First post = disaster

[egorr]

I have been reading everything I can on the forum for the past year and really appreciate everything I have learned from all the contributors to this forum. The issue I have run into I have not found an answer to anywhere else!
I just lost an entire tank of fish within 48 hours including all the invertebrates. I am not sure what happened. This is not my first marine aquarium. I kept several tanks in the 70's. I know a lot has changed in the hobby so I spent a lot of time reading and learning before setting up a tank again. The problem began with a fair amount of algae in the tank. Light duration was the problem and that was corrected. A couple of days later I had a diatom outbreak. The problem was not severe and really should not have been a major problem. The next day was disaster day. Anything that ate algae died. The clean up crew, several turbo snails, an algae blenny, hermit crabs, emerald crab, lemon peel angel, lyretail anthias, all died. Several coral colonies also died. Only thing that did not die was 2 domino damsels and and an anemone. I am at a loss, literally. I guess the question is if algae or the diatoms can be poisonous. And if so, how did it go from food to poison in such a short period of time. I know this is a long read but I hope to get some answers from anyone willing to read this.

 

[RayAllen3422]

Welcome to the forums. Ask questions. Are you using RODI water? What are your water changes like? Do you run carbon or GFO?

 

[TangingOut]

Did you test water parameters after this happened? What are they? Even if you didn't test right afterwards.

Also, a little more info about your tank. How big, how long has it been set up, water change schedule? Any and all info can give clues so others can help you.

Sorry for you losses.

 

[Martini5788]

What are your parameters? That is so weird, I have honestly never heard of anything like that happening. I am so sorry for all that you lost. Did you add anything new to the tank? I read a post in the macroalgae forum this past summer about a shipment of macro that some people got in and placed in the tank and it killed everything, but it had died. The fact that the anemone is still alive is really odd. Either way, I would add some carbon ASAP. Please post pictures as well.

 

[neededahobby]

A complete tank crash is one of those horror stories I hear about.
However I dont think you provided enough detail. How old/established was the tank before the crash? what were you water parameters? Did you test ever?

to clarify - Are you saying you had nice established tank (>6months old) THEN
algae outbreak -> shortened light cycle -> diatom outbreak -> everything dead in 48 hours?

 

[Martini5788]

Red tide are dinos and they are poisonous, even to humans. You said it
Looked like diatoms, could it be red dinos?

 

[CStrickland]

Man that sucks! I'm so sorry.
I was going to say the same thing as martini, maybe a poisonous dino.
Even if it didn't kill everything, a few dead critters can spike ammonia, and the decay can deplete oxygen, leading to a snowball type of crash.

Also like the other posters said about rodi, I've heard of tanks that were doing ok by treating for chlorine by letting the water sit until it off gassed, until one day the water company flushes the pipes with chloramine that doesn't evaporate away. Or other tanks where there was a "boil water order" for contamination like bacteria or virus, the reefer didn't see the news and had diarrhea for a day but lost their tank.

Just to cover all the bases, did you add anything to the tank recently? Even a coral frag, or bit of live algae? New food?
Also double checking, no chemicals to kill the algae?

 

[pyithar]

i'm sorry for your losses. i also think poisonous dinoflagellates is the cause of cucs and fish deaths.

 

[CafeReef]

what do you have for circulation and pumps? maybe a sharp drop in oxygen choked everything out.

 

[egorr]

Thanks for all the replies and the condolences!
I will try to answer all the questions but this may be a long post. Sorry for that.
The tank is a Fluval M60.
Replaced light with marineland since it had a built in timer.
Replaced circulation pump with Hydor 240 when the original pump stopped working.
The tank was a gift from Hagen since I own a local pet store.
Tank has been set up for 18 months. I took my time to set it up and read lots while I was setting it up. I had marine tanks in the 70's and early 80's so this is not my first kick at the saltwater can, so to speak. I know there has been a lot of advancements in the hobby since I was involved so I tried to read and learn as much as I could. This forum has been a great source of my information.
The tank was started with IO salt and treated tap water. I added live sand and then put in the saltwater that had been pre-made to 1.025. Two weeks with pumps running. Added a couple pieces of tufa rock then added a pair of black mollies to start the cycle. I added a Fluval 106 filter under the tank at this time. Tank cycled in about 6 weeks. All of the water parameters remained within normal. I used an API kit for the basics and have a Red Sea pro for KH, Ca, Mg.
I began adding some live rock near the end of the cycle period. Once cycled I added a rock with mushroom corals on it and switched the mollies out for the damsels. Everything I added to the tank had been in my quarantine tank for at least 4 weeks.
A power outage over a weekend when I was not home resulted in the lights being on too long in the day and the algae took advantage. This was the first real problem. Minor at best, a little h2o2 and the problem was solved. The next problem was the dino. Again I thought a minor problem because I also saw a decrease in PH at the same time. Time for kalk dosing to raise the PH and solve the problem.
Never got a chance to dose. The algae went crazy and so did the dino's and everything died. Immediate testing showed no changes except the ammonia was at 0.25. To be expected with all the dead stuff in the tank, but still not as high as I would have expected.
I did an immediate 1/3 water change to remove any of the detritus from the tank as well as much of the dino as possible. The testing was done on the water in the pail once it was exchanged from the main tank.
Since this happened I removed the damsels back to the quarantine tank. One of the corals I thought died has started to open up again and the anemone has split into two. A really weird situation to say the least. All the time the parameters have remained steady except the slight drop in Ph.
From now on I will try to answer any questions one at a time to keep the post a little shorter.
Again thanks for all the help and the condolences for my losses.

