HELP i need many opinions!!!

ridleywr24cb

ridleywr24cb

New member
i had my fish for all over 5 months now. THEN yesterday i added 10 snails,hermits and 2 emerald crabs. also added 2 koralia 750 powerheads. went to gym for about 2 hours come back and see my square back anthia powder blue tang copperband butterfly sixline wrasse yellow damsel dead. ALSO NOTICED my flame angel and blue tang lying on their sides breathing extremely heavy. so began water tests n before i finised they died. water levels are perfect except nitrates at 80 ppm. salt is perfect. temp at 79. i did a 40% water change to try n keep my koran angel blue damsel clownfish cardinal and humu trigger from dying. what do you think did the inverts or power heads at the top kill my fish becauseall the fish were fine for months!!!! up until yesterday the only fish i lost for the 2 years i had my tank was a juv red coris wrasse n that because he never ate. please help i dont want to get more fish until i know what caused this instant fatal massacre.
 
did you rinse of the koralias? They could have had some chemical on them. When you reach into the tank do you feel a tingly feeling? Maybe one of the koralias is releasing some stray voltage.

On a side note, that nitrate level is way too high. Try to bring it down to less than 10ppm.
 
no i dont feel any sting. and yes nitrates real high thats why i did water change. there usually .10 ppm i still cant figure out what went wrong that fast within 2 hours
 
how do you measure that? and i dont get how the oxygen all of a sudden went haywire when its the same live stock for 5 months now. but if u can tell me how to check that i will check it. my salt level is 1.027 if thats wat you mean.
 
For such a drastic turnaround in a couple of hours I would guess there was a contaminant either on the pumps or on your hands when you handled the pumps.

Dave B
 
Did you purchase the snails/hermits/crabs from a LFS or online? How did you acclimate them? I only ask because if you purchased online and they had a long travel time, there could be a large ammonia buildup in the bags. Did you dump that water into the tank or scoop them out of the bag water?

Also are the pumps brand new or used? Either way, did you (or the previous owner) use anything to clean them? Someone I know bought used pumps from someone and they cleaned them heavily with bleach before posting pics to sell (pretty them up, so to speak). He realized this when he brought them home, but it bears mentioning: You don't know what used equipment has gone through before you got it.

What size tank is this, by the way? Things happen quicker (so to speak) in smaller water volumes.
 
IME death in a couple hours occurs due to complete lack of oxygen, or poisoning.

Best thing to do is a large water change, and run lots of carbon, maybe even throw a polyfilter in there.
 
SDguy said:
IME death in a couple hours occurs due to complete lack of oxygen, or poisoning.

Best thing to do is a large water change, and run lots of carbon, maybe even throw a polyfilter in there.
Click to expand...

Peter makes a good point; the forensic breakdown of what happened/why can wait. Most issues that could have caused this all get back to the same solution: large water change + more filtration.
 
thank you guys. its 125 gallon. purchased snails online let bag float for 30 minutes then netted them out didnt use the water. but no didnt rinse powerheads..i did 40% water change just devistated over here losing all them fish.
 
Prior to the addition of the powerheads, what did you have for flow?

It's entirely plausible the increased flow stirred up a lot of settlement and caused an ammonia spike. The high nitrates would support this, assuming you tested several hours later. Ammonia would be quickly converted in an established system, but not quickly enough to prevent harm from your livestock.
 
no flow before just filter and skimmer before. i tested asap when seen fish dead and did a 40% water change tested again an hour later and still a high .40 nitrate
 
dont think it is stray voltage...many of us have had that issue due to trigs and other fish killing heaters and eating thru power cords...imo, either a contaminent, poor o2 levels, or high nits...after a big wc of 40% and the addtion of airstones nit levels could be much worse than before the wc...
had nothing to do with the vendor...
 
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