Fish died overnight

[Ragunan]

I’ve had this tank for well over 7 months now and in there i had two clowns on an anemone, two damsels and a clown goby(green)
Corals: hammer
Torch
Mushrooms
Finger leather
Gsp(not opened just added)
So yesterday i did my usual monthly water change(no skip) and clean my canister filter i had for this 14 gallon tank,i did a standard clean of that filter like normal. Then the next morning all the fishes are dead. Corals are fine but no fish. One of the clowns were half eaten. No crabs no snail in the tank btw.
Question is what happened? Is there something wrong with the water change?! If so wouldn’t The corals be the one who reacts the most of it?plus ive got that anemone and its doing great [emoji1417]

 

[Katrina71]

I'm sorry about your little guys.

 

[Toofattofish]

Any rapid change in temp? Any equipment go crazy/short out and release noxious chemicals?

 

[Ragunan]

Any rapid change in temp? Any equipment go crazy/short out and release noxious chemicals?

Nope temperature was fine. Equipments are okay as well.still dont know wht happened

 

[norfolkgarden]

2 damsels and 2 clowns is a lot for 14 gallons.
Temporary drop in O2 level and the deaths cascade.
[emoji53]

For reference, 21 fish was too many in a 75 gallon tank.
[emoji17]

Sorry to hear about your loss.

 

[OrionN]

I think it is O2 related also. Do you have a skimmer? Do you have a sump? Do you have air stone? If no to all three then it is Oxygen depletion mortality.

 

[ca1ore]

Any new additions?

 

[DesertReefT4r]

Sounding like low O2 too me as well. How long was your new saltwater mixed for before doing the change? How long did you have the pumps off while doing the water change and filter cleaning? Imo you had a maxed out fish load in that small tank.

 

[Ragunan]

Sounding like low O2 too me as well. How long was your new saltwater mixed for before doing the change? How long did you have the pumps off while doing the water change and filter cleaning? Imo you had a maxed out fish load in that small tank.

I get it that im pushing it with the fish load but heres why. The clowns would always stick to their anemone. The two damsels are not your average yellow tail etc. these damsel are my local species(Borneo island) not even 1in long. They hardly do any difference in the tank and the clowns dont even notice them. But i hd these guys for over 5 months now . Same technique in water changes.
Same water. Same parameters.
And since im surrounded in ocean, my lfs sells clean pure sea water for the tank and I’ve been using that ever since the first month i used saltmix.
Pumps turned off for about 6mins

Ps: i dont know if this would help: once i got up around 7am is when i saw the fish all dead.and they still looked “fresh” as in just died a short while ago. One of the clowns was half eaten from tail end.(could be the crabs and pistol shrimp in the live rock)

 

[James M]

Do u have 2 tanks or do you also have the lion fish in there as well

 

[Ragunan]

Do u have 2 tanks or do you also have the lion fish in there as well

Ive got a bigger 55 g where the lionfish is at. This 14g is a nano in my room

 

[norfolkgarden]

Hope your family is well after the earthquake.
Don't know if that was anywhere near you.

Congrats on living in Paradise!
Earthquake or not, it sounds beautiful.
Send pictures when you have a chance.

I didn't realize all the fish were that small.

They may grow to be a problem in the future if you restock with the same amount when they are fully mature fish.
I think you are right and 02 level may not be the issue if they are that small.

What kind of pistol shrimp do you have?

We had one for a year and I will never have 1 again.
If your fish are as small as you say they will be prime targets for the pistol shrimp.

Or it could have been a combination of something unnoticeable with the water and the pistol shrimp just taking advantage of the dead fish.

Have you tested your parameters on the water? I'm sure the ammonia and nitrate and nitrite and phosphate will be a mess but I'm curious about the alkalinity, magnesium and calcium.

Have you done a large water change since then?

You mentioned using NSW or natural seawater. Have there been any heavy rains or anything else kind of weird happening in your local area that could have affected the water?

 

[Ragunan]

Hope your family is well after the earthquake.
Don't know if that was anywhere near you.

Congrats on living in Paradise!
Earthquake or not, it sounds beautiful.
Send pictures when you have a chance.

I didn't realize all the fish were that small.

They may grow to be a problem in the future if you restock with the same amount when they are fully mature fish.
I think you are right and 02 level may not be the issue if they are that small.

What kind of pistol shrimp do you have?

We had one for a year and I will never have 1 again.
If your fish are as small as you say they will be prime targets for the pistol shrimp.

Or it could have been a combination of something unnoticeable with the water and the pistol shrimp just taking advantage of the dead fish.

Have you tested your parameters on the water? I'm sure the ammonia and nitrate and nitrite and phosphate will be a mess but I'm curious about the alkalinity, magnesium and calcium.

Have you done a large water change since then?

You mentioned using NSW or natural seawater. Have there been any heavy rains or anything else kind of weird happening in your local area that could have affected the water?

Thanks for taking your time to help me out dude. The earthquake was in Indonesia our neighbor. im in Sabah the borneo part of a country,Malaysia.hope those who suffered from the earthquake could recover fast[emoji1431].

And yes we do have a beautiful place here. We got the tallest mountain in Southeast Asia,Mt Kinabalu. We have one of the best reefs in the world too, and islands [emoji267] our rainforest is the oldest in the world and has orangutans(the big ape) houses the worlds biggest flower(smells like dead carcass imo)
well..enough of that.

