All fish died last night

[adromero]

This is my first time to post on this forum.

I have a Red Sea Reefer 170 which is a mixed reef tank.

All my fish died last night

One red line wrasse jumped
Two Ocellaris clowns died
Three blue chromis died
One Black and white chromis died
One Rainford Goby died
Sixto eight sexy shrimp died; one is still alive, but looks like it may die soon.
The rest of my snails and hermit crabs are still alive and corals are doing fine.

My system has been set up since December 2017 and my parameters are:

Phosphates did not check them because I ran out of the packet for my Hanna checker but usually run about .05-.09
Calcium is at 460
Alkalinity at 10.7
Ph is at 8.2
I don't test magnesium if calcium, Ph and alkalinity look good
I don't test ammonia or nitrates after the tank is cycled

I have been running tanks for the past ten years and this is my fifth tank and I currently have a 70 gallon running as well. I ran a sea horse tank for five years and had other sensitive fish and this has never happened to me before.

Are there any theories about what may have happened, or has something similar happened to anybody else? Also, how long should I wait to add more fish if my parameters remain stable?

My skimmer is running normal, there are no electrical currents running through my tank, neither my wife nor I use bug spray or air fresheners (we are afraid it will affect our two cats), and there have been no changes in the fish feedings. I did a five gallon water change last night. I mix my own water with LiveAquaria reef salt.

Any help would be appreciated

 

[hdsoftail1065]

Wow, I'm sorry to hear this. Throwing darts here. Heater stick? Tank temp? Any recent live stock additions? Was there any flashing, twitching or any swimming in the power heads? I assume you using RO/DI water?

 

[Tahoe61]

Sorry for your frustrating loss.

Did you check all return pumps, heater and power heads for malfunction?

With that significant of a die off abruptly I would look for oxygenation issues and mechanical failure somewhere in the system. Or a toxic introduction of a substance.

Again sorry for your loss.

 

[jaxredsoxfan]

I agree I would suspect if everything was fine and it happened that fast it was either temp, salinity, or some sort of contaminant. Anything visible on the fish- spots, lesions etc? Sorry for your loss.

 

[Mjrenz]

Welcome to the forum, I'm sorry that your first post is about this. Do you keep any inverts that can poison the water when they die? Besides that I would suspect temperature but it's also strange that your corals and other inverts don't seem affected

 

[adromero]

Yes I thought it was strange that the only inverts affected were sexy shrimp

 

[adromero]

The water I added last night was a little warmer but nothing significant and the salinity is usually around 1.024

 

[Shufflepig]

This is my first time to post on this forum.

I have a Red Sea Reefer 170 which is a mixed reef tank.

All my fish died last night

One red line wrasse jumped
Two Ocellaris clowns died
Three blue chromis died
One Black and white chromis died
One Rainford Goby died
Sixto eight sexy shrimp died; one is still alive, but looks like it may die soon.
The rest of my snails and hermit crabs are still alive and corals are doing fine.

My system has been set up since December 2017 and my parameters are:

Phosphates did not check them because I ran out of the packet for my Hanna checker but usually run about .05-.09
Calcium is at 460
Alkalinity at 10.7
Ph is at 8.2
I don't test magnesium if calcium, Ph and alkalinity look good
I don't test ammonia or nitrates after the tank is cycled

I have been running tanks for the past ten years and this is my fifth tank and I currently have a 70 gallon running as well. I ran a sea horse tank for five years and had other sensitive fish and this has never happened to me before.

Are there any theories about what may have happened, or has something similar happened to anybody else? Also, how long should I wait to add more fish if my parameters remain stable?

My skimmer is running normal, there are no electrical currents running through my tank, neither my wife nor I use bug spray or air fresheners (we are afraid it will affect our two cats), and there have been no changes in the fish feedings. I did a five gallon water change last night. I mix my own water with LiveAquaria reef salt.

