Everything died

[GrandpaShark]

No the only thing that I keep near the tank is my nori and a bag of pellets that I feed and they're still there. If I keep too much clutter around the tank my wife complains.
I am starting to agree with the person who said it could have been a bacterial bloom using up the oxygen in the tank. The following morning the tank was a little cloudy, although it was still clear the day the fish died.
I though about looking into an ICP test although I wasnt able to scoop all of the dead fish out because they were stuck in the rockwork (including a 6" Kole tang) so I'm assuming that I probably have at least some ammonia or nitrite in the tank now, I haven't bothered to check because I'm not sure that I really care at this point. By the time I scooped the ones I could get to out the hermits were already eating them so I'm sure they'll eventually eat the remains of the others.
Interestingly my ricordea and gsp frags are looking better than they ever have, I'm guessing from the added nutrients in the water.

Crazy. I hope you continue your reef and eventually get more fish. Keep calm and reef on.....

 

[Dburr1014]

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

Or use a multimeter which is a lot more safe

 

[Debramb]

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

Oh, I’m so sorry for you’re terrible animal (Friends) loss. Take some time to think it over before giving up! All of us have had problems but didn’t alway have such a great community to offer knowledge and advice. You’re fellow “reefers” do care for you and are gracious with help. Good Luck, Debra

 

[Debramb]

Not that I know off, other than a fairly deep sand bed. If I'm not mistaken a deep sand bed causes anaerobic bacteria to grow cant it?.


Funny you should mention that because that is exactly what my wife said about it.


I do run my air intake for my skimmer outside. I live ina single family home and have a decent sized yard so I wouldnt think any of my neighbors spraying chemicals, which I've never seen them do, would cause it. I also have a tube with a filter pad and carbon where the air comes from outside, although I never knew if the carbon would actually help for air or not.

I never have a window open and the top of my tank is mostly covered with glass panels so even if someone sprayed something inside the house before I left very little of it would make it into the tank.

All of the support from you guys really means a lot.

And those posts are just the ones posting, I’m sure lots of others feel your gut punch too!

 

[JustJoan]

I am a beginner reefer, just into my fifth month. Years ago i had a 55 gallon fresh water with discus. It was 90 degrees out, i did not think to cool the tank off. all died within an hour. So sorry for your loss, I know its hard, but let the guilt go....

 

[Jmass015]

So I have a question. Will a UV sterilizer help with velvet?
Just curious.

 

[RtomKinMad]

This just happened to us a few weeks ago. My husband fed our 11 fish in our tank amorous d 7pm and everything was good. Had purple tang, tomini tang, pair of clowns and some smaller fish. I came home from work at 11pm and checked the tank, I found almost all the fish upside down on the sand some alive but breathing hard, three stuck to the powerhead, and one missing. The purple tang, one clown were dazed but ok. We shut the tank down and started pulling the fish out. We saved the purple tang and clown but all the ones that were breathing hard died soon after we took them out to move to quarantine. We did put the purple and clown in quarantine. All the snails were dead and one of two cleaner shrimp. The crabs, anemones and coral were all fine no signs of stress. No signs of injury, illness or disease on any fish.. and I watch them like a hawk! After we got the fish out we tried to restart up the tank power and found that the return pump was not working at all. So replaced it with back up. We only turned the heater on also. In am we went and bought a new multimeter and found huge amount of electricity in the tank. We also found an alive gobi who was hiding in the sand-doing fine. We changed out the pump, heater and powerhead with all new equipment from emergency trip to LFS. No more electricity. We put our fish back in tank and they are doing fine. My coral looks better than it ever has also. We did water parameters first by the way and everything was ok but some nitrites which I assume came from the massive die off in the tank, also the alkalinity was 22!!!’ We did water change.. even with the alk that high no signs of stress to coral or anemones. The alk is still 13! And coral looks great. Crazy though. I think the electricity changed the alk if that’s possible??? We did water tests two days before and all water parameters were perfect then...
we have two more tanks- a 300 reef and 300 gal fish only. so just for fun we Checked with the multimeter the other tanks and found over 115milamps of electricity in both those tanks too!!! We were using the same brands of equipment in all three tanks. AND we could NOT feel any electricity in the tanks. But we turned off equipment (4) powerhead a in each tank and found two power heads in each tank we putting off electricity. We removed them and no
More electricity!!! Our fish in the fish only tank immediately looked better and started swimming more and brighter colors. Our tangs in the reef had looked a little pale and also immediately changed colors when we removed the powerheads. We have 2 MP40s left in the big tanks and will just use those for now. Thank goodness we have had no more fish loss. No signs of disease, still. I honestly believe we had a power surge from the pump that failed and electrocuted all the fish and snails.
For some reason we didn’t have a grounding probe on the tank that had the power surge or GFI... stupid on our part we have both those protections on the big tanks which is probably why those fish were even alive at that much electricity. We even watched the multimeter go to 0!!!
We now have extra grounding probes in sumps and tanks and GFI stuff too. We will check for stray voltage monthly from now on. We did order five small new fish. But will not add anymore to our small tank since the coral looks so good. My new fish are in quarantine. I ordered from Live Aquaria for the first time.
I wish you the best and sorry for your loss. I hate loosing animals especially for senseless reasons. Just a few days before I lost ours I was commenting to my husband how happy I was with all our fish
Best of luck to you.

