Well, had a bad incident.

G

Grayhead

Member
Over the last week I have lost all my fish except my matted file fish to what appears to be velvet. Not sure what sparked this to happen. The only changes I have made recently have been geared towards removing algae, cyno and bubble agae.
I did a 3 day lights out for the cyno. Took my fuge offline to combat phosphates and install a proper overflow for that tank. As soon as I noticed my phosphates start to drop, my heartiest fish looked ghostly white. I just thought it was stressed for some reason. Nextday, dead. Then another fish. The next day found d a clown dead with the other looking bad. So within a week, all dead minus the file fish. It appears to be hearty as ever.
So here's my thing. I am in a planning phase for a new build. I figure if I leave the tank as is, it will be easier to break things down and build the new tank. I assume the corals will be fine with only one fish to poo the water up. How long shou.d the rock remain fallow if I decide to keep my existing live rock?
I have never had an issue like this before. I have not quarrintined, but plan to do so. I have been fairly successful keeping these creatures for the past few years. This past few months I have been working to keep my parameters stable so when I build my next tank, everything should be in place to start out right. I think my algae issue came from pukani rock I added a couple of years ago. Not settled yet if I am going with walt smith dry rock or tbs live rock. I am concerned about my live rock in my system now. I have a 75 gallon tank. Graduating to a 250 so using my existing rock would be cost effective. Much of my corals are encrusted in the rock, so that will be an issue as well. Any suggestions would be helpful
 
What did you use to install the overflow? I just had that happen to me as well. I treated my tank with prazi for flukes, and I think I ended up with an ammonia spike that killed everything but a chalk bass and a checkerboard wrasse.

I'm not sure if it was velvet or not.

I've read leave it fish free for 72 days. You need to get the file fish out, or there's always a chance it can come back if it was velvet.

I think odds are good it was ammonia
 
I am fairly certain it was velvet. I had the fuge offline while this was going on. Also, it happened progressivly.it took out a domino damsel first. They are fairly hearty fish to begin with. The appearance of the velvet was classic.
As for the file fish, he has to stay for now. I have nowhere to house him at the moment. Plus the stress of chasing him down while destroying my display is not attractive.
The only things I have done recently ( within the past 2 months) are add a auto water change system, LEDs for night viewing, reduce my led intensity, and aggressive water changes to reduce phosphates. By the time the phosphate came down to 25 ppb, the fish were dieing. Was much higher for a long time. I also adding 10 snails and, 1 crab, and a sea urchin last week. I don't think they could carry velvet, but you never know
 
Even reef safe silicone is toxic until it cures. It may have been velvet, but If you put a fair amount of silicone in the tank and didn't give it at least a week to cure it can kill.
 
The timing to me suggests pathogens hitching a ride in the water with your snails, crab and urchin. Could be the silicone though.
 
Silicone releases ammonia as it cures. I learned that the hard way when I set up my tank with an idea to spread silicone all over the starboard and press sand into it.
I put in all my LR from my existing setup and filled the tank. It was moments later that astarina stars and bristle worms were blowing around in the water column.
I re-cured the rock in a separate bin but battled hair algae issues I had never had before for years. I pealed out the silicone in case I used a little of mold inhibiter type by accident and let the new application cure dry for 2 weeks
 
I would agree that silicone would be the culprit, except the fuge was offline when the fish were dying. I installed it after they were dead.
As I said before, appears to be a classic case of velvet. Ammonia would most likely take them out at the same time. This progressed over the course of a week.
Thankfully my filefish seems fine.

I have beat myself up pretty bad over this. I've had moderate success over the past few years. Just in the past few months things have started to go screwy
Corals loom great though. How much love rock do you need to support corals? I would like to remove some from the display to prep for the new build.
 
I am so sorry for your losses. That's really awful.

Do you think there's a chance that they were poisoned from the cyano dying (or lack of oxygen in the tank)? Others have reported fish death following blackout periods, though I'm not sure what the fish symptoms were.

My thoughts would be to run carbon through your current tank now regardless (to catch any toxins from either the cyano or just the fish deaths) if you plan to reuse this rock, and then keep this rock fallow for 8-12 weeks. If you go with TBS rock in your new build, which I HIGHLY recommend (LOVE ours), then you can just get a little less and slowly add this old rock into your new tank after the fallow period.

