Tank Crash during night

[Plauri55]

This morning I woke up to a crash of my Fluval 13.5. Water very cloudy and my four fish dead. Various hermit crabs, a tuxedo Urchin also dead. Most if not all of the Corals look good. Many mushrooms, ricordea, GSP, and other softies all fine.
Water tests were done just a few days ago. Only thing that was a bit high were the Nitrates at 35-40. Usually I'm at 12-20.
After removing the dead fish I checked ammonia (zero) and Nitrates (40) and salinity (34).
Now comes the big question. This looks like it was a bacterial bloom that de-oxegenated the tank. BTW, no skimmer, just a HOB refugium. Only thing new in tank was I added a Dr. Tim's Waste Away gel pack. Could this, even though beneficial bacteria, have caused a bloom that led to my crash??

 

[Eagle_Steve]

This morning I woke up to a crash of my Fluval 13.5. Water very cloudy and my four fish dead. Various hermit crabs, a tuxedo Urchin also dead. Most if not all of the Corals look good. Many mushrooms, ricordea, GSP, and other softies all fine.
Water tests were done just a few days ago. Only thing that was a bit high were the Nitrates at 35-40. Usually I'm at 12-20.
After removing the dead fish I checked ammonia (zero) and Nitrates (40) and salinity (34).
Now comes the big question. This looks like it was a bacterial bloom that de-oxegenated the tank. BTW, no skimmer, just a HOB refugium. Only thing new in tank was I added a Dr. Tim's Waste Away gel pack. Could this, even though beneficial bacteria, have caused a bloom that led to my crash??

It could have. What was the reason for the bac being added? And did you test nitrites? If so were they 0?

 

[Plauri55]

It could have. What was the reason for the bac being added? And did you test nitrites? If so were they 0?

Didn't test nitrites. Honestly I was so upset I couldn't think straight. Added waste away gel in effort to increase my nitrifying bacteria cause Nitrates were higher than my normal.
Lesson learned! Things were happy and healthy and I tried to play the numbers game and truly screwed it up.

I was able to move all Corals and rocks to my quarantine tank. Cleaning out the nano tank and will do a restart when I can.

Plan to add new live sand and will restart a nirogen cycle. At what point would it be safe to add back my love rock and Corals from QT?

 

[Eagle_Steve]

Didn't test nitrites. Honestly I was so upset I couldn't think straight. Added waste away gel in effort to increase my nitrifying bacteria cause Nitrates were higher than my normal.
Lesson learned! Things were happy and healthy and I tried to play the numbers game and truly screwed it up.

I was able to move all Corals and rocks to my quarantine tank. Cleaning out the nano tank and will do a restart when I can.

Plan to add new live sand and will restart a nirogen cycle. At what point would it be safe to add back my love rock and Corals from QT?

If it was me, I would do a 100% water change, leave the love rock in the tank and monitor it. Depending on the dirtiness of the sand, again if it was me, I would just blast rinse it and put it back in. The bacteria on the rocks will live through this and you may have a mini cycle, but do not need to do a full restart.

I went through this with carbon dosing. Mis-typed how long my dosing pump ran and pumped a cup of vinegar into a 45 gallon tank. Bac bloom followed, lost a few fish, but did the above and everything else was fine.

Remember that the rock is needed for any cycling, as that is where 90% of the bac live.

 

[brandon429]

The additives didn't cause the loss, search out and post confirmed tank loss due to bacterial doser threads.


any single larger animal can die in a nano for any number of reasons, ammonia rot begins in a few hours + combined with nightly cycle (low o2 higher co2 vs daylight photosynthesis hours) and the loss cascade occurs.

The bacteria on the rocks will be boosted by the event, not lost, so rinse out the whole system like Eagle mentioned and put it back together it's instantly ready to retry. We have a tank rework thread in action below this one, a 13 gallon nano would be easy to rinse out and restart. Rinse your sandbed out to perfect clarity and rinse your rocks off only in saltwater, reassemble

 

[WWIII]

Wow, sorry to hear about your tank. Was temperature ok? I guess sometimes it can be a chain reaction if something of substantial size compared to water volume dies. Usually it seems to be either a temperature thing or something got into the tank. Again, sorry for your loss.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

The additives didn't cause the loss, any single larger animal can die in a nano for any number of reasons, ammonia rot begins in a few hours + combined with nightly cycle (low o2 higher co2 vs daylight photosynthesis hours) and the loss cascade occurs.

