Majority of Fish Died Overnight

[threebuoys]

Please try to summarize your thoughts and respond to these questions in the second post above. We need to be sure problems do not affect the remaining fish.

@
EliMelly Welcome to the Fish Disease Treatment and Diagnosis Forum!

The #fishmedic team and other knowledgeable members of our community will do our best to help you resolve your questions. Please provide as much of the following as you are able:

• Brief description of the issue you are observing and answers to the following questions:
  • How long have you had the fish with the condition?
  • Did you quarantine with medication when you first acquired the fish? (If Yes, which medication?)
• Current water quality measurements
• Clear photos of the issue taken using WHITE light and/or a short video of any behaviors (post in your response or on YouTube).

 

[EliMelly]

Air stone before skimmer for water movement as skimmer will remove inorganics increasing dissolved oxygen
As stated before, quarantine all fish and leave display fishless to allow protozoans to die off without a host and I suggest getting an Icp test done during the fallow period
It appears problems began with new introduction and ultimately all fish need to be treated
Therapeutic level 2.3 for a full 30 days with added aeration and monitoring of ammonia with a reliable test kit. Hanna copper test kit for copper

I will take out my old 90 and set it up. Eel cannot tolerate copper correct? Should I put him in his own tank? Inverts as well?

 

[brandon429]

Eli I have some helpful advice when it comes to troubleshoots



imagine going into the mechanics shop because there's something wrong with your truck and when you get there, he lays out several tools, provides really good likelihood on the cause, and awaits you to work on it and provide feedback. if you're a mechanic then disregard the analogy, and sub in a better one heh

the reverse is when the mechanic fixes your truck, and is accountable for the repair because you know where to find them for follow up if needed.

make your tank issue like that, don't select possible fixes from offers given, nobody knows enough about your setup yet, we haven't even seen pics.

The way to fix your issue is pick one mechanic, and have them fix your tank live time. Meaning you could use this thread as the feedback mechanism for someone to fix your fish loss remotely, live time, making the system stable for fish. Have one person do it

you're picking the mechanic, not the cause and the fix. btw it ain't me just so this didn't sound like a self-serving post. I don't do fish disease troubleshoots. Pick from someone posting here, have them run a complete extended fix in the thread. Pick only one mechanic, run exclusively their way they type here. that's a work thread, and it can help your tank to not make guesses with the cause and the fixes.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I will take out my old 90 and set it up. Eel cannot tolerate copper correct? Should I put him in his own tank? Inverts as well?

Correct
Inverts can stay safely in fallow period

 

[EliMelly]

Eli I have some helpful advice when it comes to troubleshoots



imagine going into the mechanics shop because there's something wrong with your truck and when you get there, he lays out several tools, provides really good likelihood on the cause, and awaits you to work on it and provide feedback.

the reverse is when the mechanic fixes your truck, and is accountable for the repair because you know where to find them for follow up if needed.

make your tank issue like that, don't select possible fixes from offers given, nobody knows enough about your setup yet, we haven't even seen pics.

The way to fix your issue is pick one mechanic, and have them fix your tank live time. Meaning you could use this thread as the feedback mechanism for someone to fix your fish loss remotely, live time, making the system stable for fish. Have one person do it

you're picking the mechanic, not the cause and the fix. btw it ain't me just so this didn't sound like a self-serving post. I don't do fish disease troubleshoots. Pick from someone posting here, have them run a complete extended fix in the thread. Pick only one mechanic, run exclusively their way they type here. that's a work thread, and it can help your tank to not make guesses with the cause and the fixes.

Thanks for your advice, I’m going to follow vetteguy and move the fish over to an old tank that I’m going to set up. I’m going to be purchasing my fish from Dr Reef only from now on and doing my own QT from other vendors. I tried ich management and it worked for a year but this wasn’t ich.

 

[Dburr1014]

The surface agitation looked off to me I am not sure what caused it but didn’t seem like a lot of movement.

Last fish added was an Achilles about a month ago who was battling ich.

Hmmm, clues.

Were all the powerheads working?

Achilles was in the display already with ich?

