Devastated and have to start over

[AGWL]

60g mixed reef.
I had been having a cyano bloom lately. I'd also had a few losses, including a nem and all of my emerald crabs for some unknown reason, but fish and corals, etc, were doing fine.

Two weeks ago, I was gone for the weekend and everything was fine. A couple of days after I got back, my youngest ended up in hospital for a couple of days with emergency appendectomy. Our second day in hospital, I had some new stock delivered (ordered was before everything went down). As my husband was acclimating and adding everyone to the tank when critters started to die. Within a couple of hours, I'd lost almost everything.

I have no idea exactly what happened. I had been keeping the wave makers and filter intake covered in filter bags to stop the nems being self-destructive; they'd gotten pretty clogged with cyano (needed to be changed every couple of days and I wasn't home), so the water wasn't circulating (even the filter clogged up). Also, my ink bird went weird and the tank was 74*. Husband did a 10% water change that night and was able to get the heaters going again, but it was too late.

Livestock stats:
Losses: Tomato clown, blue velvet damsel, arc-eye hawkfish, mandarin. All the emerald crabs are gone. Brittle star fish. Pom-pom crab. Sally Lightfoot crab. Turbo snails. Coco Worms. Banded Coral Shrimp.
Survivors: Hermit crabs all seem to be fine. Smaller snails (they're even still busy laying eggs). Conch snails. Clam. Some corals seem okay (Duncan is fine, Ricordeas seem fine. Clove is iffy. GSP in shock but I think it will come back. Candy canes are a loss, I think.)

When I got home the next day, these were the parameters:

Temp: 80 (up from 74)
pH: 7.8
Salinity: 1.026
Nitrite: 0
Ca: 520
Phos: 0.1
Mg: 1440
Nitrate: Couldn't find the test kit
Ammonia: Needed new test and the next day it tested at 0.5. I honestly expected it to be MUCH higher!

I'm not sure this was just a perfect storm of events with the ink bird going on the fritz at the same time everything clogged up, or what actually happened. It smelled HORRIBLE by the time I got home. So now I'm wondering if other things may have been at play....

1. The clownfish would kick up the substrate around her nems which caused some deeper areas. Could this have caused a methane burst?
2. When hubs was working with the new stock, he started by floating the bags. This bags had stickers on them with numbers written in marker (sharpie?). Could the marker have leached into the water and did this?
3. What else am I missing?

I am absolutely devasated.

I did a 50% water change this weekend and will continue to do 20% changes weekly until cyano is cleared up and parameters are stable. I will not be adding any new critters for at least a couple of months.

What am I missing here? What else could have caused this?

 

[griss]

Oh my, so sorry to hear about your losses and the emergency appendectomy. Hopefully, your child is recovering well.

Not knowing what the marker was it's hard to say if that contributed. But, if I had to guess, it was likely a Sharpie and I've never had an issue with Sharpies causing problems.

Sounds like the perfect storm to me. The clogged filters, loss of flow and temperature drop likely all combined with this result. The clown stirring up deeper pockets of sand likely also released hydrogen sulfide into the tank along with whatever else was built up in the sand.

I've recently had the same issue with a clown. I had a pair of Clarkiis. The female hosted in the LTA and the male never showed any interest. The nem was settled into a deep sand area I created for it on the back right of the tank. The female clown died and suddenly, the male was interested in the LTA but, he didn't like where it was located and didn't like the rockwork around it. He went to town knocking down rocks, throwing sand everywhere and eventually, the LTA moved the the middle of the rockwork

 

[wvned]

I have some guesses
#1 The temperature went much higher or lower than it was supposed to. If the probe for the Inkbird got lifted out of the water it can cook a tank since it reads air temperature and keeps the heaters on.
#2 One of the new livestock was DOA and when added nuked the tank.

No the writing on the bag was not an issue.

 

[shred5]

Yea sorry for the losses.
Hard to say since there is so much.

74 wont kill that much stuff. I have got a lot lower than that several times with no losses. 74 really is not that low and some reefs hit 74 degree water sometimes. Now if the temps swing too fast different story.
Cyano wont kill fish or inverts unless it was not cyano and was dinoflagellate's.
I doubt it was hydrogen sulfide from the sand.

Now it could be a combination of everything or a snowball effect..

I am not a fan of ink bird controllers. My last two went wonkey on me too. My last one was saying my water was like 150 degrees and it was only a month old. Obviously my water was not that high.