The bacteria on the rocks will be boosted by the event, not lost, so rinse out the whole system like Eagle mentioned and put it back together it's instantly ready to retry. We have a tank rework thread in action below this one, a 13 gallon nano would be easy to rinse out and restart. Rinse your sandbed out to perfect clarity and rinse your rocks off only in saltwater, reassemble

In regards to what Brandon said, it works. That’s was the method used on my 45 and it was fine after the fact.

 

[EmdeReef]

This morning I woke up to a crash of my Fluval 13.5. Water very cloudy and my four fish dead. Various hermit crabs, a tuxedo Urchin also dead. Most if not all of the Corals look good. Many mushrooms, ricordea, GSP, and other softies all fine.
Water tests were done just a few days ago. Only thing that was a bit high were the Nitrates at 35-40. Usually I'm at 12-20.
After removing the dead fish I checked ammonia (zero) and Nitrates (40) and salinity (34).
Now comes the big question. This looks like it was a bacterial bloom that de-oxegenated the tank. BTW, no skimmer, just a HOB refugium. Only thing new in tank was I added a Dr. Tim's Waste Away gel pack. Could this, even though beneficial bacteria, have caused a bloom that led to my crash??

Sorry for your losses. 100% water change makes sense to save the corals.

It’s very likely waste away caused this. The bacteria is claimed to target detritus. If added too fast to an older tank without proper flow it can certainly deplete oxygen, this is furthe amplified in a small tank.

Nitrate spike resulted from an increase in ammonia following fish deaths, means the cycle is working.

 

[Plauri55]

Sorry for your losses. 100% water change makes sense to save the corals.

It’s very likely waste away caused this. The bacteria is claimed to target detritus. If added too fast to an older tank without proper flow it can certainly deplete oxygen, this is furthe amplified in a small tank.

Nitrate spike resulted from an increase in ammonia following fish deaths, means the cycle is working.

Thank you all for your advice. I'm going to do a restart as soon as I can make new Saltwater. I'm gonna go with new live sand because my tank had been up for over 2 years and it was pretty nasty. Then I'll get rocks and Corals back in and let it run a mini cycle (hopefully) and wait till I'm sure before adding any fish.

Thanks again!

 

[MnFish1]

If it was me, I would do a 100% water change, leave the love rock in the tank and monitor it. Depending on the dirtiness of the sand, again if it was me, I would just blast rinse it and put it back in. The bacteria on the rocks will live through this and you may have a mini cycle, but do not need to do a full restart.

I went through this with carbon dosing. Mis-typed how long my dosing pump ran and pumped a cup of vinegar into a 45 gallon tank. Bac bloom followed, lost a few fish, but did the above and everything else was fine.

Remember that the rock is needed for any cycling, as that is where 90% of the bac live.

Curious - why a 100% water change. Firstly - its going to kill some more stuff on the rock (potentially - depending on how quickly you can do it, second its probably just as stressful for fish /coral/inverts as leaving it the way it is. (unless the parameters are the same in both the tank and the new water - but if thats the case, why do the water change). Note - I'm not criticising doing it - I just wondered what you rationale was. I see lots of people recommending it - and have never quite gotten the reason its so popular (unless there is a gross toxin present (i.e. my daughter dropped a bottle of windex in the tank) . Thanks. EDIT - I didn't notice it was 13.5 gallons - I read it as 135 gallons.... which also makes a difference as to the ability to do a 100% change.

 

[EmdeReef]

Curious - why a 100% water change. Firstly - its going to kill some more stuff on the rock (potentially - depending on how quickly you can do it, second its probably just as stressful for fish /coral/inverts as leaving it the way it is. (unless the parameters are the same in both the tank and the new water - but if thats the case, why do the water change). Note - I'm not criticising doing it - I just wondered what you rationale was. I see lots of people recommending it - and have never quite gotten the reason its so popular (unless there is a gross toxin present (i.e. my daughter dropped a bottle of windex in the tank) . Thanks. EDIT - I didn't notice it was 13.5 gallons - I read it as 135 gallons.... which also makes a difference as to the ability to do a 100% change.

In this case a 100% water change will help remove some bacteria from the water column and increase O2, some other benefits would include helping with the NO3 spike etc.

 

[brandon429]

MN

The reason I have tanks do harsh changes is due to flushing out pore clogging invader food from the rocks

Fish are supposed to be held separate along with other sensitives, but corals don't mind water changes our work threads show. It's regenerative, not stressful to deep clean as often as you want. Since most reefers have been being too lax vs too busy, this reversal really makes the tank like new waste-wise but biologically it's prior filtration system never stopped. Re opening pores during the rebuild enhances rock action in many ways, all are benefits compared to keeping detritus and letting only tank currents do the flushing.

