Next steps with tank after all fish die?

[Chowder3]

Any room cleaning take place recently? Cleaners, furniture polish, glass cleaner even room fresheners overspray can affect tank inhabitants.

Nothing at all. I was home all day and didn’t do any of that. Thank you!

 

[Chowder3]

I have never heard of sterilizing a tank with bleach. I would totally advise against that.

Honestly, simple fixes for now are to maybe add a grounding probe which is fairly inexpensive and easy to add. Then maybe do a 20% water change in a week and leave the tank as is for another week. Adding GAC is also a good way of getting any contaminant out, if that may be the issue. Retest your parameters and if everything looks ok, maybe add one fish to see what happens.

Anything drastic at this point doesn't seem advisable. Remember that stability is the key to a healthy reef.

Thank you very much!

 

[magicwhistle]

I recently just had both my clownfish die after a water change. No idea why still. Sorry this happened to you.

What I did was run carbon in a media reactor and I also tested my biological filter by dosing ammonia. After a few days I added a shrimp and swapped the carbon for chemipure blue.

The shrimp is doing fine right now (3 days after adding it) and all the corals are doing fine. So I’m gonna try adding a fish this weekend and see what happens.

I wouldn’t do anything drastic like empty the tank and bleach everything and start from scratch. Jus wait a bit and see what happens and go from there, the fish are already dead so what’s the worst that can happen between now and a few weeks from now?

By the way, when you clean your tank do you clean your sandbed? Did you inspect the fish after you removed them? Any idea what your other parameters sit at like alk? (I know my alk was pretty low when this happened to me which could. Mean a ph change after water change killed the fish).

 

[EntitledSushi]

Sorry about your loss. Before you change anything, I suggest you measure the voltage in your tank. This is easy to do with a multimeter, and in reefing dollars it is not an expensive tool. Otherwise you will never know if electricity was the culprit and you will always be wondering if that was what went wrong.

 

[RobertT]

I had something similar happen to me earlier this year in my 55gal and I've been in the hobby over 15yrs and have 8 tanks in my house. In my 55g all my fish died over 2 days and they only died at night and ate and acted normal during the day and it happened about 3-4 months after cycling.
I took a water sample to my LFS where several of the employees have college degrees in ocean biology. I was told the cause was my Alk was dropping way too low after lights outs. which can cause quick violent deaths in fish but doesn't really affect the invertebrates according to the degree holders I spoke to in person. I started dosing Alk till the level stayed stable and have not lost another fish in that tank since.

Sorry if it seems weird I've emphasized the "degree holder" part but have spoken in forums about my experience and have been told the "Degree Holders" are FOS and their shade tree aquarium exp trumps college degrees based in actual science. I'm lucky to have an LFS run by a group of college grade fish nerds that went all-in on the hobby with their education by me, lol. Seeking advice from multiple sources is always good but its best to find someone in person you can really trust that they know what they are doing and have the receipts to back what they say or the hobby just gets harder, lol. This is NOT an attack at anyone in this forum and if anyone gets upset at what I've said you are "that person"

 

[Erick Armanii]

As mentioned above I started my cycle on May 10th if this year. I clean the rim of the glass inside not out or on top and the chambers as far as I can get my hand in. No plastic decor only sand and rock. I didn’t do a 50% water change. I did the water change after the power went out and it was restored. I did the water change this Monday. My normal 20%. Thank you for the additional tips. I now know.

I apologize if my questions seemed rash by no means was that my intentions.

As mentioned above I started my cycle on May 10th if this year. I clean the rim of the glass inside not out or on top and the chambers as far as I can get my hand in. No plastic decor only sand and rock. I didn’t do a 50% water change. I did the water change after the power went out and it was restored. I did the water change this Monday. My normal 20%. Thank you for the additional tips. I now know.

That’s such a bummer..
I was skimming thru the thread and saw 50% water change and assumed that’s what was done. Sorry about my confusion.

What’s the size of your tank?

 

[magicwhistle]

I had something similar happen to me earlier this year in my 55gal and I've been in the hobby over 15yrs and have 8 tanks in my house. In my 55g all my fish died over 2 days and they only died at night and ate and acted normal during the day and it happened about 3-4 months after cycling.
I took a water sample to my LFS where several of the employees have college degrees in ocean biology. I was told the cause was my Alk was dropping way too low after lights outs. which can cause quick violent deaths in fish but doesn't really affect the invertebrates according to the degree holders I spoke to in person. I started dosing Alk till the level stayed stable and have not lost another fish in that tank since.

Sorry if it seems weird I've emphasized the "degree holder" part but have spoken in forums about my experience and have been told the "Degree Holders" are FOS and their shade tree aquarium exp trumps college degrees based in actual science. I'm lucky to have an LFS run by a group of college grade fish nerds that went all-in on the hobby with their education by me, lol. Seeking advice from multiple sources is always good but its best to find someone in person you can really trust that they know what they are doing and have the receipts to back what they say or the hobby just gets harder, lol. This is NOT an attack at anyone in this forum and if anyone gets upset at what I've said you are "that person"

Yeah after what happened in my tank I looked into it a bit and it definitely seems low alk can cause fish deaths pretty quickly.