The other question is what to do with the filefish. Obviously you can't leave him in the tank for it to be fallow, so if you're sure you're dealing with velvet then he needs to come out, go into a QT/hospital tank, and be treated. Good luck with all of that! I know it's a lot, but it will be worth the effort when you have your new tank set up and all inhabitants are doing well :)
 
Thank you for your reply.
I saw no ill effects from the cyno die off. I did that several weeks ago. I keep a fan blowing on the tank when it hits 80 degrees, plus turbulent surface with my gyres as well as the skimmer cranking. I run go and carbon aggressively as well. I did several 5 gallon water changes and keep the auto water change going thru that time. I have been attacking my tank issues lately.
I still feel it was brought in when I added the addition to the cleanup crew. Once in the tank, the snails did not look so well. They kept falling off the rocks. The fish started dying within 1 week of them entering the tank.
 
Grayhead said:
Thank you for your reply.
I saw no ill effects from the cyno die off. I did that several weeks ago. I keep a fan blowing on the tank when it hits 80 degrees, plus turbulent surface with my gyres as well as the skimmer cranking. I run go and carbon aggressively as well. I did several 5 gallon water changes and keep the auto water change going thru that time. I have been attacking my tank issues lately.
I still feel it was brought in when I added the addition to the cleanup crew. Once in the tank, the snails did not look so well. They kept falling off the rocks. The fish started dying within 1 week of them entering the tank.
Click to expand...

Ah, gotcha, I didn't quite understand the timing of everything before. Yeah, it sounds like you got really unlucky with those snails. Falling off the rocks seems really weird -- I've never seen that before. I'm not doubting your diagnosis of velvet, just hoping it might have been an easier (and less scary) fix. Everything you're doing sounds like textbook appropriate husbandry (I've never QT'd snails either) and this just sounds like a really unfortunate situation. Hopefully others have good advice as to how to handle the corals -- I wouldn't think they would need all that much liverock in a temp tank, but have never done that before.
 
Think of how bare frag tanks are. The coral won't need much, other than light.
As for the disease, I had either velvet or brooklynella hit me hard a little while ago. I removed all fish and went 72 days +. Was tough, but the coral and inverts were fine. Just remember to feed something that sinks every once in a while. I think I made a cleaner shrimp mean during a fallow period once by under feeding.
 
I am contemplating cooking my rock and starting over. My phosphates have not been manageable the past 6 months. I am totally up in the air as to what to do with the rock. It's would save me money on my new build, but I don't need to start out the gate with phosphate issues either.
 
I started dosing vodka and got to a point where it seemed to eat the phosphates as they leeched, rather than feeding the GHA.
Seems like it's under control but these porous rocks can hold a lot of phosphate
 
I will be set up for biopellets and carbon dosing with the new build. Life reef is making my sump as we speak.
My phosphates did not come from over feeding. I really think the pukani rock I added plus switching to Jessica contributed. The kessils cause algae to for in one chamber of my rodi as well. Happened as soon as I brought them online. Kessils feed algae.
 
Well, I still have issues I am struggling with. I checked my readings with the hanna ultra low phosphorus and got a 35 ppb reading. I have not feed the tank at all since the velvet issue. I did not take the file fish out, and he looks great. I have run GFO and continuous water changes of 1.5 gallons a day for over a month now. Plus several 25 gallon water changes mixed in. I think my rock has crapped up and started leaching like crazy. I really would like to save this rock for my upcoming build, but I cant seem to knock a dent in it. I am also 2 days into a 3 day lights out since the cyno started coming back. Just changed the GFO and carbon. Also been skimming heavy as well.

Will carbon dosing help this ongoing issue?
 
Sounds like it was too large of a drop in Oxygen. Lights out and took the fuge offline also. Once it starts it just snowballs.
 
Sorry to hear about the fish loss! :( That is a shame for sure.

It sounds like a good starting over time, so if I were you, I'd get at the root cause of those phosphate soaked rocks and see if you can cook them while your tank is fallow anyway.
 
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