Everything died

[Gtinnel]

I have a 125 gallon aquarium that I have had setup for almost exactly 1 year and I just recently got it fully stocked with fish and started adding a few coral frags. Today I left to go out for about 3 hours and when i get home all of my fish are dead. I checked parameters and everything looks normal (the only thing I cant test is the phosphate because I cant find my hanna checker but I cant image that would matter anyway). I'm at a loss for something that can almost instantly kill everything, except for a few hermit crabs that I still see moving around.
I had a small orange shoulder tang, pacific blue tang, large kole tang, two clowns, foxface, melanurus wrasse and a few green chromis.
The tank had been going fairly well other than some algea that I have been fighting that I think is lyngbya after researching online, and I haven't been able to get my coral frags to open up , including gsp. Because of the coral issues I've wondered if something is wrong with the tank but again all of my parameters look good.

The only thing I could think of that could kill everything that quick is electrical shock maybe. I dont have a grounding probe in the tank. I'm half afraid to start again since I'm not sure what even happened.

Sorry for such a long post but I had to get this off my chest. I think I'm going to be sick.

 

[Fishurama]

" I just recently got it fully stocked with fish "

If you stocked them all at once you could have had an ammonia spike and shocked the system killing them. Adding too many fish like that all at once can cause all sorts of issue. Id could range from velvet, to many other issues.
Post you water parameters, im sure others will have more to chime in and say after we have that info.
Sorry for your loss sucks to lose little our buddies.

 

[Bryan68]

That is horrible, sorry for your loss.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Sticking your finger into the tank will determine electrical current/leakage. Its not lethal, but you will feel a little sting.
If so, suspects are heaters and return pumps as well as circulation pumps.
Verify tank temp and salinity in addition to ammonia level

 

[SMSREEF]

I am so sorry for your loss. This must be just devastating!

 

[Gtinnel]

I've been slowly adding fish over that year. Temp is 78, salinity is 1.024, ammonia/nitrite/nitrate are all 0

 

[Gtinnel]

I have a meter to check for stray voltage but I'm going to feel awful if everything died because I was too negligent to install a $20 grounding probe.

 

[Fishurama]

Did you have any recent fish additions?(i dont know if corals can carry velvet) Do you quarantine? If you did have a new addition and didn't QT it could be velvet, as this is generally how it happens and very fast. Test for stray voltage and get back to us. No matter what caused it think of it as a learning situation and try to grow and get better. We have all had something bad happen, we are there for you.

 

[Gtinnel]

I did recently add the kole tang. I have not been putting anything through quarantine even though I know I should be. There was no sign of illness although I dont know anything about velvet. The fish seemed fine when they ate this morning.

 

[Gtinnel]

I was only back home long enough to check my parameters then I had to leave again. I will be back home in a few hours and then I will check for stray voltage

 

[Fishurama]

I did recently add the kole tang. I have not been putting anything through quarantine even though I know I should be. There was no sign of illness although I dont know anything about velvet. The fish seemed fine when they ate this morning.

Velvet can show no signs or symptoms until it's to late a lot of the time sadly or only minor symptoms most would ignore. If it's not stray voltage, and all your parameters are in check, i would assume the kole tang passed along something, most likely velvet as it's one of the only diseases that can wipe out an entire tank...(It's happened to me once)

Marine velvet info

Cliff notes:
" The symptoms of marine velvet usually involve the skin and lungs. Mild infections will usually only infect the gills and the fish may show minimal symptoms. "
" Initiate treatment immediately because the disease has such a high mortality level if not treated quickly. "
" Adding a new fish to an aquarium is obviously very stressful for the new fish and can be stressful for the existing tank inhabitants as well. Fish that are properly quarantined and fed are not as stressed and are much less likely to become infected with the disease and to create an outbreak when transferred to the existing display tank "
" This disease is highly contagious. "

 

[Katrina71]

I'm so sorry. That just sucks.

 

[Gtinnel]

Thanks for the info Fishurama. You said that you had velvet in your tank before. Can it make all of the fish go from healthy looking to dead in a few hours?

Also I assume velvet wont effect any of the coral frags because my ricordia frag which was doing well isnt looking too healthy either.

 

[Fishurama]

Thanks for the info Fishurama. You said that you had velvet in your tank before. Can it make all of the fish go from healthy looking to dead in a few hours?

Also I assume velvet wont effect any of the coral frags because my ricordia frag which was doing well isnt looking too healthy either.

Yes since its happening over a longer time, you just can't see it a lot of the time, and then when they start having trouble breathing, they all die quickly, which makes this disease so deadly. Sometimes you can't even see it and it kills extremely fast. I had a powder brown tang wipe out one of my tanks overnight basically. Learned my lesson. Got vermintide snails and aiptasia from not dipping corals... Learned my lesson to. Like i said we have all had issues. Don't feel too bad, chalk it up as a learning experience and provide a better safer environment for your new fish.

I would wait awhile before adding anything new. You could treat with copper(if you have invertebrates you can;t) or just let it die on it's own since it doesn't have host anymore. Which takes two weeks or so. They(velvet spores) only live a few days without a host, so two weeks would be more then enough, but enough to make sure it's safe, and start with something cheap to just make sure. Your choice on how you wish to go about that.

Velvet can not do anything to corals and your mushroom isn't happy more then likely because you said all your parameters were 0. They like a little nitrates and phosphates as do most other softies and LPS.

 

[Gtinnel]

I guess if nothing else comes from this I will make sure to setup a quarantine tank if I don't decide to take my tank down

 

[Fishurama]

I guess if nothing else comes from this I will make sure to setup a quarantine tank if I don't decide to take my tank down

It would be a very good idea to do so. You don't even need anything crazy big, you will be happy you did it and so will your future livestock
Heck maybe use this as an excuse to upgrade tank size

 

[MERKEY]

I'm sorry for your losses and wish you the best.

Setting up a QT is a really good habit to get into

 

[ReefKeeper666]

I did recently add the kole tang. I have not been putting anything through quarantine even though I know I should be. There was no sign of illness although I dont know anything about velvet. The fish seemed fine when they ate this morning.
[/QUOTE

i didn’t QT twice. Got velvet twice. Never again.

 

[espinobj]

+1 for proper quarantine. It will save you heartache and money in the long run. Without photos my vote is on Velvet and even then it’s not always visible. Did you dump the LFS water in your tank? I did that was some snails earlier this year and I believe that’s what gave my tank ich.

 

[mike550]

@Gtinnel just catching up in your thread. I’m super sorry for you. This totally sucks.

If anything positive comes out of this maybe it’s a chance to redo your tank scape or big changes that you wouldn’t otherwise do.