All my fish died

[JoshuaJames95]

Hi everyone,

I am new to the reefing hobby, I've had my tank for about 3 months and everything was going great. I then got some coral frags from my local fish store and glued them in using Seachems reef glue. I woke up the next morning and 2/3 of my fish were dead and my wrasse was on its side breathing heavily and later died the next day. I reached out to my local fish store who gave my very little information and also Seachem who didnt reply to my email. I have done a large water change and added some charcoal to remove any chemicals. Im really hesitant to add any more fish. The strange thing is my corals and shrimp seem to be doing fine. One thing that my local fish shop said is I might of put too much glue in (i did use a bit but not loads) and that has stripped out the oxygen from the water. When I use the glue the water gets filled with long stringy fibres from the glue that float around my tank.

Id really appreciate people advice and opinions as to what happened and what i can do in the future to prevent this from happening again. Also any advice before i add anymore fish?

 

[blaxsun]

I use the EcoTech coral glue and I haven't had any issues, but I'm typically only glueing 1-2 frags at a time. Wherever possible I try to remove the rock and glue the frag in a separate container of water, rinse and then place back in the tank (discarding the water). I try to use it sparingly. I also run carbon (not sure if that makes a difference or not). When I dip the frags with glue into the tank there is some residue from the glue that quickly drys, floats up and goes into the overflow.

When gluing frags they usually recommend you turn your return pump and powerheads off for a few minutes to assist with the curing. Did you by chance do that?

 

[afrokobe]

I highly doubt that seachem glue was the cause of this. Did you qt your fish? Sounds like it could have been an ick or velvet outbreak that went undetected initially.

 

[T-J]

I'd be shocked if your glue killed the fish. Can you post your tank parameters?
I also don't think the corals killed them either, since it happened in a single day.

 

[JoshuaJames95]

I highly doubt that seachem glue was the cause of this. Did you qt your fish? Sounds like it could have been an ick or velvet outbreak that went undetected initially.

I didnt QT my fish but they had been in the tank for quite a few weeks and were fine. I didnt notice any parasites although my Tang looked like it was chemical burnt, it could of been him scraping on the sand or maybe the shrimps picking at it?

 

[JoshuaJames95]

I'd be shocked if your glue killed the fish. Can you post your tank parameters?
I also don't think the corals killed them either, since it happened in a single day.

Thanks for your reply,

PH: 8.1 KH:7 Ammonia: 0.05 Nitrite: 0.025 Nitrate: 0.5 Phosphate: 0.05 Salinity: 1.026

 

[T-J]

Hmmm...You shouldn't have any ammonia or Nitrite in the tank, but that could be testing errors.
Were the fins shredded like that when it was alive?

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

what size is the tank and how many fish were in there?

 

[JoshuaJames95]

No mate the fins werent like that when he was alive

 

[JoshuaJames95]

Hmmm...You shouldn't have any ammonia or Nitrite in the tank, but that could be testing errors.
Were the fins shredded like that when it was alive?

No the fins werent like that when they were alive mate

 

[JoshuaJames95]

what size is the tank and how many fish were in there?

250ltrs and there were 3 fish and 2 shrimp. Shrimps are fine all fish died

 

[JoshuaJames95]

Thats a good idea but unfortunately i cant remove my rock as its all 1 big piece. I dont think i did switch the pumps off. Do you think the fibres got out into the water and the fish eat them?

I use the EcoTech coral glue and I haven't had any issues, but I'm typically only glueing 1-2 frags at a time. Wherever possible I try to remove the rock and glue the frag in a separate container of water, rinse and then place back in the tank (discarding the water). I try to use it sparingly. I also run carbon (not sure if that makes a difference or not). When I dip the frags with glue into the tank there is some residue from the glue that quickly drys, floats up and goes into the overflow.

When gluing frags they usually recommend you turn your return pump and powerheads off for a few minutes to assist with the curing. Did you by chance do that?

 

[T-J]

Thats a good idea but unfortunately i cant remove my rock as its all 1 big piece. I dont think i did switch the pumps off. Do you think the fibres got out into the water and the fish eat them?

I've glued countless frags over my 25 years in the hobby. Sometimes I turn off the pumps, sometimes I don't. Depends on the size of the frag.
Having said that, I've never had any fish die after gluing frags into my tanks. And I've used ALL kinds of glues over the years.

 

[blaxsun]

Thats a good idea but unfortunately i cant remove my rock as its all 1 big piece. I dont think i did switch the pumps off. Do you think the fibres got out into the water and the fish eat them?

Without knowing what came off the plugs it's hard to say. As with @T-J, I haven't had any fish die from glueing frag plugs either.

 

[brandon429]

The shrimps are weaker than the fish, this was a disease loss.

Joshua an ideal approach is a nice water change matching temp and salinity to the current system, quarantine new fish and fallow this current setup to starve out as much disease components as possible.


the reason we head down the fish disease pathway first is because we expect these losses if preps are skipped for new tanks. Once you’ve completed fallow and quarantine, or bought pre quarantined fish, your losses will drop/ per the fish disease forum. Having those shrimps in there really helps with troubleshooting


can you post a current full tank picture

other unspoken details such as open corals, other CUC members really helps in troubleshooting.

 

[SaltyT]

It's probably coincidental that your fish died after you glued frags. If the glue was toxic your shrimps would have died too. Your fish look skinny to me in the pics so they probably had a disease and you didn't know it. Sorry about the loss of your fish.

 

[Uncle99]

Always dip the glued frag in a small cup of tank water so it creates a “skin” over the glue, otherwise some of the glue moves around your tank until it sticks to something

 

[Cell]

This is a tough one. The surviving shrimps suggests this wasn't a water quality issue, but disease instead, however, I don't think any disease moves quite this fast. This wasn't a fish to fish transfer, but a coral added and then the fish dying in less than 24 hrs.

 

[Cell]

@SaltyT may be onto something. These might be completely unrelated events that just timed up right.

 

[Rick's Reviews]

Hi everyone,

I am new to the reefing hobby, I've had my tank for about 3 months and everything was going great. I then got some coral frags from my local fish store and glued them in using Seachems reef glue. I woke up the next morning and 2/3 of my fish were dead and my wrasse was on its side breathing heavily and later died the next day. I reached out to my local fish store who gave my very little information and also Seachem who didnt reply to my email. I have done a large water change and added some charcoal to remove any chemicals. Im really hesitant to add any more fish. The strange thing is my corals and shrimp seem to be doing fine. One thing that my local fish shop said is I might of put too much glue in (i did use a bit but not loads) and that has stripped out the oxygen from the water. When I use the glue the water gets filled with long stringy fibres from the glue that float around my tank.

Id really appreciate people advice and opinions as to what happened and what i can do in the future to prevent this from happening again. Also any advice before i add anymore fish?

You can glue frags outside of aquriam, they won't die during curing time of glue (kinda instant), I assume something else has caused this loss