Emergency fish all wiped out

W

wisco-reef

New member
My wife called me at work 1 hour ago and said all my fish died. I speed home and tested the water. First let me tell you all what I had in my 55gl reef tank. Hardwear first then live stock.

1- Eheim 2217 cannister filter 1- I can't remeber the name of my protein skimmer it's a hang on the back skimmer its rated for a 75 gallon
2- 100 watt heaters
2- 660 power heads
Now for the live stock,
70 lbs of live rock
1- gsp
1- toad stool
1- pipe organ
1- large colonie of xenia
15-20 various mushrooms,richordia,fuzzy,striped, ect
1- peice frogspawn 5 heads
3- small candy canes ( the whole peice is about the size of a quarter)
1- small colony of zoo's
1- large rock ( about a 5lb peice ) covered with yellow poylops.
2- peppermint shrimp
20- turbo snails ( atleast it was twenty 4 months ago when I got them )
15- Blue legged hermit crabs.
1- brittle star ( also quite a few mini brittle stars, mabey 15 - 20, they came on a peice of live rock )

The fish I HAD.
2- black clowns
1- small orange sholder tang ( about 3 in. )
1- manderin goby
1- blue damsel
2- spotted damsels

I havent added anything in over a month. I keep up with water changes. Roughly 5gl every two weeks.
Now for the water quality.
amonia-0
nitrates- .1
nitries- .1
ph- 8.2
calcium- 400
alk.- 12 ( alittle high but not high enough to kill all my fish and no coral )

Just a little info. I've had my tank set up for about 11 mo. Never had any fish die. I lost one peice of devil's finger leather and one three headed peice if frog spawn. The corals I have now all seem to be doing fine. Several are splitting right now. All of my fish died execept my blue damsel. Both shrimp are fine along with the brittle star and cleaning crew. I do not have a sump. Was thinking about making my own. Would that have prevented this? I add calcium and strontium and iodide at night when I turn the skimmer off. Not every night just when needed. I am feeling alittle bit overwhelmed right now. It's not the cost of the fish as much as I want to know why this happened. I really enjoy having a reef tank, besides it's constant work, time, and money, I feel it's a very rewarding hobby and I get to have a beautiful
aquarium in my house. So if anyone has ever had this happen to them or know anything about this happening please help me out. Any suggestion's on anything else I can do or get to help prevent this from ever happening again would be greatly appreciated. Thank you to everyone who helped me through the last year and now.

P.S. I almost forgot to mention, I use ro/di water.

Signed,
The Fishless Reeftank Owner
 
sounds to me like there was some kind of pollutant, maybe pest control or somthing of that nature, really sorry about your loss. maybe time to upgrade to a 100 gallon.
 
strange, i would suggest a leaking voltage but the corals are fine so, well weird.
 
Since the deaths occurred among the population with the highest oxygen demand, oxygenation may have been an issue. Tangs use a ferocious amount, less so the others, esp the mandarin, but if the oxygen depleted it could have gotten them and not touched the coral yet.
Oxygenation in a tank is provided by waterfall to the sump, and by the skimmer, which bubbles ferociously. If the temperature rose too high and oxygen was short already, that could be a problem with only a cannister replacing the sump. That's a wild guess, but given the absence of thorough oxygenation and the species involved (damsels and tangs require twice as much tank to be comfortable)...plus the clowns are a form of damsel, though not as energetic. It may not be the answer, but it is a place to start looking.
 
What was your wife doing prior to seeing your fish. I've heard of people cleaning the house, and minutes later seeing the skimmer going crazy. Possibly some kind of spray getting in the tank?
 
Same thing happaned to me. All fish died except one survivor a algae blenny. Corals and inverts were fine.

Didn't have any surface agitation and temps must have rose just enough to deplete oxygen in my 37gal while I was at work.

Only fish were 2-percs, six-line, and the blenny. I had had surface agitation the night before but adjusted powerhead to point downward to help with detritus removal. When I woke up things looked fine. Came home and had fish stew.
 
All my corals are looking great. I agree it's very strange as is to why this happened, the oxygen in my tank is pretty good, both of my power heads are able to be used as oxygenaters as well. I only use one for that though. Thank you all for your help. I guess all I can do is keep reefin. I just really want to find out why.
 
Check for stray voltage, too-- frayed wires, malfunctioning heaters, pumps, etc.
What kind of cleaning schedule did you have that canister on? If it was dirty and got turned off for a while then plugged back in you can have a major hydrogen sulfide injection into the tank, but the fact it was only fish that died is perplexing.
 
I checked over all of my electronics just to make sure, they were all fine so I guess I'm at a loss for words. I was thinking about using an old 30gl tank I had down stairs for a sump. What would that do for my system? I guess I'm just tring to figure out way's to prevent this from happening again. I'm alittle upset about the cost of the fish but more so the reasoning, WHY, and also, they were my fish, each one of them seemed to have their own little personalities. RIP.
 
Seriously, any death caused to my husband's tank have been my fault. All of them. I have hid about 4 deaths, but others were so bad that I had to fess up.

A couple of the mistakes were fixed by purchasing some extra equipment... but human - er - wife - error... It was my fault.

in any case, sorry for your loss. My husband has 2 reef, one zoa, and fish only tanks. they are his babies.
 
I did a 15gl water change, so hopefully that will help. I don't really know what else to do. I was thinking about using an old 30gl tank I had for a sump. What would that do for my situation. Thanks for all the help.
 
I did a 15gl water change, so hopefully that will help. I don't really know what else to do. I was thinking about using an old 30gl tank I had for a sump. What would that do for my situation. Thanks for all the help.
 
i feel for your loss and hope you get to the bottom of it, i think it must be either voltage, chemicals via sprays or oxygen depletion, im at a loss why but think 1 of these 3 must be the reason
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14547351#post14547351 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Michael
i feel for your loss and hope you get to the bottom of it, i think it must be either voltage, chemicals via sprays or oxygen depletion, im at a loss why but think 1 of these 3 must be the reason
Click to expand...

+1. IMO, I think your best bet at this point is to (at least try to) figure out what went wrong that caused your tank to endure such stress. Going the extra mile and trying to learn from any errors will only benefit you in the future.

I've lost a few fish before, and it downright sucks... RIP! :(
 
I am planning on doing a 10%-15% water change once a week for the next few weeks atleast. My calcium levels were a little high this morning when I test 500. If I got a sump would that help?
 
Theres no way to tell if a sump will help because we dont know what the problem was or is. IMO a sump will only benefit the tank. Gives you more water volume, a place to hide all your equipment, and you could make a small refugium as well. Is a sump needed to maintain a tank, no. Will it benefit your tank in the future? I would deff say yes but there is no way to tell if it will help this problem.
 
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