HIGH phos, Nitrates effects on fish

[chastjw]

I broke down a tank with extremely high Phosphates 2.5 on hanna, (could be higher as 2.5 max on Hanna) and over 100 nitrates.
in the tank were 4 fish, yellow tang, powder blue, hawk fish, and perc clown, along with a carpet anemone and snowflake eel.
I transfered all animals to my house, to an all ready set up quarantine tank, all samples well in normal range, 2 nitrates and 0.03 phos. I aclimated for 2 hours in buckets. next day all fish were dead, eel seems fine and anemone is open and looking good.

I was more worried about the eel and anemone then the fish but apparently I was wrong? Do you all think this was do to the high Phos, Nitrates? or something else possibly???

 

[kgross]

What is the ammonia level in the QT? Do you have enough water movement to keep the water oxygenated?

 

[DrBegalke]

How did you acclimate the fish?

 

[jimmy frag]

im thinking the carprt will be on its way out

 

[chastjw]

ammonia is 0, yes powerhead for water movement near service. Acclimated slowly adding new tank water, then removing half, slowly fill again etc. Believe it or not Carpet looks great.

 

[bertoni]

Phosphate and nitrate aren't toxic to fish, not at those levels. How big was the quarantine tank, and did it have a skimmer?

 

[ReLPSef]

Probably not enough biological filtration in your QT. Most likely an ammonia spoke and lack of oxygen.

 

[chastjw]

Qt is a 55 gal. O ammonia 0 nitrite 3 nitrate 0.03 phos on Hanna. Yes skimmer. Reef octo HOB 2000.
Anemone is doing good still, even ate a silverside. Eel doing ok, not super active. Just kinda taking in his new surroundings.
What I'm thinking at this point that since his tank was such poor water qual that some other toxin must have built up over last couple years and the shock of going back to good water was too much??? Or????

 

[bertoni]

How big were the tangs? What does the tank have for filtration?

 

[chastjw]

Tangs were about 3-4 inch qt tank has the skimmer and a large hang on back filter seeded in my sump prior to set up.
I'm confident it's not the qt tank.

 

[bertoni]

I agree that the setup sounds fine. I don't know what happened.

 

[chastjw]

Me neither. Thank you everyone for your questions, answers and help. As of now both the anemone and Eel are still doing good.

 

[ReeferHead84]

can you post any pictures?