All my fish randomly died

[Jtwinn26]

Anyone ever have their fish just randomly die? Nitrates 0, phosphates 0, ammonia a little high after everything died but have since reduced to 0. Put in poly filter showing no color change, put in activated carbon and new fish die instantly as well. Temp 76. Salinity perfect. What’s going on?

 

[DC Reefer]

How are you acclimating new fish? Are all fish from the same vendor?

 

[Fezbearer]

Did your power go temporarily out when you were asleep?

 

[Jtwinn26]

Power went out for about two hours one day but everything is back online. The existing fish were in the tank for about 6 months. New fish being acclimated by slowly introducing my water to bag water and floating over a period of time.
also, corals don’t seem happy but have not died.

 

[Indytraveler83]

If everything died at once, and then anything new dies pretty immediately as well, I'd suspect some sort of contamination.

Could anything have gotten in the tank you didn't intend? Cleaning chemical? Place your hands in the tank without rinsing? Have anyone else in the house (small children especially) that could have accidentally gotten something in there? Could something have rusted out or corroded?

Also possible you have stray electric current in the tank.

 

[Jeffcb]

I have. My 55 gal tank full of several dwarf angels, clowns and several others just all died. Killed everything. It was many years ago. The tank was in my bedroom. I had the top off doing a water change and routine maintenance. My wife at the time was cleaning the master bath with cleaning chemicals. The odor was very strong but I didn't think anything of it. The next day everything was dead.

 

[Jtwinn26]

I don’t think anything could have gotten in there to contaminate it. I did a water change. Maybe I’ll do another one.

 

[TommyK]

Hi. Did you find out what caused your fish to die? I have a similar problem. All my fish and couple of stomatella snails died within 24 hours a week ago and I've been trying to find the cause since. One hammerhead coral also dropped dead. I'm trying to save trumpet coral. No issues with water parameters. I've checked for stray electric current, disconnected all my recently purchased smart plugs and connected everything in a "traditional" way. I've done 3 water changes since to protect my corals, few hermit crabs and a shrimp but I'm worried I haven't eliminated the cause.
I have introduced a bubble tip anemone couple of weeks ago and it hasn't been ok for a while (deflating/shrinking on a daily basis and it's been hidden under a rock the last few days) and I'm starting to think that it might be dieing and releasing toxins. I've read somewhere that people's fish died because of this.

 

[Jtwinn26]

I never found out what happened. I put in a poly filter that only changed to yellow because of the ammonia from all the death. I put in activated carbon and did a water change. I think the carbon is what eventually fixed everything. Things are doing great now. Still don’t know what happened. The only thing I can think of is maybe some windex got in the water when I was cleaning the glass but that is still unlikely.

 

[Woodneers]

Use regular RO water in a spray bottle, you should never use windex near an aquarium. The RO works real well, I took it a step further and bought a little squeegee at the dollar store works perfect and fast

 

[Mike from TN]

That window cleaner may have been the cause of your high ammonia and possibly the fish deaths.
Like mentioned above, avoid glass cleaner around the tank at all costs!

 

[homer1475]

Use regular RO water in a spray bottle, you should never use windex near an aquarium. The RO works real well, I took it a step further and bought a little squeegee at the dollar store works perfect and fast

I've never used anything but windex on my tank. Never been an issue in many years of use. You just have to be careful on how you use it.