Most my fish died!

[Christophertauraso]

I came home and saw all my fish gasping and breathing hard last night. I instantly checked my parameters and everything seemed fine. Salinity was slightly high at 1.028. When I woke up 4/5 had died. 2 clowns, 1 bicolor blenny and a 6line. My Watchman Goby was fine. All my corals seemed fine. The anemone was a bit shriveled but the next day opened up as usual. I have no idea what happened. I took the water to the LFS and they said everything was good as well. I haven't done anything different outside of water changes. It's a 32.5 Fluval. Any ideas of what could've happened?

Also my peppermint shrimps, snails and hermits are all fine.

 

[Cell]

Needs more oxygen...last night unfortunately.

What exactly are you parameters?
Any fish added recently?
What do have for flow?
How old is tank?

 

[jmichaelh7]

Sounds like oxygen deprivation. Can you tell more about your setup is there water breaking from powerheads

 

[Soren]

I came home and saw all my fish gasping and breathing hard last night. I instantly checked my parameters and everything seemed fine. Salinity was slightly high at 1.028. When I woke up 4/5 had died. 2 clowns, 1 bicolor blenny and a 6line. My Watchman Goby was fine. All my corals seemed fine. The anemone was a bit shriveled but the next day opened up as usual. I have no idea what happened. I took the water to the LFS and they said everything was good as well. I haven't done anything different outside of water changes. It's a 32.5 Fluval. Any ideas of what could've happened?

Also my peppermint shrimps, snails and hermits are all fine.

Sorry to hear about your loss!

@Jay Hemdal @ReefSquad

This may be due to limited oxygen or ammonia burning the gills or a Velvet outbreak.
How long has the tank been set up?

Is the water clear? If it is cloudy, it could be a bacterial bloom robbing oxygen from the water.

How much movement do you have on the surface of the water? Sometimes oxygen issues are caused by lack of surface turbulence for good air exchange. Aiming a circulation pump at the surface helps keep the water surface turbulent.

Do you get zero ammonia from tests? If there is enough ammonia, it can burn the gills of the fish causing them to gasp for breath and die fairly quickly.

Have you introduced anything new to the tank recently? Sudden fish deaths can also be due to Velvet/Amyloodinium which can attack the gills first, be undetected, cause them to gasp for breath, and die very quickly (even before any spots are detectable).

These are just some initial thoughts based on my research and limited experiences.

 

[Christophertauraso]

Needs more oxygen...last night unfortunately.

What exactly are you parameters?
Any fish added recently?
What do have for flow?
How old is tank?

The tank is 1 year 6 months old.
No new fish. The last fish I added was the clownfish pair about 5 months ago. I have 2 power heads. One a bit stronger pointed to the top. One pointed on the other end behind the rocks.

 

[Christophertauraso]

Sorry to hear about your loss!

@Jay Hemdal @ReefSquad

This may be due to limited oxygen or ammonia burning the gills or a Velvet outbreak.
How long has the tank been set up?

Is the water clear? If it is cloudy, it could be a bacterial bloom robbing oxygen from the water.

How much movement do you have on the surface of the water? Sometimes oxygen issues are caused by lack of surface turbulence for good air exchange. Aiming a circulation pump at the surface helps keep the water surface turbulent.

Do you get zero ammonia from tests? If there is enough ammonia, it can burn the gills of the fish causing them to gasp for breath and die fairly quickly.

Have you introduced anything new to the tank recently? Sudden fish deaths can also be due to Velvet/Amyloodinium which can attack the gills first, be undetected, cause them to gasp for breath, and die very quickly (even before any spots are detectable).

These are just some initial thoughts based on my research and limited experiences.

The tank is 1 year 6 months old.
No new fish. The last fish I added was the clownfish pair about 5 months ago. I have 2 power heads. One a bit stronger pointed to the top. One pointed on the other end behind the rocks.

 

[blaxsun]

High salinity probably didn't help. Try to get this down to around 1.026 with subsequent water changes.

 

[Idech]

Do you have substrate and did you vacuum it just before the fish died ?

 

[Christophertauraso]

High salinity probably didn't help. Try to get this down to around 1.026 with subsequent water changes.

Yeah I have 10 gallons I'll be changing tonight. Unless my filter and power heads stopped while I was out for a few hours I have no idea what happened. Ammonia was 0ppm
Nitrate was under under 20
Nitrate was very low. The LFS got the same readings aside from the salinity.

 

[Christophertauraso]

Do you have substrate and did you vacuum it just before the fish died ?

I did nothing to the tank aside from a water change about 2 weeks ago.

 

[Soren]

The tank is 1 year 6 months old.
No new fish. The last fish I added was the clownfish pair about 5 months ago. I have 2 power heads. One a bit stronger pointed to the top. One pointed on the other end behind the rocks.

At that age, ammonia is unlikely to be an issue.
With a powerhead aimed at the top, you should have surface turbulence, but is the surface breaking/roiling?
Even with no recent additions, disease is still possible but maybe not likely.

I'll have to wait for others with more experience to help with this issue...

+1 to @blaxsun about high salinity reducing oxygen-holding capacity.

 

[blaxsun]

Low oxygen due to a power outage is a possibility. If there was a slight issue with the high salinity to begin with, a few hours without any water flow would definitely have an impact (more so with fish).

 

[Christophertauraso]

At that age, ammonia is unlikely to be an issue.
With a powerhead aimed at the top, you should have surface turbulence, but is the surface breaking/roiling?
Even with no recent additions, disease is still possible but maybe not likely.

I'll have to wait for others with more experience to help with this issue...

+1 to @blaxsun about high salinity reducing oxygen-holding capacity.

I'm not home so I forget how strong but I have my stronger power head facing up at the surface. Maybe I'll need to add something to help the oxygen levels in the tank?

 

[jmichaelh7]

Is your power supply on in the middle of the night ? Do you have a controller

Is there a skimmer running for oxygen

 

[Christophertauraso]

Is your power supply on in the middle of the night ? Do you have a controller

Yes it runs 24/7

 

[SaltyT]

Sorry for your losses

You haven’t added any fish lately, but what about any new corals, snails, hermits, etc?

 

[vetteguy53081]

High salinity impact mainly is stress. If space is limited and you did not factor the amount of rock and true useable gallons- Oxygen depeltion will be another issue.
Other items can be aerosols, stray voltage, hidden disease such as velvet or even high temperature.
Did you by chance capture immediate water results upn discovery?
What test kits are you using ?

Also check for equipment failure such as pump, powerhead, heater and also anything that caused atmospheric poisoning such as ammonia/bleach, scented candles, gasoline fumes, cooking grease, etc

 

[Christophertauraso]

Sorry for your losses

You haven’t added any fish lately, but what about any new corals, snails, hermits, etc?

I added GSP about a month ago. Other than that my tank consists of zoas, mushroom, ricordias, tube anemones, bubble anemone.

 

[Christophertauraso]

High salinity impact mainly is stress. If space is limited and you did not factor the amount of rock and true useable gallons- Oxygen depeltion will be another issue.
Other items can be aerosols, stray voltage, hidden disease such as velvet or even high temperature.
Did you by chance capture immediate water results upn discovery?
What test kits are you using ?

Also check for equipment failure such as pump, powerhead, heater and also anything that caused atmospheric poisoning such as ammonia/bleach, scented candles, gasoline fumes, cooking grease, etc

I tested as soon as I saw. I have the API test kits. All checked out. To my knowledge the power didn't go out as my wife was home. I've read and checked everything aside from asking fellow reefers. I always like to receive actual experience.

 

[Christophertauraso]

Thank you all for your respones, I appreciate the help!