 

[Gtinnel]

Thanks for sharing your story as well RtomKinMad. Thats sounds exactly what happened to the livestock in my tank. I didnt have a pump fail and my alkalinity tested normal though.
I guess when I get home from work today I will actually use a meter to check for the current instead of just putting my hand in the tank to see if I feel a shock (which is what I did). If I find out that it was electricity I will at least feel more comfortable starting to add fish back to the tank because I will at least know what happened and I can prevent it from happening again in the future.

 

[RtomKinMad]

Thanks for sharing your story as well RtomKinMad. Thats sounds exactly what happened to the livestock in my tank. I didnt have a pump fail and my alkalinity tested normal though.
I guess when I get home from work today I will actually use a meter to check for the current instead of just putting my hand in the tank to see if I feel a shock (which is what I did). If I find out that it was electricity I will at least feel more comfortable starting to add fish back to the tank because I will at least know what happened and I can prevent it from happening again in the future.

So sorry to here this for you. We unplugged one thing at a time and checked current until we found the culprit equipment. We bought the meter at local hardware store. Y husband you tubed how to check in water. We had never done that before but it worked. I hope this helps you. So sorry for your loss. I’ve had some experience with disease and I’m absolutely current I had no disease in my tank. And if there was disease like velvet (which I’ve seen before or ick) it would have taken out my purple tank. Plus all the coral was fine. With water chemistry my coral should have been severely affected and it wasn’t. I still can’t explain the alkalinity jump. But I haven’t really had time to research how electricity could change alk in water. The nitrites first me were barely any and once water change was done was gone and never returned. I think that was all the die off of fish and all the snails in the tank. Fish disease also wouldn’t wipe out all
The snails all at once. Well I hope you get some answers. We put our hands in all three tanks to scrape the glass and never felt all that electricity

 

[RtomKinMad]

So sorry to here this for you. We unplugged one thing at a time and checked current until we found the culprit equipment. We bought the meter at local hardware store. Y husband you tubed how to check in water. We had never done that before but it worked. I hope this helps you. So sorry for your loss. I’ve had some experience with disease and I’m absolutely current I had no disease in my tank. And if there was disease like velvet (which I’ve seen before or ick) it would have taken out my purple tank. Plus all the coral was fine. With water chemistry my coral should have been severely affected and it wasn’t. I still can’t explain the alkalinity jump. But I haven’t really had time to research how electricity could change alk in water. The nitrites first me were barely any and once water change was done was gone and never returned. I think that was all the die off of fish and all the snails in the tank. Fish disease also wouldn’t wipe out all
The snails all at once. Well I hope you get some answers. We put our hands in all three tanks to scrape the glass and never felt all that electricity

This is the meter we bought.

 

[RtomKinMad]

Thanks for sharing your story as well RtomKinMad. Thats sounds exactly what happened to the livestock in my tank. I didnt have a pump fail and my alkalinity tested normal though.
I guess when I get home from work today I will actually use a meter to check for the current instead of just putting my hand in the tank to see if I feel a shock (which is what I did). If I find out that it was electricity I will at least feel more comfortable starting to add fish back to the tank because I will at least know what happened and I can prevent it from happening again in the future.

We had a mated pair of phantom clowns and the female died. The male looks so sad and lost. I got another little clown hoping they will become friends. The clown is in quarantine with blue spot jawfish, and a juvenile Scott’s fairy wrasse. This is my tank. I hope you get to start over. I’m definitely gonna quarantine. I ordered fish online which I’ve never done before and thank goodness I put them in observation because after one week found ick on the scotts fairy wrasse and the helfrichi firefish died in quarantine of fin rot. And we did 100% water change in quarantine tank and put in more bacteria and checked all the water before ordering new fish. All the others are ok.

 

[Brew12]

I'm terribly sorry about your loss. I do want to say that I consider an electrical issue very unlikely to have caused this. An electrical device would have needed to fail and release a large amount of toxins into your system to cause rapid fish deaths. It is very difficult to shock a saltwater fish as the water around them is more conductive than they are. This is why electrofishing only works in fresh water.
I do agree that it was likely oxygen deprivation as a disease wouldn't work that fast although I wouldn't completely rule out a toxin. The one big drawback of glass tops on tanks is that you have much more limited air exchange.