I don’t know about the night alk levels dropping from your day levels so much that it would cause deaths though... Wouldn’t your night time alk levels be higher at night due to higher carbon dioxide?

 

[wranodj]

I had a Hydor pump that developed an electrical leak. Tossed it and never buy another. We lost power for ~20 hours recently, only survivors were the clowns. Sterilization could mean no fish for ~90 days in case of parasites. If must clean filter sponge and bioballs do so in water that came out of tank during water change. Don’t want to kill bio filtration.

 

[Philip Chin]

Sorry for your lost.

 

[Pancake]

I would consider sterilizing the tank with bleach and starting over from Step 1. But others may think that is extreme. If you are certain it was an ammonia spike, then no need to sterilize.

To be safe I think sterilization/restart would be right, however based on your practices, contamination is probably unlikely the issue. Seems to me that the fish got sick from some source of stress and died due to failing conditions. If you don’t want to completely start over, one possible way would be to keep running the tank without fish for a few months. Allow the fish pathogens to die off if any. You can still enjoy the corals and inverts. Also continue to do water changes and continue to test parameters. When you feel comfortable with adding a fish you can add one and see how it does. This way you can continue to establish your biome and enjoy the tank.

 

[Sabellafella]

Nothing at all. I was home all day and didn’t do any of that. Thank you!

Hey sorry for your loss. Just a week ago NY gotten hit with a hurricane and it was pretty heartbreaking to see tons of locals going without power for a few days. Its one of the worst sides of the hobby to see something go downhill infront of you and there only so much one can do about it. Can't let it discourage you. These sortve things commonly happen inside this hobby, and like almost everything with it you learn from mistakes. That being said 14 hours without water movement is extremely steep. Under the parameters of what went on, lack of oxygen is the highest on your list of probability. Would just chalk that off and give it another shot.

 

[I’ma tempermental coral]

I’m sooo sorry for your loss!!! But I have some questions I haven’t seen asked or answered. Im
Thinking there are two possible culprits here. Firstly, stray voltage is something easy to test and something many reefers ignore for some reason. That could be your smoking gun. I do however postulate a different albeit unlikely theory. You say you washed all your reefing tools. That raises a small red flag to me. Do you wash them with city water? And if you do wash them with city water do you rinse them with rodi after? I know this seems a bit extreme but when you start having hundreds or more hours with thousands of dollars of fish and coral the extremes start to look a little more appealing. Even small levels of city water treatment chemicals can wreak havoc on our systems. Especially smaller ones.

 

[JCTReefer]

I had something similar happen to me earlier this year in my 55gal and I've been in the hobby over 15yrs and have 8 tanks in my house. In my 55g all my fish died over 2 days and they only died at night and ate and acted normal during the day and it happened about 3-4 months after cycling.
I took a water sample to my LFS where several of the employees have college degrees in ocean biology. I was told the cause was my Alk was dropping way too low after lights outs. which can cause quick violent deaths in fish but doesn't really affect the invertebrates according to the degree holders I spoke to in person. I started dosing Alk till the level stayed stable and have not lost another fish in that tank since.

Sorry if it seems weird I've emphasized the "degree holder" part but have spoken in forums about my experience and have been told the "Degree Holders" are FOS and their shade tree aquarium exp trumps college degrees based in actual science. I'm lucky to have an LFS run by a group of college grade fish nerds that went all-in on the hobby with their education by me, lol. Seeking advice from multiple sources is always good but its best to find someone in person you can really trust that they know what they are doing and have the receipts to back what they say or the hobby just gets harder, lol. This is NOT an attack at anyone in this forum and if anyone gets upset at what I've said you are "that person"

Can you point me to sources that talk about low Alk killing fish? I’d like to read about it.
Low dKH values will prevent growth of animals that create a coral skeleton. That’s a given! Anemones and fish don't much care, as long as the pH remains in line. At least that’s what I always thought. Alkalinity is definitely important when we’re talking about corals. I understand the effects that low Ph and high Ph have when we’re talking about NH3 and NH4. And also the role of carbon dioxide, oxygen, and how water temperature effects NH3 and NH4. In water with a low pH and low temp, after a prolonged power outage, I could see ammonia being converted to ammonium. And possibly if you performed a large water change, the naturally higher pH of the new water mixed with the old water would cause the ammonium “ NH4” to converted back to ammonia “NH3” which can be toxic. That is if the bacteria in the tank wasn’t able to do its job. And a lot of times we correlate low Ph with low oxygen levels. On a smaller scale when fish are shipped this happens all the time. Extremely low Ph levels and supper high NH4. I’ve just never really heard about low alk killing fish. Learn something new every day.