 

[EliMelly]

Correct
Inverts can stay safely in fallow period

Can I leave the eel in the main tank?

 

[EliMelly]

Hmmm, clues.

Were all the powerheads working?

Achilles was in the display already with ich?

All powerheads working. Old display had ich break out a year ago. But I moved all rocks and everything over to new tank. When Achilles was introduced ich outbreak started. Most fish seemed fine expcept for Achilles.

 

[Reefjnky]

Well, I’m currently in pretty much tears. Overnight my Achilles, yellow tang, Wantanabe Angel, flame angel, fire shrimp and others all died.

They were all breathing heavily last night and I sat there knowing there was nothing I could do at 11:00 PM on such short notice and it may be the last time I would see those fish. I’ve had a lot of those fish since I’ve started the hobby and feel heartbroken right now.

Anyone have any suggestions for next steps? My clowns still seem to be ok, hippo tang is hiding, firefish, hawkfish, eel, and my wrasses are hiding so I’m not sure…

Wow what a crappy way to start the day.

Quitting isn’t an option as I just upgraded to a 200 gallon but what a kick in the face.

I had this happen to me after using tiger balm on my hands. I didnt think about what was on my hands when I put them in the tank. Were you working with chemicals or anything that could have hurt the tank ?

If nothing is obviously wrong do a big water change to dilute whatever killed those fish

 

[vetteguy53081]

Can I leave the eel in the main tank?

If looking and breathing good yes but a sterile environment may benefit it

 

[EliMelly]

I had this happen to me after using tiger balm on my hands. I didnt think about what was on my hands when I put them in the tank. Were you working with chemicals or anything that could have hurt the tank ?

No chemicals at all, I added some ammo lock just in case my ammonia test wasn’t accurate.

 

[EliMelly]

If looking and breathing good yes but a sterile environment may benefit it

But I will need to treat rest of my fish with copper so best to leave eel in its own mini tank?

 

[EliMelly]

I personally think it was velvet or issues with oxygen.

 

[Dburr1014]

No chemicals at all, I added some ammo lock just in case my ammonia test wasn’t accurate.

Throw that bottle away. Ammo lock really doesn't do much.

 

[Jimbo327]

Sorry for your loss, it is devastating to lose fish. If they are breathing heavily and show no physical symptoms, add air stone, increase water surface agitation/flow, and do a water change. That'll buy you some time to figure out next steps.

 

[twentyleagues]

Inverts are not effected by fish disease. You had inverts die too, correct?

 

[EliMelly]

Inverts are not effected by fish disease. You had inverts die too, correct?

Yea

 

[Uncle99]

Well, I’m currently in pretty much tears. Overnight my Achilles, yellow tang, Wantanabe Angel, flame angel, fire shrimp and others all died.

They were all breathing heavily last night and I sat there knowing there was nothing I could do at 11:00 PM on such short notice and it may be the last time I would see those fish. I’ve had a lot of those fish since I’ve started the hobby and feel heartbroken right now.

Anyone have any suggestions for next steps? My clowns still seem to be ok, hippo tang is hiding, firefish, hawkfish, eel, and my wrasses are hiding so I’m not sure…

Wow what a crappy way to start the day.

Quitting isn’t an option as I just upgraded to a 200 gallon but what a kick in the face.

Get water moving.
I’d use some carbon in this case for a few days.
Change 50% water. Then after two days, another 25%.

Your post says a number of fish died within hours, doubt that is ick or any parasite, when they are fine, then overnight dead. That’s a poisoning, ammonia spike, or low oxygen issue IMM.

Suspect something in the water

 

[Sharkbait19]

No outage, all equipment seems to be fine, what would a contaminant be?

Any sort of toxic chemical entering the tank.
I agree it sounds mostly like an o2 issue - but it wouldn’t necessarily be a bad idea to qt and treat as a precaution.

 

[twentyleagues]

Yea

While you said you have a fish with ich that isnt the cause here at least not for the inverts. Something else has happened. You can do all the fallow and qting you want that isnt fixing this issue. It may help the ich issue.