved to our new house during the transit and it's on standby for power outages.

They will keep O2 levels up until power is restored.


http://www.drsfostersmith.com/Product/Prod_Display.cfm?pcatid=3693&N=2004+113402

Here's one with 110v/battery switching that you can run on your tank if you going to be away. A little insurance.

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/Product/Prod_Display.cfm?pcatid=8120&N=2004+113402