 

[Regular_Reefer]

Air freshener sprays in the house can do it as well if it's to close to the aquarium. Ask me how I know... Sister in law.

Can this happen with those essential oil diffusers?

 

[NashobaTek]

Can this happen with those essential oil diffusers?

That I don't know, but I would think if it's a airesol it might. I think the diffuser just heats it up to release the oder.

 

[RtomKinMad]

I'm terribly sorry about your loss. I do want to say that I consider an electrical issue very unlikely to have caused this. An electrical device would have needed to fail and release a large amount of toxins into your system to cause rapid fish deaths. It is very difficult to shock a saltwater fish as the water around them is more conductive than they are. This is why electrofishing only works in fresh water.
I do agree that it was likely oxygen deprivation as a disease wouldn't work that fast although I wouldn't completely rule out a toxin. The one big drawback of glass tops on tanks is that you have much more limited air exchange.

I completely hear what you’re saying but I know for certain on our tank it was electrical. We didn’t have a grounding probe or GFI. Our tank cracked a few months ago and we had to quickly move all livestock into quarantine and the coral to the extra water barrel. Every thing hit one anemone survived when we quickly got a new tank and over a couple days move everything back in. The tank was fine and running well. Nothing new... because of this tank transfer and restart we were diligently checking tank chemistry and parameters and I was checking fish insanely often. We used some of our own equipment but we got the tank used and old from a friend and our pump was too big so we used there old old pump. And we forgot to put the grounding wire back in the tank and my husband didn’t do the wires on GFI (or whatever it’s suppose to be because he was in a hurry and many other things going on) the electricity in our tank was over 200! When we tested it trying to run the pump. So we haunted changed out all the equipment for that tank then in our other tanks checked the equipment one by one and checked weekly since and no electricity reading in the water now. So my tank for sure was electrical and probably had a large surge all at once which killed my fish. The ph was 8.1 with low oxygen I would also think lower ph due to higher co2 levels and we have an outside airline on our sumps in all three of our tanks.

I could be wrong and I have no idea what happen to the OP tank just giving my bad experience and what we found. We bought 4 powerheads within a few months of each other for our 2 large tanks and all 4 were over two years old and putting large amounts of electricity which we couldn’t feel in either tank but the meter read at 115! Grounding probes in both those tanks. That’s like direct current into the reef and fish only. But fish were all fine and coral never was doing well just living not thriving. Oh yah my clown fish that survived was twitching when we took it out like seizures, it stopped as soon as I put it in quarantine tank. Another reason I feel sure of electrical death.

 

[Gtinnel]

An electrical device would have needed to fail and release a large amount of toxins into your system to cause rapid fish deaths.

What toxins get released from an electrical device?

I understand that you're saying the water is more conductive than the fish themselves, but wouldn't that mean it is not possible for the fish to be shocked? Because either there is no path to ground, so they cant be shocked, or if there is a path to ground the current will take the path of least resistance and go through the water instead of the fish. If that is the case is the only purpose of a grounding probe to keep a person from making a connection to ground when they stick their hand in the water?

I'm just trying to determine if I do see current between the water and ground if I can assume that is what killed them or not? I hate not knowing because I'm afraid it'll happen again.

 

[Texas Rick]

 

[RtomKinMad]

What toxins get released from an electrical device?

I understand that you're saying the water is more conductive than the fish themselves, but wouldn't that mean it is not possible for the fish to be shocked? Because either there is no path to ground, so they cant be shocked, or if there is a path to ground the current will take the path of least resistance and go through the water instead of the fish. If that is the case is the only purpose of a grounding probe to keep a person from making a connection to ground when they stick their hand in the water?

I'm just trying to determine if I do see current between the water and ground if I can assume that is what killed them or not? I hate not knowing because I'm afraid it'll happen again.

I’m no expert by any means so I can’t answer this... will leave to smarter reefers or chemists than me. But I was so shocked to see the fish that ate at 7 all looked fine to all but three dead at once. Nothing else makes since you me. At least in my situation.

 

[Gtinnel]

I’m no expert by any means so I can’t answer this... will leave to smarter reefers or chemists than me.

I am hoping to get a reply from Brew12 since he seems to have a pretty good understanding of electricity. I have some knowledge on electricity and if I understand what he said correctly it is basically impossible for a saltwater fish to get electrocuted.

But now that I think about it I think that the lateral line of fish is used to detect weak electrical impulses so I'm now curious if even though the current cant flow through a fish if the saltwater around them having stray voltage could still effect them.

 

[CookieRdReef]

If the only animals left alive were hermits then it seems more likely a O2 issue than an electrical issue. I would assume voltage would kill small creatures before large and small creatures would tolerate less available O2 than larger fish? Maybe someone with more biology background might know?