All my fish died after water change

[Ladie2K19]

have you calibrated your refractometer at all. you should be able to place a few drops of rodi water and make sure its at 0

I usually check that it's calibrated when I do the changes. I try to keep salinity at 35 ppm.

 

[ajhudson15]

I usually check that it's calibrated when I do the changes. I try to keep salinity at 35 ppm.

I agree I would go with an icp test to see if anything shows up. is this the first water change with the new salt. it could be contaminated salt but its unlikely.

 

[Jeight]

You mentioned the premix was in your basement...perhaps did you have an exterminator come through...I find that extermination people (worked in extermination for a minute) tend to way overspray in basements because well basements

 

[Ladie2K19]

You mentioned the premix was in your basement...perhaps did you have an exterminator come through...I find that extermination people (worked in extermination for a minute) tend to way overspray in basements because well basements

No exterminator. The water that was in there was maybe a week and a half old I would estimate.

I'm also assuming that if it was stray voltage, maybe from a heater, I probably would have gotten zapped when I put my hands in the tank and the inverts would have gotten hit too.

This is actually my 2nd salt tank in my life and that happened in my first tank about 15 years ago. It was from a faulty pump and I got buzzed from it during the fiasco.

 

[Ladie2K19]

So good news. So far the six line wrasse is still alive. It’s been swimming around normally and has even eaten some brine shrimp. Still can’t figure out for the life of me what happened.

 

[Hermie]

Honestly, just IMO, I would not think a water change would kill fish. Even if the salinity was different unless it was drastically different such as going from 35 PPM to 10 PM And even then, you only did a 10 percent water change. So unless the water was tainted by a poison, I don't think it was the water change.

It's still not possible to rule out a fish illness either. They could have all become infected at a similar time and once one died, it caused ammonia spikes that caused a chain reaction with the rest of them.

 

[Hermie]

The use of Prime makes all future ammonia testing wrong until your water is fully changed. You’ve arrested any ammonia issues with its use so that’s ok.

IIRC, and I m not trying to argue here, only learn, Prime is only effective for 48 hours. So ammonia testing after 2 days would be accurate, is that wrong?

 

[Fotocha]

I've seen this happen with bleach (buddies wife used his mixing bucket)

 

[Hemmdog]

I've seen this happen with bleach (buddies wife used his mixing bucket)

+1 did anyone use or could anything have got into your 5gal buckets you use?

 

[Ladie2K19]

I don’t think so. I keep my fish cleaning gear all together and away from anything. My wife hates all the stuff I compiled into our laundry corner but that’s a different emergency thread. She does empty our dehumidifier tank into our stationery tub so maybe some water from that splashed into it at one time? Either way my wrasse is still alive as are all the inverts so still super weird. Maybe there was some fish sickness that wasn’t evident and the water change, as little as it was, was enough stress to send them off. I dumped a bottle of stability on there yesterday so hopefully if it did have anything to do with ammonia that will help.

 

[Ladie2K19]

I don’t think so. I keep my fish cleaning gear all together and away from anything. My wife hates all the stuff I compiled into our laundry corner but that’s a different emergency thread. She does empty our dehumidifier tank into our stationery tub so maybe some water from that splashed into it at one time? Either way my wrasse is still alive as are all the inverts so still super weird. Maybe there was some fish sickness that wasn’t evident and the water change, as little as it was, was enough stress to send them off. I dumped a bottle of stability on there yesterday so hopefully if it did have anything to do with ammonia that will help.

 

[NYCSandtrooper]

I don’t think so. I keep my fish cleaning gear all together and away from anything. My wife hates all the stuff I compiled into our laundry corner but that’s a different emergency thread. She does empty our dehumidifier tank into our stationery tub so maybe some water from that splashed into it at one time? Either way my wrasse is still alive as are all the inverts so still super weird. Maybe there was some fish sickness that wasn’t evident and the water change, as little as it was, was enough stress to send them off. I dumped a bottle of stability on there yesterday so hopefully if it did have anything to do with ammonia that will help.

Sorry for the lose......I had your same scenario happen to me....My tank been up for a year though...Just Live rock , 2 clowns 1 green chromis and a cleaner shrimp....Same scenario had brown algae on sand and decided to vaccuum the sand and did a water change...All parameters right as they should be...Next day everything was dead except the green chromis , and he was slowly swimming...Did a new batch of water on a plastic Walmart container and made a quick emergency tank...Transfer him there and he survive.. I learn my lesson with stirring up the sand....Did my homework and got me a fighting conch and a BRS gfo/ carbon reactor and 5% water change every week....Have not seen dirty sand no more since the incident 2 months ago and the bsr its keeping my nitrates and phosphate in check....Good luck

 

[MnFish1]

I'm sorry you are going through this.