Any help would be appreciated

Sorry for your loss. I would go back over your water change since that is the only change that you made to the tank. Could something have possibly got into your water mixing bucket? Hard to come up with something that killed the fish so suddenly but did not affect the corals. I would think temp problem would have also killed the corals. Hope you figure it out

 

[adromero]

I also my anemones were fine 2 flowers 2 bubble tips and two maxi minis

 

[Shufflepig]

I also my anemones were fine 2 flowers 2 bubble tips and two maxi minis

An invert produced toxin is a definite possibility. Maybe something about the water change triggered the toxin production

 

[Ligershark]

was the salt a new sealed container or had you used that particular bucket/batch before?

 

[Dan_P]

I am sorry about your loss.

It is normal for an aquarium to have a lower oxygen concentrations overnight. You have to consider the possibility that your system’s oxygen dropped low enough to kill the fish. A bacteria bloom, even if it does not cloud the water, might be enough. Disruption of water motion and oxygenation by the skimmer would be mechanical reasons for a plummeting oxygen level. Your system could have been on the brink of suffocating conditions for sometime.

 

[adromero]

My shrimp goby survived I just saw him now

 

[PanchoG]

I am sorry for your losses, temp and/or oxygen depletion may be the must probable cause.

 

[JDnKY]

I read a post recently where someone used hand sanitizer and didn’t wash their hands again before putting them in the tank and had similar losses. Could something like this have happened?

 

[adromero]

was the salt a new sealed container or had you used that particular bucket/batch before?

I used the bucket before

 

[adromero]

I am sorry about your loss.

It is normal for an aquarium to have a lower oxygen concentrations overnight. You have to consider the possibility that your system’s oxygen dropped low enough to kill the fish. A bacteria bloom, even if it does not cloud the water, might be enough. Disruption of water motion and oxygenation by the skimmer would be mechanical reasons for a plummeting oxygen level. Your system could have been on the brink of suffocating conditions for sometime.

Is there any way to remedy this

 

[adromero]

I read a post recently where someone used hand sanitizer and didn’t wash their hands again before putting them in the tank and had similar losses. Could something like this have happened?

May have happened I always was my hands

 

[Spare time]

This is my first time to post on this forum.

I have a Red Sea Reefer 170 which is a mixed reef tank.

All my fish died last night

One red line wrasse jumped
Two Ocellaris clowns died
Three blue chromis died
One Black and white chromis died
One Rainford Goby died
Sixto eight sexy shrimp died; one is still alive, but looks like it may die soon.
The rest of my snails and hermit crabs are still alive and corals are doing fine.

My system has been set up since December 2017 and my parameters are:

Phosphates did not check them because I ran out of the packet for my Hanna checker but usually run about .05-.09
Calcium is at 460
Alkalinity at 10.7
Ph is at 8.2
I don't test magnesium if calcium, Ph and alkalinity look good
I don't test ammonia or nitrates after the tank is cycled

I have been running tanks for the past ten years and this is my fifth tank and I currently have a 70 gallon running as well. I ran a sea horse tank for five years and had other sensitive fish and this has never happened to me before.

Are there any theories about what may have happened, or has something similar happened to anybody else? Also, how long should I wait to add more fish if my parameters remain stable?

My skimmer is running normal, there are no electrical currents running through my tank, neither my wife nor I use bug spray or air fresheners (we are afraid it will affect our two cats), and there have been no changes in the fish feedings. I did a five gallon water change last night. I mix my own water with LiveAquaria reef salt.

Any help would be appreciated

Do you carbon dose or use nopox? If so, you possibly could have dosed too much. If you stirred up the sand during the waterchange, you could have kicked up a bunch of crud, causing an ammonia spike.

 

[Mjrenz]

Do you carbon dose or use nopox? If so, you possibly could have dosed too much. If you stirred up the sand during the waterchange, you could have kicked up a bunch of crud, causing an ammonia spike.

If there was a deep area of sand that was anoxic and was disturbed it could have released hydrogen sulfide gas, is this a possibility op?