Cloudy tank and dead fish

smokey667 · Sep 25, 2020

Last night everything was fine, no cloudy water. Woke up this morning to an almost milky tank.. 4 dead clowns, my emerald crabs are dead. It's weird but my coral and my snails are fine?? I have no idea where to even start, besides crying over my clowns

Alaeriel · Sep 25, 2020

So sorry for your loss! Can you post parameters or some other information for the experts to help figure out what happened? Are you auto-dosing anything? Could be a bacterial bloom, but could be many things.

Jeff Jarry reef · Sep 25, 2020

Sorry to hear this I hope all gets better. First thing comes to my mind is ammonia just thinking out loud. Has your tank fully cycled ? Maybe nem got in wave maker !

smokey667 · Sep 25, 2020

Alaeriel said:
So sorry for your loss! Can you post parameters or some other information for the experts to help figure out what happened? Are you auto-dosing anything? Could be a bacterial bloom, but could be many things.

I know my nitrate was running a little high, but I didn't have anything really out of whack, no ammonia, low nitrite
No, no auto-dosing
I've been fighting with GHA
I'm a night owl so I can definitely say everybody was just fine around 4am
Could a filter malfunction cause this??

mike550 · Sep 25, 2020

Wow. So sorry for you. Please keep us posted. Wondering if it was a bacteria bloom or something that depleted the O2?

smokey667 · Sep 25, 2020

Jeff Jarry reef said:
Sorry to hear this I hope all gets better. First thing comes to my mind is ammonia just thinking out loud. Has your tank fully cycled ? Maybe nem got in wave maker !

Ammonia is a problem atm as I'm attempting to find everything that croaked, but not yesterday
It's a 36 gallon that I've had running since April
All I had besides the fish is a few zoas and a Kenya tree

smokey667 · Sep 25, 2020

mike550 said:
Wow. So sorry for you. Please keep us posted. Wondering if it was a bacteria bloom or something that depleted the O2?

What could have depleted it?

mike550 · Sep 25, 2020

smokey667 said:
What could have depleted it?

Were you dosing anything for your GHA?

smokey667 · Sep 25, 2020

mike550 said:
Were you dosing anything for your GHA?

No, it started popping up this week and I was headed to the LFS tomorrow
The only thing I've put in has been the clowns food yesterday
I'm at a loss, and just hoping my coral survives

Jeff Jarry reef · Sep 25, 2020

smokey667 said:
Ammonia is a problem atm as I'm attempting to find everything that croaked, but not yesterday
It's a 36 gallon that I've had running since April
All I had besides the fish is a few zoas and a Kenya tree

I would recommend doing a water change. And some carbon.

smokey667 · Sep 25, 2020

Jeff Jarry reef said:
I would recommend doing a water change. And some carbon.

Okay, thank you! Really appreciate the help

LouiseStuart · Dec 4, 2022

This just happened to my tank this morning too. Did you find out what caused it?

brandon429 · Dec 4, 2022

Fish disease, from skipping all preps marked as stickies in the disease forum

this tank above wasn’t killed by oxygen deficit or a param.

brandon429 · Dec 4, 2022

their posts evolve from ich to total tank loss of fish, nobody considers disease. We are all trained to fault bacteria in some way

the reason the disease forum has the stickies to follow is bc that’s today’s best science on stopping these losses.

Nate Chalk · Dec 4, 2022

Can't believe no one has said the famous.

Pictures help, how long was the tank set up, all parameters list please

brandon429 · Dec 4, 2022

Tank setup=long enough to have gha

not a cycling issue, we can get all we need from their posts we don’t need input to discern loss cause for this tank.

skip fish disease preps, expect fish losses and peers hardly ever arrive there due to training on false ammonia stalling.

Tamberav · Dec 4, 2022

I would make your own post with information on what happened.

Dburr1014 · Dec 4, 2022

smokey667 said:
Last night everything was fine, no cloudy water. Woke up this morning to an almost milky tank.. 4 dead clowns, my emerald crabs are dead. It's weird but my coral and my snails are fine?? I have no idea where to even start, besides crying over my clowns

Milky tank sounds like a bloom which could have deleted O2.
The cause of the bloom would have been done by some stirring up of the sandbed or something. It wouldn't have happened on its own in a 6+ month running tank. Something would of had to change.

OR, like brandon429 said, desease, clowns die, then ammonia spike and bloom.

Definitely need more information to know of causation.
And yes, pictures and parameters would be great.

Cell · Dec 4, 2022

LouiseStuart said:
This just happened to my tank this morning too. Did you find out what caused it?

Create your own post. Piggybacking creates confusion. People start commenting on the original poster's situation and do not realize someone else is asking for help. Every situation can be unique as well.