All My Fish Are Dying.

[gemini aquarius(t)]

Water quality is fine. All coral, including some sps are all doing great. Nothing seems to be showing any signs of stress. But I am losing all of my fish one by one.
Started with a Blue Jaw Trigger that wouldn't eat, then it ravaged through the tank. And fast. Everything from a Powder Blue tang to Chromis to my damsels. And a wrasse and my diamond goby. Two clowns and 2 other Chromis. What the F is going on?
I have never been so frustrated in this hobby

 

[oscar.millan]

One word, electricity. Making sure nothing is leaching current into your tank will go a long way.

Could be a number of things though, good luck.

 

[DRC69]

One word, electricity. Making sure nothing is leaching current into your tank.

Good answer, I have always ran a Grd probe so I never thought much about it.
Test the water with a multi-tester, see if you get a reading.

 

[Reefers4U]

WOW. Tagging along. GL. I'm at a loss but maybe inspect the dead fish for signs of anything?

 

[gveng]

do you QT?

 

[pandimus]

did you add anything new?

 

[alanbates12]

tagging along. Added any new fish lately? Or anything new? Not sure if you have anymore fish in the tank, hope you do, but if you do and one dies, hope they don't, fresh water dip it and see if you may have fluks

 

[Tanks Alot]

from reading your thread, it seems like you don't qt and also added too many fish too soon. gl to you and hope you get it figured out and don't lose them all.

 

[saltyg135er]

Sorry to hear about your losses. I just lost all my fish to ich. Had to move them from my old tank to the new one in kinda of an emergency. I didn't have any QT tanks and they got ich pretty bad and one after another they started to go. Learned my lesson and now I will have 3 QT tanks ready just in case. Stay strong.

 

[alanbates12]

from reading your thread, it seems like you don't qt and also added too many fish too soon. gl to you and hope you get it figured out and don't lose them all.

Where did you get this info from I've not read that? If your referring to the fish i think he's talking about the order they died in

 

[FragIt Dan]

Hypoxia maybe? Possible phytoplankton bloom of Chaetoceros (slices the gills and kills the fish)? I had 3 fish die in 4 days last year with no indication as to why (all water parameters were spot on, and no disease or fin deterioration, no recent changes etc.) , all had been in my tank for about 3 years, while a 4th fish showed no signs of stress. These are wild guesses, but are some hypotheses that I have had in the past for mysterious die offs in my tanks. Unfortunately no remedies, just explanations, kinda. We all feel for you... but it happens

 

[alanbates12]

Read through your tank diary, wow you've done alot and looks nice. My question is what about your green carpet that got caught in a power head, (" Green carpet got sucked up by a powerhead! I caught it in time and turned it off. Within the day, it had gotten itself out, and right back into the powerhead next to it!"). I've heard of things like this wiping out a tank. I have no knowledge or experience in this and I'm hoping someone else will see and answer this.

 

[FragIt Dan]

Anemones getting sucked into power heads would be something to mention, if it was within a few days of the die offs... the Cnidocytes (stinging cells in the anemone) contain toxins that can (but not necessarily will) contaminate your tank. The anemone tentacles can also get shredded up, essentially spraying your tank with bits of anemone and lightly dosing your fish with toxins. If I had an Anemone sucked into a power head followed by a non disease related mass fish die off, I would attribute it to the anemone... but I don't yet know if the two happened around the same time in your case, so this may not apply to your situation. Just my two cents

 

[gemini aquarius(t)]

One word, electricity. Making sure nothing is leaching current into your tank will go a long way.

Could be a number of things though, good luck.

Thanks, I will definitely borrow one ASAP and find out if there is anything leaching. I have done the roughest of rough tests for this (Hand in tank, bare feet on ground) and felt nothing, but that doesnt mean that there isnt anything.

WOW. Tagging along. GL. I'm at a loss but maybe inspect the dead fish for signs of anything?

I have had a couple of them, and found nothing, but I just tore the mouth and gills off my diamond goby, and it looked pretty normal throughout the gills. The top of the mouth directly under the brain, which may have been a see-through opening to the brain, was black. Not sure if that is normal or not.

do you QT?

This has been my downfall as far as being a responsible reef keeper. Its one of those things that I know is a good thing, but I also have gotten away without it for so long that I thought I was good enough at choosing healthy specimens... guess not.

did you add anything new?

I think the newest addition was a Percula clown from an established tank, seemed fine, but started showing signs of stress before death.. go figure.

tagging along. Added any new fish lately? Or anything new? Not sure if you have anymore fish in the tank, hope you do, but if you do and one dies, hope they don't, fresh water dip it and see if you may have fluks

I am a fish guy, so I have added fish. But not for about a week before deaths started happening.
I have 3 chromis, 2 fusilier's damselfish, a lawnmower blenny, and a melenarus wrasse, who if dies, I am going to be REALLY bummed.

I will freshwater dip the next casualty, it seems bound to happen at this pace. Maybe I should go check now...

from reading your thread, it seems like you don't qt and also added too many fish too soon. gl to you and hope you get it figured out and don't lose them all.

I know I added too many fish, and way too quickly, but the die off started about a month after the last "batch" of fish... there were additions here and there, but only singly.

