Tank Transfer Method Fail

[mstark]

Established 90g tank with a 20g sump. I played russian roulette and didnt QT when I stocked the tank. I havent added any new fish since October. Occasional odd white spot on a fish or two, but no major outbreak. Until...

Had a power outage at the end of May. Tank was without power for about ten hours total. A few fish were not looking so hot, but everything rebounded fine (or so i thought)
Lost two green clown gobies around the third week of June. Thought maybe the blackhead jawfish got them. Flasher wrasse died from ich the following week. Regal angelfish, kole tang, and mandarin goby all showed signs so I decided to do the tank transfer method. Set up a 20g and put some filter floss in the sump to seed for a few days. Spent all day yesterday removing rocks, snagging fish: 2 PJ Cardinals, Regal angel, kole tang, mandarin, 2 Oc. Clownfish, Royal Gramma. Set traps for the jawfish and watchman. Put the filter floss, some macro (for pods), and some bioballs in the filter. Had a powerhead in there as well. Added some prime last night just to be on the safe side.

This morning, everything in the 20g was dead. Ammonia was at .5, Nitrites were at 1.5. Fish were in the 20g for 15hrs total. Water was super cloudy. Kicking myself because I just killed all my fish, even the healthy ones.

So...
1. Am I correct in assuming that the power outage set off the ich time-bomb?
2. What happened with my transfer tank? Seems really fast for those levels to get that high. Did i way over-estimate bioload?
3. Any suggestions with what to do with the watchman and jawfish? Assuming the traps work, kinda terrified to do this again.
Thanks
Michael

 

[Deinonych]

Sorry for your losses. 8 fish, even small ones, in a 20g is a lot of bioload (not sure how large the tang and angel were). I suspect that was the cause, but it's impossible to know for sure. I've done TTM on multiple fish, but limited the count to 3-4 small fish in a 20g. Also, using seeded floss from an infected display will prevent TTM from being effective. You need to use clean water and sterilized equipment for TTM to work.

 

[iSeeMax101]

From what I remember about tank transfer is, nothing can come from the infected tank. Not water. Nothing seeded, no cheato. Nothing. Otherwise you are only pulling over more ich than what's currently on the fish. Ttm trick is to catch the Ich in different life stages while it's falling off the fish and removing it from the tank with a new sanitized environment.

 

[mstark]

Yeah, makes sense, although I've also read of people using seed filter media. But i don't think ich is what killed them all.

Any suggestions for the two remaining burrowing fish?

 

[iSeeMax101]

I think that you probably had a fish or 2 die from the stress of what ever was the cause and that started to pollute the water quality with the ammonia causing a chain reaction with the death.

 

[mstark]

Maybe. Everyone was alive at 3:30am. The mandarin looked stressed from the ich, but no labored breathing or signs of physical stress on any other fish. At 7am the tank was dead.

 

[iSeeMax101]

Fuzz. That's rapid

 

[ThRoewer]

If the water was cloudy you may have had a bacteria bloom which in turn then consumed too much oxygen for the fish to survive.
At what temperature were you running the tank? In treatment tanks I would always aim for the lowest temperature reef fish find comfortable, usually 24 °C. Each degree higher reduces the amount of dissolved oxygen quite a bit. Since most parasites target the gills first, a good oxygenation of the tank water is critical.
I usually add a small skimmer to all my QTs or treatment tanks - if for nothing else but a good gas exchange. This is also a reason why I don't like any medication that requires the skimmer to be turned off and why I never use PraziPro prophylactic.


Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

 

[mstark]

Interesting ThRoewer. That could explain the high nitrite levels perhaps? Tank was at 78F/25.5C. I pulled the fish out, but left the tank running. Curious now to test the water when I get home.

 

[mstark]

I should add all of the fish were in the corner by the HOB filter. :/

 

[mstark]

Water params when i got home- ammonia was the same at .5ppm, nitrites are down to 0, nitrates are at 15ppm (didnt test the am) water is still cloudy and stinks. So maybe it was a bloom?