Pistol Shrimp:

these pistol shrimps don’t do nothing. They’re barely an inch and came with the live rock. Once while i just hear clicking but its super rare for me to spot them. Not your typical pistols in the lfs.

Parameters:

Parameters are all on point. I dose Ca,Mg,and Kh for my soft corals. Besides that nothing fancy. Only basics here.

Weather:

It has been raining heavily for the past few weeks. Since we are situated at where we at, the Philippines gets a heck of a storm but we just get the tail part of it. But the water collected in the store is fine for all people they sold it too. Even they’ve used it for their water changes.

 

[OrionN]

It is the O2 at night. With light photosynthetic plants and animals use photosynthesis and the by product is O2 in the water. At night no light, even plants produce CO2 and no O2. Without any surface agitation the O2 level drop at night. Often this get near critical. But the night involved, with the pump off for a few mins and the water likely not oxygenated the level drop even lower and likely reach the critical deathly level resulting in the fresh death.
You solve this by either have a skimmer, sump or just add a small air stone.

Regarding fresh natural sea water, there are a lot of micro life in it. You either have to airfares it and use it right away. Leaving it not agitated for a few hrs and all the animals in it will died and it is not suitable to use until the resulting ammonia finish with the mini nitrogen cycle. Either aerated and use right away or leave it for 3-4 days then use it. Not in between.

 

[Ragunan]

It is the O2 at night. With light photosynthetic plants and animals use photosynthesis and the by product is O2 in the water. At night no light, even plants produce CO2 and no O2. Without any surface agitation the O2 level drop at night. Often this get near critical. But the night involved, with the pump off for a few mins and the water likely not oxygenated the level drop even lower and likely reach the critical deathly level resulting in the fresh death.
You solve this by either have a skimmer, sump or just add a small air stone.

Regarding fresh natural sea water, there are a lot of micro life in it. You either have to airfares it and use it right away. Leaving it not agitated for a few hrs and all the animals in it will died and it is not suitable to use until the resulting ammonia finish with the mini nitrogen cycle. Either airfares and use right away or leave it for 3-4 days then use it. Not in between.

I’ve got a wave maker and its making quite a wave and gets enough agitation on the surface. And i only turned off the pump in the afternoon for water change like usual.
And for the water, my lfs it is a cleaned and stored properly.

 

[Lasse]

Such a fast event indicate intoxication of some or another form. either caused by a gas or the lack of the same (read Oxygen) or some dissolved compounds in the water. As you say - other had no bad experiences of the water in question - this will exclude dissolved chemicals in the water you change. According to gas - I can see 3 scenarios.
1) Something has coming into the water from the air - examples - scented candles, drying fresh paint, hairspray, fume or other smelling (or not smelling) in the room. Tips - if you can smell it - it will enter your water sooner or later.
2) Gas produced in the aquaria - hydrogen sulphide mostly. This gas can act in two ways - often simultaneously - kill by it self or through depleting oxygen. But - the forming needs spots with organic matter breakdown by anaerobic bacteria (oxygen free environment) and lack of NO3
3) Lack of oxygen. During photosynthesis most corals we have produce oxygen (or - more correct - their zooxanthella) but they also consume oxygen and if the coral population is huge enough - it can consume most oxygen in the tank during the dark hours (when no extra oxygen is produced) IMO - in a tank with many mushrooms, other softies and fleshy LPS - the O2 concentration in tanks without a skimmer can be very low in oxygen during night. Breakdown bacteria use oxygen (if present) too.

What´s happen in your case.

I put my 2 cents on oxygen depletion (as some others have done). The normal consuming of oxygen (by the corals and other living things) together with adding natural water with an organic content (plankton of different types) consume to much oxygen during night and the motion of the surface (the streamer) did not transport enough of oxygen from the surrounding air into the water. What is your temperature in the water? The temperature has a huge impact of oxygen gas concentrations in water - higher - lower concentrations. 25 degree C - 100% saturation in saltwater - around 7 ppm -> 30 degree C - around 6.25 ppm at 100 % saturation. Some fish get problems already around 5 ppm

Sincerely Lasse

 

[OrionN]

It is the lack of O2.

Something to think about. The surface area of your tank is several square foot at the most. The total surface area of a skimmer is ten of thousand times (or more) that of the tank surface. This depends on air output and how small the bubbles are. So is having water flowing down a pipe to the sump. This is a lot less than a skimmer but at least several thousand times (or more) the surface area of a tank. Again this depends on the water flow and the height of the tank.

What happened to you happened often enough that many people questioned about it over the years on the internet. The single common thing is no sump and lack of skimmer. "Everything is fine" before and after the event, nothing is detected in water testing, but all fish (nothing else) died overnight.

I have a QT tank that have no skimmer or sump. I have an air stone in it. Unless you do something like this, you will continue to have fish died off.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Water change- Was water the same temp or a tad warmer, not colder?
Salinity- Are you sure you have a correct reading? ( I recommend take a sample to your fish store and verify on their gage)
Container- When you mixed the new water- was the bucket actually clean and free of contaminants?+
What is tank temperature? ( Did it get too hot or cold overnite?)
Is heater cracked sending stray voltage into tank?? Sometimes one forgets to unplug and when refilling, the glass cracks un-noticed

 

[norfolkgarden]

Our 75 gallon sumpless tank runs several air stones.
And 3 of the plug in back up noisy as heck battery operated pumps that turn on automatically when the power shuts off.
If you are going to overstuff your tank like I do it is mandatory.
Or the 1st power failure lasting several hours can kill them easily.