Where did you get this info from I've not read that? If your referring to the fish i think he's talking about the order they died in

Its in my tank build thread "Xavier's 120 gallon Journal"

Hypoxia maybe? Possible phytoplankton bloom of Chaetoceros (slices the gills and kills the fish)? I had 3 fish die in 4 days last year with no indication as to why (all water parameters were spot on, and no disease or fin deterioration, no recent changes etc.) , all had been in my tank for about 3 years, while a 4th fish showed no signs of stress. These are wild guesses, but are some hypotheses that I have had in the past for mysterious die offs in my tanks. Unfortunately no remedies, just explanations, kinda. We all feel for you... but it happens

I thought Hypoxia, but I have an Algae Turf Scrubber that runs straight through air, and a skimmer that introduces a ton of o2. I also have a good amount of flow inside the tank. I have 2 Koralia 1050s and a K3 running. Is there any way to test for that particular algae bloom? That sounds like a possibility, or something of the sort.

Read through your tank diary, wow you've done alot and looks nice. My question is what about your green carpet that got caught in a power head, (" Green carpet got sucked up by a powerhead! I caught it in time and turned it off. Within the day, it had gotten itself out, and right back into the powerhead next to it!"). I've heard of things like this wiping out a tank. I have no knowledge or experience in this and I'm hoping someone else will see and answer this.

Thank you for the compliment. The carpet was chopped up, but it recovered almost completely 24 hours after each incident. It is completely possible that it had something to do with the deaths though, as it occurred shortly before this die off... I know that once they die they release toxins. I didnt know the individual tentacles have the ability to foul a tank as well...

Would this affect only fish and not corals? Thank you very much for your post.

Anemones getting sucked into power heads would be something to mention, if it was within a few days of the die offs... the Cnidocytes (stinging cells in the anemone) contain toxins that can (but not necessarily will) contaminate your tank. The anemone tentacles can also get shredded up, essentially spraying your tank with bits of anemone and lightly dosing your fish with toxins. If I had an Anemone sucked into a power head followed by a non disease related mass fish die off, I would attribute it to the anemone... but I don't yet know if the two happened around the same time in your case, so this may not apply to your situation. Just my two cents

See above. I think this may have been a factor if it is possible that it affects fish only.

 

[chunkypeanutlov]

Maybe they are dying because of depression, have you tried telling them how much you appreciate them lately?

:lolspin:
:lol2:

 

[jediluke]

man I'm sorry to hear this. I was in exactly same situation and lost all my fish in 3 days.
my culprit was the new fish from Strictly fish. no wonder price was cheap.

 

[FragIt Dan]

Chaetoceros bloom: Short answer is: Yes you can check for this, but not 'test' for it... long answer is: You can take a water sample, stick it under a microscope and ID the phytoplankton you see, check the concentration of species of concern and determine if this is at a level that would be harmful to your fish. I have a lab at work here that is set up to do this and I can't be bothered... there is nothing that you can really do about it anyway other than water changes, and even that might not fix it. These phytoplankton blooms are known to wipe out a fish farms entire stock in a matter of days.

Electrical leaching: I know of several tanks that would give you a nasty zap in stocking feet, let alone bare feet, and the fish still do fine. It is worth checking into as if there is a problem it should be fixed anyway, but I would not think it is the smoking gun you are looking for.

Hypoxia: IMHO, given your setup, not a likely culprit. It is possible to have phytoplankton blooms that will suck a large amount of the O2 out of your system. Sounds like your setup should be able to handle this though.

Shredded Anemone: This will affect your corals as well, but not likely to the same affect as the fish. The Cnidocytes are like little toxic, spring loaded harpoons. They are designed to inject toxins. This has a particularly nasty effect on organisms with a vascular system as the toxins get transported around the animal to the organs and other tissues. In the case of your corals, it will likely kill one or two of the polyps, or some cells around the polyps, but at lower concentrations is not necessarily going to kill the entire coral. One of my anemones moved one day and was rubbing up against a red monti. It was several days of virtually constant contact before the monti was showing signs of necrosis (although it clearly wasn't happy for the first few days). Effects will also differ depending upon the type of anemone and coral and I have no experience with shredding carpet anemones, just long tentacle ones (and have since moved away from using power heads in tanks with anemones and now use Koralias).

Remedies: Singing: +1... but seriously, if you have a qt tank, get your fish out of your main tank (yeah right, we all know how impossible this is), give them a dip, and move them into your qt system (I leave lights out and lots of hiding places for them for a couple of days to take the stress off). Failing this, good old water changes. Moving your fish and water changes can stress your fish out too, maybe pushing them over the edge. Really, just a guessing game at this point. Spin the wheel...

 

[gemini aquarius(t)]

Thank you Dan for all the help.
I am going to do some more water changes, and see what happens

 

[Reefers4U]

Shredded Anemone: This will affect your corals as well, but not likely to the same affect as the fish. The Cnidocytes are like little toxic, spring loaded harpoons. They are designed to inject toxins. This has a particularly nasty effect on organisms with a vascular system as the toxins get transported around the animal to the organs and other tissues. In the case of your corals, it will likely kill one or two of the polyps, or some cells around the polyps, but at lower concentrations is not necessarily going to kill the entire coral. One of my anemones moved one day and was rubbing up against a red monti. It was several days of virtually constant contact before the monti was showing signs of necrosis (although it clearly wasn't happy for the first few days). Effects will also differ depending upon the type of anemone and coral and I have no experience with shredding carpet anemones, just long tentacle ones (and have since moved away from using power heads in tanks with anemones and now use Koralias).

Question: wouldn't the clown be able to thwart this stinging or does the infiltration of the Cnidocytes via the vascular system circumvent the clown's defenses? - trying to cut down on the possibilities.

 

[aleonn]

Sorry to hear of your issues, man. Although the fish died in a short period of time, it doesn't sound like you have velvet due to the absence of signs on the fish. I'm also thinking it's the anenome. Water changes and lots of carbon would a good idea IMO.