Detritus stores in a high fish load nano with a sandbed are significant, the detritus is a massive oxygen sink at night (bad timing with a loss) as the generalized aerobic bacteria are acting on loads of available feed. The blast cleaning is the aquarium equivalent of an aquaculture production facility doing back flushing to maintain their filtration, our tanks are the filter getting back flushed

Additionally, the full water change + detritus cleaning is the only way to run tank turnaround threads consistently. Theory always says there's a better way, but work threads of deep cleans are logging examples left and right, consistent, so his tank undergoing the cleaning has a high chance of similar success in the coming months. He can also intercept and hand-guide out any rock invaders that may have built up vs using water tuning + weeks to hope they go away.

Starting clean but biofilter preserved is the right move here, even without pics

 

[Billldg]

Does it look cl

This morning I woke up to a crash of my Fluval 13.5. Water very cloudy and my four fish dead. Various hermit crabs, a tuxedo Urchin also dead. Most if not all of the Corals look good. Many mushrooms, ricordea, GSP, and other softies all fine.
Water tests were done just a few days ago. Only thing that was a bit high were the Nitrates at 35-40. Usually I'm at 12-20.
After removing the dead fish I checked ammonia (zero) and Nitrates (40) and salinity (34).
Now comes the big question. This looks like it was a bacterial bloom that de-oxegenated the tank. BTW, no skimmer, just a HOB refugium. Only thing new in tank was I added a Dr. Tim's Waste Away gel pack. Could this, even though beneficial bacteria, have caused a bloom that led to my crash??

Sorry for your loss. Having just gone thru a crash myself I feel your pain. It put me in a dark place for a little while, DON'T let it do the same to you. STAY STRONG!!!

 

[Plauri55]

Does it look cl

Sorry for your loss. Having just gone thru a crash myself I feel your pain. It put me in a dark place for a little while, DON'T let it do the same to you. STAY STRONG!!!

Thanks again. I assure you that I won't let this stop me from continuing. My 75 gallon display and 2.5 gallon Pico are doing well.
I will rebuild this nano tank. Making sure to have tank up and running with my live rock and Corals. Then slowly add back my fish.
Thanks again to all.

PS. What's CL

 

[Billldg]

Thanks again. I assure you that I won't let this stop me from continuing. My 75 gallon display and 2.5 gallon Pico are doing well.
I will rebuild this nano tank. Making sure to have tank up and running with my live rock and Corals. Then slowly add back my fish.
Thanks again to all.

PS. What's CL

LOL, Don't know where that came from.

 

[Dom]

It could have. What was the reason for the bac being added? And did you test nitrites? If so were they 0?

Is there such a thing as over-dosing your tank on beneficial bacteria?

 

[Plauri55]

Is there such a thing as over-dosing your tank on beneficial bacteria?

I believe that is what happened. It was the only change made to my tank in weeks. Friday evening I put in Dr. Tim's Waste Away gel pack. Yesterday all seemed fine. This morning all four fish dead. I believe I de-oxegenated the water. No other explanation holds water. Pun intended.

 

[brandon429]

You'll see clouding events typically, no real post history to link dosage to tank loss. Excess bacteria don't just stick higher and higher on surfaces, they hold what they can hold given water shear and other factors, filters catch some of the extra dosed and they associate with biosolicks and floc there for export later. Overdosing bac isn't a known pattern online at all.


We get to see years and years of bottle bac use, guesstimation, over and under use in cycling threads. dosers that are sludge digesting strains we haven’t seen tank losses with

 

[Dom]

I believe that is what happened. It was the only change made to my tank in weeks. Friday evening I put in Dr. Tim's Waste Away gel pack. Yesterday all seemed fine. This morning all four fish dead. I believe I de-oxegenated the water. No other explanation holds water. Pun intended.

LOL... good one!

Why did you add the Dr. Tim's product?

 

[Plauri55]

You'll see clouding events typically, no real post history to link dosage to tank loss. Excess bacteria don't just stick higher and higher on surfaces, they hold what they can hold given water shear and other factors, filters catch some of the extra dosed and they associate with biosolicks and floc there for export later. Overdosing bac isn't a known pattern online at all.

If the solution in the bottle was all that active and vital, the bottle would rot before you open it. You're not dumping in some powerful oxygen command with any strain, the detritus in the system is a far worse risk if any. Dosing bac didn't kill anything here. We get to see years and years of its use, guesstimation, over and under use in cycling threads.

So then what do you believe happened? A massive release of detritus? The tank was stable for over a year, no body moved anything, nothing stirred up sand bed.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not doubting any possibility. I'm heart broken over this and wish there was an explanation that didn't put the blame on me, which my theory does.