All fish dead tonight, help!

[electricd7]

Hello,

Tonight I came home and didn't see any of my 4 fish (percula, tomato, yellow-tailed damsel, and black and white stripe damsel) were all missing. I quickly turned the lights on and found my percula stuck to a powerhead. I did more looking and found my yellow-tailed being consumed by a starfish. My black and white damsel was also on the sand. I still haven't found my tomato clown. I looked and saw that my protein skimmer which normally skims only about an inch every 3 days was overflowing. That means that about 2 inches of skimate had filtered back into the tank! I have 2 anemones, a blue clam, some various soft corals and some crabs and snails. All of these items were fine. I did a water test and couldn't find anything out of the ordinary. Could the overflow of skimmate cause all 4 fish to die in less than 18 hours, while leaving the corals and inverts alone? Should I take apart my rock work to find the tomato clown? Is there anything else I should look for? I am sick with greif and am not sure what I am going to tell my 4 year old in the morning. Any advice would be appriciated. Thanks in advance.

ED7

 

[drummereef]

First of all, sorry for your troubles tonight. No fun at all. From your tests you found nothing out of the ordinary, so Ammonia wasn't out the roof? I would do a large water change asap and take out any/all dead livestock. Running some carbon and using some Amquel probably isn't going to hurt either.

I guess what we don't know at this point is if the skimmer production was from the fish loss or something triggered it prior to the decline of the inhabitants... either way, dumping skimmate back into the aquarium isn't good. Again, sorry for your losses.

 

[electricd7]

Ammonia levels were barely above traceable. That is what I thought was weird. I will be doing a 10-20% water change tomorrow morning (have water mixing now.) Do you think the inverts would be ok, and do you think the overflowing skimmate was the culprit of this?

 

[drummereef]

If ammonia doesn't spike, then I'd say your inverts are in the clear. Cross our fingers... Hard to say about the skimmate. Don't know conclusively if it was the culprit or the reaction.

 

[davidryder]

I personally think that combination of livestock is dangerous... all aggressive (aside from the percula) fish typically intolerant of each other.

Aside from that, how long has the tank been setup? How large is it? Over what time period were those fish added?

 

[joekr]

Even if the ammonia test comes back negative, if this is a small tank, I would find the clown. If you have a massive cleanup crew, they may have all ready taken care of him, but if not, he's gotta be in the rock work.

What size tank do you have? Have you check for ammonia, trites and trates and they all came back zero? How long has the tank been up?

Like drummereef stated all ready, massive water change and carbon are the way to go..

Sorry for the loss. Breaking this news to kids is never fun...

 

[jenajet]

Sorry for your loss. Agree that a water change needs to be done. Anything new added, change anything at all? Could the power have gone out while you were away? Seems like could be an oxygen issue and the fish would be affected before corals. If my power goes out when it comes back on the skimmer goes nuts which is why I am wondering about a possible outage where there may have been no air running to the tank. Just a possibility. Good luck!

 

[electricd7]

Tank has been running a little over 5 months. Its only a 46 gallon tank with a 20 gallon sump. Ammonia, nitrates, and nitrites all come back at 0. The fish have all been together for a couple months with no problems. The latest thing I added was a medium colony of green polyps which the dealer quarantined for me for 2 weeks. It was added about 2 weeks ago. I don't think the power was off at all, but no way to be sure...all the clocks are ok. Do you think that 10% change will be sufficient? If not how about 20%?

 

[drummereef]

I would do more like a 30% water change in this case. It's going to be much more effective in case there is an ammonia spike between now and when you can do it.

 

[davidryder]

If all your basic levels are ok, your chasing a ghost with water changes. If ALL the fish are dead... that is strange. I feel there is a missing piece of the puzzle. Have you thoroughly looked for the fish?

In either case, that combination of fish was destined to end in some death... but not this sudden.

 

[electricd7]

I have looked for the fish visually and found all but the tomato. I have moved some of the smaller rocks around and visually looked for the tomato, and could not locate it. I have not moved all the base rock around as I really don't want to disturb it if I don't have to. Lots of corals and the anemone is planted on it....

 

[IMAGINEER]

temps, ph and alkalinity ? light cycle?

 

[Frick-n-Frags]

hhhmmmm, what kills fish but not inverts......

suffocation.
specific poisoning
specific disease

I got nothing for you, just thinking about how to break the problem down one way.

BTW, a waterchange for the heck of it is never a bad thing. at the very worst, you wasted some salt.

 

[bllfish]

What type of test kits are you using? It is hard to believe the skimmer is dumping skimmate back into your system and all your parameters are OK.

 

[Young Frankenstein]

Check for a cracked water heater. Electrician here !!!

 

[Shagsbeard]

Skimmate came from the tank, so it bubbling back into the tank isn't going to cause this. I'd take a sample of the water to your LFS and have them check your tests.

 

[bllfish]

If there is skimmate then the skimmer is doing its job and all parameters are OK. If skimmer is not doing its job then skimmate is not taken from tank (going back into tank) and your parameters will not be OK. I am saying the parameters and the tests are incorrect. One of the parameters could be at a toxic level and killing the fish.
I would also get the parameters checked at the LFS.

 

[kau_cinta_ku]

what gets me is the anemone is fine but not the fish. those are all very hardy fish that should be about make it though anything. especally more than the inverts and anemone. the tomato would be the most agressive out of all of them and could kill the rest but if he is nowhere to be found either then i am not sure

 

[andrewr]

I think it probably has something to do with O2 levels. I had a mysterious die off like this once. I can only attribute it to a deprivation of oxygen

 

[bllfish]

Could O2 be a problem with a skimmer running?