 

[DSEKULA]

Just something else to think about.
I professionally operate water treatment plants, when power goes out the plant also has to go on an alternative source of electricity. There are times this slightly changes how our equipment operates. Things have to reboot, be recalibrated etc. Unless they fall outside an acceptable range it's all good and no one is notified etc. For example a water supply can have between 0.40mg/L and 4.00mg/L of residual chlorine (most systems) and operate legally. while this may be a drastic difference when were trying to remove chlorine there is no public notice required if the level bounces from a 1.5 to a .5 and then bounces back up to a 3.0 during various recalibrations. I would check your rodi and ensure your filters are still working. I don't know specifically what treatment you have but there are many things that could blow through your filters faster than initially anticipated. Not saying this is definitely the cause but with my different perspective it makes sense to keep an eye.

 

[I’ma tempermental coral]

Just something else to think about.
I professionally operate water treatment plants, when power goes out the plant also has to go on an alternative source of electricity. There are times this slightly changes how our equipment operates. Things have to reboot, be recalibrated etc. Unless they fall outside an acceptable range it's all good and no one is notified etc. For example a water supply can have between 0.40mg/L and 4.00mg/L of residual chlorine (most systems) and operate legally. while this may be a drastic difference when were trying to remove chlorine there is no public notice required if the level bounces from a 1.5 to a .5 and then bounces back up to a 3.0 during various recalibrations. I would check your rodi and ensure your filters are still working. I don't know specifically what treatment you have but there are many things that could blow through your filters faster than initially anticipated. Not saying this is definitely the cause but with my different perspective it makes sense to keep an eye.

Amazing and VERY much appreciated information to hand out!!! Thank you!!!!!!!

 

[Rick.45cal]

My vote is for something in your waterchange water from that day did it, whether it’s contamination from your source water from the water treatment plant slipping by your RODI unit or something contaminated your tools/ your bucket etc. It’s all speculative on our part, and you’ll likely not figure out the true cause. I would definitely check your RODI filters to make sure they are still good. Possibly replace them to be safe. Might be worth checking your tap water to see if Chloramines are being used as they require special carbon filters to effectively remove from the source water. . Sorry about this happening, definitely don’t let it discourage you.

 

[RtomKinMad]

What a major bummer. So sorry to hear.

I have a 20 gallon refugium attached to my system. A couple months back I had 2 Banggai Cardinals that I put in there because I was planning on introducing them to my one Cardinal in my main display to try and make a pair. One morning I went downstairs to find the smaller fish lying on the sand barely alive. He moved if I touched him but otherwise was near death. The larger fish was upright but not moving in the other corner. I moved both fish out of the refugium and into my sump. The smaller fish eventually died later that day but the larger made a recovery. Weeks later when the circuit breaker finally blew I found that the power head I put in the refugium to add flow had a corroded exposed wire. I never felt anything when my hand was in the water. My system is big and my refugium is pretty much totally separate from the rest.

Is electricity your problem? I have no idea, but given the fact that your water was aerated, your tank was more than a month old, and the fish died quickly really makes me suspect stray voltage. My next personal guess would be contamination in your water from something airborne. Do you live in a small apartment? Is it possible you had really high CO2? I've never heard of that killing livestock, but I do know friends of mine who live in a small apartment and have a Neptune monitoring their system realized that having even a couple friends over with the windows closed and the AC on made the pH plummet. So I wonder.

This same event happened to us a couple of months ago. My husband fed the fish at 6-7pm everyone ate and everything looked good. No signs of disease. We have had tanks for six years and have three tanks. We hadn’t added anything new and only my husband and I in the house. Anyway I got home from work at 11pm and 8/11 fish And all snails were dead, it coral and crabs ok. We checked parameters and nothing off accept alk was 22! Ph was 8.1. We removed the last three fish to quarantine and shut the power off. Ended up finding when we tried to turn power back on that the return pump was nonfunctional which led us to check electricity and we found unbelievable high current in the tank. So we replaced all electrical equipment. The coral never changed. Anyway, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for the OP to check for stray electricity before starting over. We also checked all our other tanks and found stray voltage in those also. We turned equipment off one at a time until we found that we had four powerheads releasing stray voltage. Now we only have MP 40s instead of the other kind we had in the 2/300 gal tanks. We have since checked for stray voltage once a week just to make sure.
Good luck and hope the Op finds some answers. Sorry for your loss.

 

[Snoopdog]

I think the last thing I would do is make a tank sterile. If you wear anything on your skin and possibly forgot that one time to wash up before you put your arm in, that may be the cause. Either way you are just going to have to learn from it and move on, I think we have all had loss in this hobby. Run some carbon for a few days to remove impurities, make sure you do not have something leaching electricity in the tank also.

 

[rwreef]

Everyone with an aquarium full of water and electrical driven components in said water should have a ground probe in the water running to a GFCI protected receptacle. To me this is a requirement for safety.

 

[I’ma tempermental coral]

I think the last thing I would do is make a tank sterile. If you wear anything on your skin and possibly forgot that one time to wash up before you put your arm in, that may be the cause. Either way you are just going to have to learn from it and move on, I think we have all had loss in this hobby. Run some carbon for a few days to remove impurities, make sure you do not have something leaching electricity in the tank also.

Yea that’s another thing we do if I put lotions or anything on during the day my husband is the only one that goes into the tank.