Semi tank crash

Alexreefer · Mar 30, 2020

Today was cleaning day for the tank, I have lots of hair algae and some dinos. I went in and was cleaning rocks for about an hour and a half. During this time all animals in the tank were acting normally. As soon as i started to add fresh saltwater into the tank all the fish swam start to the surface and were having trouble breathing. I immediately stopped adding saltwater at a gravity of 1.025 and added an air pump and turned on the power head in my tank. A couple minutes later the fish lost control of their swimming and began floating around the tank. I placed them in breeder boxes and watched them struggle until they died. My corals are miserable but not dead. I tested saltwater of tank at 1.026 and ammonia of 0. I use rodi water and had it heated up to the tanks temperature. What could cause the fish to lose oxygen? The alage?
#reefsquad?

Flippers4pups · Mar 30, 2020

Sorry this happened! Depends. If you scrubbed the rocks while in the tank, the release of the dinoflagellates into the water column may have done this. If the water was very cloudy during this event, combined with Dino's floating around, a lack of O2 may have contributed to them perishing.

Dinoflagellates are toxic to fish and inverts. Fish typically won't touch it on surfaces, but they may have ingested them if in the water column.

Alexreefer · Mar 30, 2020

Flippers4pups said:
Sorry this happened! Depends. If you scrubbed the rocks while in the tank, the release of the dinoflagellates into the water column may have done this. If the water was very cloudy during this event, combined with Dino's floating around, a lack of O2 may have contributed to them perishing.

Dinoflagellates are toxic to fish and inverts. Fish typically won't touch it on surfaces, but they may have ingested them if in the water column.

It looks like snails and crabs are still fine. I think the algae in the water column caused a lack of Oxygen, Now what should I do with the aftermath? Should I let the tank cycle for a couple of weeks?

Lowell Lemon · Mar 30, 2020

I would be more suspicious of the water change and something causing death from that due to the rapid decline in the fish.

Are you using tap water or prefiltered water like RODI? If tap water did you make sure to use a de-clorinetor first and allow enough time for it it act before mixing salt?

Alexreefer · Mar 30, 2020

Lowell Lemon said:
I would be more suspicious of the water change and something causing death from that due to the rapid decline in the fish.

Could you elaborate?

Lowell Lemon · Mar 30, 2020

Rapid PH changes are lethal as well as toxic substances from our hands...hand sanitizer, soaps, ect. So your mixing and water preparation process is suspected due to rapid loss of fish and not inverts. Just suggesting you review your water change and think if something different occurred this time versus previous times.

Alexreefer · Mar 30, 2020

Lowell Lemon said:
Rapid PH changes are lethal as well as toxic substances from our hands...hand sanitizer, soaps, ect. So your mixing and water preparation process is suspected due to rapid loss of fish and not inverts. Just suggesting you review your water change and think if something different occurred this time versus previous times.

ok thank you, whats done is done. Im just trying to figure out what i did wrong

NS Mike D · Mar 30, 2020

you can't scrub dinos, the are cellular and go right through the filter socks and reform, often in greater numbers. They have a sticky mucus that lets them reattach. They can be lethal (killed 80% of my corals)

Sand beds and rock can trap a lot of bad stuff that gets stirred up when cleaning the tank and when the new water gets thrown in. Ad mentioned algae could have sucked up the O2. Hydrogen Sulfide could have been released that was trapped in the sand bed (very toxic)

Something toxic might have gotten into the water bucket etc.

given you had a lot of GHA and dinos, my prime suspect is the release of amonia and hydrogen sulfides that had built up.

Alexreefer · Mar 30, 2020

Tank is all cleared up now, all inverts are still ok. i will let it run for a while before figuring out what to do with the tank, not sure I can restart a whole tank right now

rkpetersen · Mar 30, 2020

Another consideration is a toxin release from something that was annoyed by scrubbing the rocks. In particular, if there were any palys attached to those rocks, they could release palytoxin which would rapidly kill many creatures.

Alexreefer · Mar 30, 2020

The only

rkpetersen said:
Another consideration is a toxin release from something that was annoyed by scrubbing the rocks. In particular, if there were any palys attached to those rocks, they could release palytoxin which would rapidly kill many creatures.

thing that i can release toxins in my tank is a anemone. But he is just annoyed from algae in the water column, could he release toxins that cause fish to go to the surface for air?

Alexreefer · Mar 30, 2020

Update: The one fish I couldn't catch(Midas Blenny) has survived. I guess went he dove into the rocks and didn't come out, he was in a way separated from the toxic algae. He is still breathing heavily but is alive. I will continue to closely monitor the tank and its inhabitants. I am running carbon and a UV right now to help remove the rest of the toxins.

rkpetersen · Mar 31, 2020

Alexreefer said:
The only

thing that i can release toxins in my tank is a anemone. But he is just annoyed from algae in the water column, could he release toxins that cause fish to go to the surface for air?

Very unlikely unless the anemone was dying, which would be obvious.