 

[reefing102]

I agree with the above, either a more significant temp swing occurred or it was a whole snowball. The marker likely did not cause any issues. I’d consider running carbon as well if there’s any potential chemicals in the tank. Did the husband perhaps spray the tank glass directly with glass cleaner and some got in the tank? Or if he came from the hospital, I’ve heard hand sanitizer can wreck havoc on a tank.

 

[AGWL]

Thanks, everyone. Hubs wouldn't do anything to the tank I didn't specifically tell him to do. And he was never at the hospital with us; we only have one car and two other kids, so he was stuck at home while I did hospital duty. However, it's entirely possible my 13 y/o overfed the tank in my absence.

I'm just baffled. It started with my hawkfish and went from there. All of the new stock was alive during acclimation, but died upon entering the tank.

I'm getting some 3D guards for my wave makers in case I ever decide to get nems again. I'm running carbon now and will continue with large-ish water changes for a while.

Thanks again. This just really bummed me out.

 

[griss]

Again, very sorry for your losses. Please keep us updated on how things go. Those of us who have been in the hobby a long time have gone through these situations at least once so, we completely understand.

 

[T Diddy]

We’ve all had to start over at some point. I really hated reading through this thread. Like others have said, it’s hard to pinpoint any particular reason for it. It’s likely a snowball effect that you had no control over with your other obligations. Hopefully, your family is all in good health. Hang in there.

 

[shred5]

Thanks, everyone. Hubs wouldn't do anything to the tank I didn't specifically tell him to do. And he was never at the hospital with us; we only have one car and two other kids, so he was stuck at home while I did hospital duty. However, it's entirely possible my 13 y/o overfed the tank in my absence.

I'm just baffled. It started with my hawkfish and went from there. All of the new stock was alive during acclimation, but died upon entering the tank.

I'm getting some 3D guards for my wave makers in case I ever decide to get nems again. I'm running carbon now and will continue with large-ish water changes for a while.

Thanks again. This just really bummed me out.

If it were me I would at this point just sit back for a while. Let things pass till things get better.
I would add carbon to the tank which was recommended above but especially poly filters. Poly-filters are good at removing a lot of impurities and they can change colors with some too as a indication to what it might be. Do some water changes. Who knows you have children and maybe something got dumped in there that did not belong. Adult can even do it by accident, I almost have myself more than once. Change it out every few weeks and just sit back for a few months or more and see what happens. . I would kick back here take care of your family. Wait till your in a better place because this can be upsetting loosing stuff.. I have been in the reef hobby since the 80's and it can occasionally be depressing so I take a step back for a bit to see how a I feel down the road.

I just recently took a few months off and just did routine maintenance because of allot of fish losses over the last year and looking at prices of replacing them just depressed me. In my case 8 of them were chromis that probably lived past their average life span and died of old age. I also had a cucumber squeeze into a over flow and nuke all my fish in a whole system except two I got out and saved. Bad things happen to even the most experienced of us. . But after sitting back and seeing how I feel I decided to scale back and take down 3 saltwater tanks. I am also setting up a freshwater tank. I didn't make a snap decision and I feel good about it. I am going to concentrate on 4 saltwater and one fresh water aquariums. When it is all said and done it might even be less.

 

[Dustin07]

I did a 50% water change this weekend and will continue to do 20% changes weekly until cyano is cleared up and parameters are stable.

I had a bad cyano outbreak like 12-18 months ago on my 10g nano and ended up losing like half of our softies because we just didn't know how to cure it and it happened largely while we were on a week long travel. the LFS had this really simple product (it's sold in a small vial, like 2" tall with orange colored powder that you mix with tank water for a moment then pour into the tank, then dose again 48hrs later). It was like a wonder drug and has kept all cyano at bay. I wish I knew about that before.

I once had an urchin die when our temp crashed last Nov-ish that put an immediate strain on our tank. I didn't lose any fish but my mushroom and some other corals showed immediate issues. I've been told that they can really cause the water to sour when they die. Did you lose any livestock that could have released a poisonous compound into the water maybe?

74 wont kill that much stuff. I have got a lot lower than that several times with no losses. 74 really is not that low and some reefs hit 74 degree water sometimes.

In my seahorse tank I try to keep the temp no higher than 74, and was pleasantly surprised at how happy our new GSP seems to be on the back wall there. But in my zoa and shroom main tank, it's crazy once temp drops below 76-74f I immediately can see signs of stress.

 

[griss]

@AGWL any updates?

 

[Anemone]

With the lack of water circulation, and the speed of the occurrence, I'm wondering if it wasn't any oxygen-deprivation event. Stirred up substrate may have brought up mulm and bacteria, and the addition of more oxygen users started the cascade.

Kevin