 

[Martini5788]

Based on research, alot of people recommend adding cope pods to the tank for dinos. It definitely can't hurt at this point. Are you able to post a picture? Have you added any corals, snails, macro in the last few months?

 

[Spacekitty]

First post = disaster

Treated tap water could be a big problem. You want to use Ro/di water. Tap water could be part of your algae problem among other things.

However I don't think that would suddenly kill things off if they have been fine for months. Maybe a contaminant got in your water recently and when you did a water change it got in the tank?

 

[leviburns89]

Are you testing for phosphate? That could be playing a significant role in this since the use of tap water added a ton of phos.

Rocks leaching maybe + tap water + algae bloom + fish dying

Points to phosphates, it's what feeds algae and the like.

As far as your inverts are concerned, I would say the tap water had copper or some other metal they cannot take.

I am very sorry for your loss, I know it's hard to loose so much.

I lost all my critters in a house fire a few years ago. That was a sad day.

 

[Shaummy]

How are the dino's now? I lost 3 fish and some clean up crew to a dino outbreak. There are a lot of threads here about dino's and some ways to treat them. If they have receded now then I guess you don't have to worry as much.

 

[egorr]

For the first fill I used tap water treated with prime, since our municipality uses chloramine. This was the only time I used tap water. All changes since have been with ro/di water. I am testing for phosphates as well as the normal tests plus a few extras. Everything seemed to be where they should have been at the 1 year mark. The last addition was a couple of frags from one of our local aquarium club members and that was over 3 months ago. I am now treating the dinos with kalk/ph raise. I will attempt to get a couple of before and after photos of the tank if I have any. I kept a test journal and I am now going through it to jog my memory of anything odd that I can pass on.

 

[ZeeSparrow]

How long was the power out?

How did you use the hydrogen peroxide? If directly in the tank, what dosage did you use?

 

[egorr]

Power was only out for a few minutes, enough to reset all the timers.
The peroxide was used a 1/2ml directly placed under the algae with a hypodermic needle once per day. According to everything I read that dose was safe.

 

[egorr]

Since I have had so many problems, I decided to turn this into an experiment. I am having issues posting pictures so this becomes a written report. And this means it will be wordy. I thought that everything in the tank had died. To my amazement some animals survived the onslaught. After more reading and some suggestions from this thread I began a course of treatment. First, i dug out my 40 year old microscope and had a look at a sample. To my amazement I found spheres moving on the slide, and lots of them. Id is not yet confirmed. First test was what would kill them. Tried h2o2 with no noticeable change in mobility. Tried just plain h2o with instant success. Everything stopped moving. I had already raised the ph in the tank with no real difference observed. One of the things on this forum reported to have some success with killing these pests. With the new information about freshwater killing these, I began to use a baster and put the top off water directly over the rocks in the main tank. This resulted in a severe reduction in the brown slime covering them. Now for the miracle. I had drained the tank and sprayed all the rocks with h2o2. Thought I had killed everything with this. No! In the last few weeks some things have reappeared. Two purple mushrooms have returned to the bottom of the tank. Several welk's snails are still in the sand, snouts visible, and the anemone has returned to the front of one of the rocks. I continue to squirt fresh water on the rocks and glass when it is needed. I also put some copepods in the tank, a suggestion here. So far these things seem to be working. There is a noticeable reduction in the brown slime on everything. I will continue to squirt the water into the tank whenever possible, directing it at the slime sheets. Trying to post some pictures and continue to monitor all the results. Just trying to figure out what it was and trying to help someone else out with similar problems.