Alexreefer · Mar 31, 2020

The remaining fish is out and swimming, he ate and is acting normally. Cora just a tad bit smaller than normal but he will be fine. Not sure if its from the lack of fish but my glass is covered in pods!

vetteguy53081 · Mar 31, 2020

Toxins were no doubt released and scrubbing is best done outside of the tank. The behaviors you described indicates Shock.
Was the water you entered into the tank the same temp ?
Also was salt totally dissolved and salinity measured before it entered tank ?

VR28man · Mar 31, 2020

Lots of good info in this thread.

Sorry to hear this, @Alexreefer . I had a similar experience just this week - last Wednesday I cleared out a whole bunch of accumulated algae (done similar before with no problem, though this time there was a whole bunch of stuff on the walls I cleared out which I hadn't before, while the stuff on the rocks was comparatively small).

I tried to clear the algae out with a micron filter and a filter sock+pump. In retrospect, a full up canister filter taking out the big algal detritus I thereby generated, and then running the diatom filter, probably would be wise prior to taking out algae.

Within 12 hours I notice things were off and inhabitants were unhappy.

After that I used Dr. Tim's waste-away and a load of activated carbon; I think I used the right dosage of the former (but now of course I'm second guessing that maybe I overdosed, as it explcitly recommends NOT overdosing for exactly this reason. In retrospect, there was probably too much gunk and if I used it at all I should have used a half dose)

Anyway, the results of my saga can be seen here. Mass death similar to yours within 24 hours, though I don't think I had dinos.

Tank Crash :(

So before my tank (29g/110L aqueon, no sump but with a was running OK, but loaded with algae and DOC, which I think I sort of had under control. Several SPS and the like were growing and had PE. Wednesday night I decided to do a massive clean out of algae on the tank walls and on rocks, to...

www.reef2reef.com

Alexreefer said:
What could cause the fish to lose oxygen? The alage?
#reefsquad?

My hypothesis for both our cases was all the decaying algae+waste away generating a massive the bacteria bloom. (in my case exacerbated by the fact I was applying an apparently carbon additive to increase bacteria consumption of that stuff).

I also hypothesize, without evidence in my case, that all the distruption to the algae may have caused them to release something allopathic.

@Lowell Lemon Rapid PH changes are lethal as well as toxic substances from our hands...hand sanitizer, soaps, ect.

I've considered this in my case and both myself and @YHSublime (on our local board) sort of dismiss this. Yes if you pour soap or sanitiser into a tank it would be bad (though I'm not sure even a drop into a 10g would be catastrophic). Is there evidence that trace amounts of soap, lotion, whatever on your hand, that you used like even half an hour before, has any serious correlation to chemical solution and major tank crashes?

vetteguy53081 said:
Toxins were no doubt released and scrubbing is best done outside of the tank.

Fair enough. For future reference, what do you recommend for scrubbing large mats of algae on the tank walls and the like? (besides of course not letting them form in the first place!)

vetteguy53081 · Mar 31, 2020

VR28man said:
Lots of good info in this thread.

Sorry to hear this, @Alexreefer . I had a similar experience just this week - last Wednesday I cleared out a whole bunch of accumulated algae (done similar before with no problem, though this time there was a whole bunch of stuff on the walls I cleared out which I hadn't before, while the stuff on the rocks was comparatively small).

I tried to clear the algae out with a micron filter and a filter sock+pump. In retrospect, a full up canister filter taking out the big algal detritus I thereby generated, and then running the diatom filter, probably would be wise prior to taking out algae.

Within 12 hours I notice things were off and inhabitants were unhappy.

After that I used Dr. Tim's waste-away and a load of activated carbon; I think I used the right dosage of the former (but now of course I'm second guessing that maybe I overdosed, as it explcitly recommends NOT overdosing for exactly this reason. In retrospect, there was probably too much gunk and if I used it at all I should have used a half dose)

Anyway, the results of my saga can be seen here. Mass death similar to yours within 24 hours, though I don't think I had dinos.

Tank Crash :(

So before my tank (29g/110L aqueon, no sump but with a was running OK, but loaded with algae and DOC, which I think I sort of had under control. Several SPS and the like were growing and had PE. Wednesday night I decided to do a massive clean out of algae on the tank walls and on rocks, to...

www.reef2reef.com

My hypothesis for both our cases was all the decaying algae+waste away generating a massive the bacteria bloom. (in my case exacerbated by the fact I was applying an apparently carbon additive to increase bacteria consumption of that stuff).

I also hypothesize, without evidence in my case, that all the distruption to the algae may have caused them to release something allopathic.

I've considered this in my case and both myself and @YHSublime (on our local board) sort of dismiss this. Yes if you pour soap or sanitiser into a tank it would be bad (though I'm not sure even a drop into a 10g would be catestrophic). Is there evdience that trace amounts of soap, lotion, whatever on hour hand that you used like even half an hour before has any serious correlation to chemical polution and major tank crashes?

Fair enough. For future reference, what do you recommend for scrubbing large mats of algae on the tank walls and the like? (besides of course not letting them form in the first place!)

Clean up crew . . . turbo snail, astrea, margarita and trocus.