How is it you are measuring salinity? Is it possible that the salt water you added was a much stronger concentration than what was in your tank originally?

As an FYI, Prime should not interfere with your ammonia test kit. The binding action reduces the toxicity but it shouldn't impact test kit readings or the ability for it to be processed by nitrifying bacteria.

Just a comment - Prime will not make ammonia 'drop to zero' - but it will interfere with ammonia test kits. For example - if your ammonia is 1 - and you dose prime - the ammonia is 'non toxic' - ie nothing to worry about - but the kit will still measure '1' or another inaccurate number...

 

[MnFish1]

That’s really sad. I’m so sorry. The first thing that came to mind was chlorine but then I read you have RO water. Do the cartridges need changing? I use the Pro salt and never had issues but I mix it as I need it. I don’t store it. Is it possible you had a sick fish and didn’t know it? Maybe the stress of a water change caused an issue. I also might mix up a new small batch of water and test it.

It could also be chloramine - esp if the RO was somehow not perfect.

 

[Phycodurus]

Anyway, I did my normal things during the WC, vacuum the sand bed for diatoms (still in this phase) and the live rock. Then to add water I keep RO/DI water in a 35 gal trash can in my basement. The water in there is probably kept for about 2 weeks before I add more. I just switched my salt from Red Sea to Red Sea Coral Pro. Mixed the saltwater as usual and let sit for a bit then added two 5 gal buckets worth to my tank. Again nothing out of the ordinary.

welcome to the forum, and my sympathies on the loss. that hurts to hear.

based on the above detail, you changed 10 gallons on a 65 gal tank ... i’m estimating 50-55 gal net volume (assuming no sump). so the change ratio is roughly closer to 20-30%.

what caught my attention right away is that you let yr RO/DI water sit as-is, and you mix yr salt just prior to the water change ... am i understanding this correctly??

if yes, how long do you let the new batch mix?? myself, i premix my salt and R/O water in a large plastic barrel at least several days before using (plus, i have the benefit of an immediate reservoir for any emergency).

that new batch may not have been properly mixed yet.


respectfully,
rick

 

[BestMomEver]

welcome to the forum, and my sympathies on the loss. that hurts to hear.

based on the above detail, you changed 10 gallons on a 65 gal tank ... i’m estimating 50-55 gal net volume (assuming no sump). so the change ratio is roughly closer to 20-30%.

what caught my attention right away is that you let yr RO/DI water sit as-is, and you mix yr salt just prior to the water change ... am i understanding this correctly??

if yes, how long do you let the new batch mix?? myself, i premix my salt and R/O water in a large plastic barrel at least several days before using (plus, i have the benefit of an immediate reservoir for any emergency).

that new batch may not have been properly mixed yet.


respectfully,
rick

I think this really depends on the salt. For example, BRS did a video on saltwater storage. I use Red Sea salt and the recommendation is to mix it for 2-4 hours and then put it in the tank. The longer you let Red Sea salt sit, the less stable it is.

And that may be a good thing to look at. Check out the video!

 

[Cell]

The whole Red Sea overmixing thing never made sense to me. It's still mixing and circulating in your tank.

 

[Ladie2K19]

maybe that could have been the issue. I usually mix it when I need it and then once it looks fully dissolved maybe 10 min, I pour it in. Again thing that is weird is I always do that. Maybe not best practice, but I wouldn’t think it would take out my entire tank.

 

[Phycodurus]

just to leave no stone unturned, do you test the salinity & temp of the freshly-mixed saltwater just prior to use? maybe even pH?

 

[MnFish1]

maybe that could have been the issue. I usually mix it when I need it and then once it looks fully dissolved maybe 10 min, I pour it in. Again thing that is weird is I always do that. Maybe not best practice, but I wouldn’t think it would take out my entire tank.

What salt do you use (apologies if you answered already) - the salt I use its recommended to mix overnight.

Also - do you shake/mix your salt before you dissolve it? if not - you can have locally high/low chemicals in the salt.

Finally - it seems really really unlikely that a 10-20% water change caused this - except if there was a chemical that somehow got into the buckets. Disease SHOULDNT kill a fish in 2 hours.