90% fish loss

[tkeracer619]

I'm just gonna start by saying the phrase "you live and you learn".

I have never had a fish tank crash before. I keep my water clean, diagnose problems early, feed properly, and give proper overall care. The one thing I looked over was a good Q tank for new fish really sad because I have another tank set up at a friends house less than an hour away. I didn't want to kill the 2 fw fish that are still in it and he was doing a good job at killing them so i figured it would be sooner than later before the fish died an I would have my qt tank.

I have had this tank set up for several months now, life is flourishing on the rocks, the deep sand bed is very active, the water perameters are good.

SG 1.025 (tested with refractometer)
PH 8.2
Amonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Alk Normal (test kit doesn't display numbers)
Temp sunny 78Deg

I added two fish that looked really healthy in the store. They swam fine for 2 days.

Yesterday I came home from snowboarding and noticed nobody was eagerly awaiting my feeding hand. In between midnight and 1pm yesterday i lost a Powder Brown Tang, Nibli Angel, and a Gramma Basset. By this morning add my Yellow tang and fridmani dottyback.

My pygmy angel hasn't showed itself since late last night, and I cant find my lawnmower blenny.

My firefish and 3 stripe are all that made it so far..... They look fine.

Now to try to figure out what happened!

1. I did some work to the tank the day before, I removed my bioballs and changed the way the water entered the sump. A lot of stuff in the sump was stirred up. I didnt use any glue on the pvc.

2. The day before that I finished my lighting by adding the two vho actinics. I covered the tank were I was working on it but its possible some painted flakes of sawdust made it into the water or worse yet little shavings of metal from the screw heads. I did cover the tank with a panel of glass were i was working and tried to reduce the amount of dust i produced.

3. I did have a kole tang that died on day two after adding it last week. Thats a long story but he shouldnt have been sold to me in the first place, He was covered in ich but you couldnt see it till my metal halides hit him....... too late already in the tank.

4. The powder brown and nibli angel were added this week, they might have brought somthing to the table?

5. If it was the kole tang who brought it in was it something other than the ich that killed my fish. I mean if fish can live at petco with ick for a week than healthy fish wouldnt die within 12 hours in my tank.

6. I had biult a new refugium for my tank and fitted it under the tank. Some aquarium safe silicone was still drying around this fitting. It wasnt around the tank for very long. Maybe 10 minutes.

7. I read the other day about a redworm that can take out a whole tank if they get caught in a powerhead. The worm looked like a red worm i see everyonce in a while. Is it possible that one got sucked into my return pump when i was messing with my sump.

Any ideas on to what caused this. Again these fish swam very happly 2 days ago and would eat anything dropped into the tank. Very fat fish.

None of the critters are dead that i can tell.

My plan is to go get my other tank set it up as a bare bottom q tank. Wait 6-8 weeks before I add any more fish. IF any survivers make it through i will captrure them and put them in the q tank till its time.

 

[tkeracer619]

Update, Just pulled the remains of the pygmy angel.

The lawnmower blenny is the only one mia now, i feel the worst.

 

[baobao]

I don't want to pour salt over your open wound,

but aren't you supposed to quarantine fish four 4 - 8 weeks and then add them gradually to a DT?

You're tank could have Amyloodinium, Brooklynella, Urodenum -

Just nuke the tank, dessicate it completely, disinfect it with bleach, and leave it fallow for 6 weeks. (Just my .02)

 

[tkeracer619]

Nuke it. That seems pretty extreme.

If absolutly required i would do it but i dont think its to that point yet. Im not really wanting to loose the rock and growth.

I will find out in a few months when i introduce fish again..... after they are qt for a while.

The way I look at it is im new to saltwater so mistakes happen.

I am going to look into those 3 you listed.

 

[baobao]

The rock and substrate are most likely already contaminated.

If you cannot follow the suggestion to nuke it, I would highly recommend that at minimum you remove them and leave them in a seperate container(nothing fancy is necessary) for the period specified. Otherwise, you will be shooting yourself in the foot as the protozoan bacteria are still present and, moreover, you will be unable to medicate.

 

[tkeracer619]

The only thing that makes those diseases seem like it is the hard breathing. The spots on them was definitly ich. Im not ruling it out but i think there could be a better match.

2 of them are un-effected but im not leaving anytime soon so i can watch them more closely to see if they develope anything.

If they make it and never show signs does that mean that it wasn't those sicknesses listed.

There are a lot of factors and I changed a lot of things the day before so i cant rule it strait to disease.

Moving the rock is not a problem.

 

[leebca]

Your plan sounds good.

There are many things that could have caused the problems. You obviously have disease as a factor, though which ones may or may not be clearly identified. Then there are a group of possible poisons to contend with.

The diseases you can wait out, providing they are obligate parasites, but the problem with the poisons is not handled that way. Believe it or not. . .the poisons are best gotten rid of, for sure by cleaning out the tank, washing it thoroughly, rinsing it thoroughly with RO/DI, allowing it to dry out and then starting over again. I'd consider the substrates and rocks to be carriers of the poisons, and not usable.

You can proceed with your plan, but if the fish are dying again, then I'd say that was a pretty good indication of some poisons being present that are, in my opinion, best handled as mentioned above. I've had to do this very thing with two tanks where paint contamination was likely.

Good luck! :rollface:

 

[tkeracer619]

thanks.

If the rocks are messed up can i pry/cut corals and soft stuff off of them and keep some of the stuff or is that a bad idea also.

I hope this is a passer on by, the tank was just how I wanted it for 2 days, I wasnt going to change a thing for a long time

if i screem can anyone hear it. its like a tree falling in the woods. lol

 

[leebca]

I don't know what poison(s) it might be, in order to give you good guidance on this. And then, I don't know how the poisons might react with the inverts you have. Sorry on that.

Unfortunately I'm not sure if you can assume that if the invert is doing well, that any other inverts or fishes might do well. That is, I don't know if the condition of the invert is any indication of its level of contamination (the invert just couldn't care about that particular poison, for instance) or how that might affect the fishes.

If I was forced to guess, I'd say that non-calcareous lifeforms should be okay to transfer from the old to the new rock, providing that old rock is not attached. I would be less confident when it comes to hard corals.

 

[tkeracer619]

I found my lawnmower blenny this morning. He had jumped out of the tank. Was completly dry and the cat didnt get him. Probably better than facing the hermits.

The 3 stripe and the firefish still show no ill symptoms.

I spent about 7 hours cleaning the tank yesterday. moving rocks into separate containers and blowing them off, vacuumed the heck out of the sand, sump, did about 50% water change.

Today is another 50% water change.......

Tomorow is the same...

If i poisoned the tank wouldnt it kill everybody, the firefish and damsel are still ok.. like you were saying it might leave them be if they arent affected by it but if all of those fish died rapidly and two made it unscathed.. yet... Im going to blame this one on disease for now, I have i good freind back home that works in nc in a lab devoted to marine animals. Ill see if he can find something in the detrious and water i vaccumed out.