Tank Crash. Need help restarting

[chris17gable]

So it has been awhile since I’ve given an update on my Biocube tank. But sadly last week Wednesday I lost everything in my tank. All my fish and corals have died. I still have snails and hermits, and my Rock flower anemone are still alive. I did a water check and all my levels have been normal. So I’m looking at restarting my tank. But I wanna make sure I do it right. What’s steps do I need to take to do a complete redo?

 

[Reefer5640]

Hard to say without understanding why it crashed. Do you know what happened. The advice could very depending on the reason. If it was a runaway heater you could test your water for everything and make sure your bacteria is still active. If it was something crazy that just came through and wiped out the tank you may want to start fresh.

 

[Cell]

First you must identify what went wrong.

 

[chris17gable]

Hard to say without understanding why it crashed. Do you know what happened. The advice could very depending on the reason. If it was a runaway heater you could test your water for everything and make sure your bacteria is still active. If it was something crazy that just came through and wiped out the tank you may want to start fresh.

Yeah have been trying to find out what happened but am having trouble figuring that out. As far as I know it was not equipment failure. Idk if it was a candle biting in my apartment or if I didn’t wash all the soap off my hands. I’m completely clues as to what happened. One thing I have noticed was that since the fish and corals died I haven’t noticed any algae growth at all.

 

[Reefer5640]

Without being able to know for certain what caused the crash I’d have to suggest to start fresh. It would suck if you bought a bunch of livestock and found they all died again. Can you talk us thru what happened with the crash? Maybe someone will be able to pinpoint something for you. What were the fish like the day before the crash, were they active, overly active, lethargic, did they have an appetite? How long was the tank setup before you started adding live stock? How long did you wait between adding each fish? Did you dose anything to the tank? Is it possible you lost flow? Or could have lost something like a sea cucumber that could have poisoned the tank? Sorry, These are a bunch of question that rush thru my mind without knowing much about your system.

 

[Reefer5640]

Sorry you may not want to re-live the crash. If all you wanted to know was to either start fresh or let it be for a bit then I’d say to be on the safe side start fresh, but taking into consideration that you have a nem and inverts still alive that may not be necessary

 

[chris17gable]

Without being able to know for certain what caused the crash I’d have to suggest to start fresh. It would suck if you bought a bunch of livestock and found they all died again. Can you talk us thru what happened with the crash? Maybe someone will be able to pinpoint something for you. What were the fish like the day before the crash, were they active, overly active, lethargic, did they have an appetite? How long was the tank setup before you started adding live stock? How long did you wait between adding each fish? Did you dose anything to the tank? Is it possible you lost flow? Or could have lost something like a sea cucumber that could have poisoned the tank? Sorry, These are a bunch of question that rush thru my mind without knowing much about your system.

The day before I lost my fish they seemed to be lethargic. Weren’t eating much. They seemed to be breathing heavily. I did add another power head to give a little more flow. The tank was up and running for about 3 months before I add my first two clownfish. I did add them together and didn’t have any issues. I waited about another month before I added a six line wrasse. Which he only lasted about a week before he died. I then added a lawnmower blenny about two weeks after that. I did add a few snails and two hermits when I got the lawnmower blenny. The only thing I was dosing in my tank was coral iodine. I was comfortable yet to add anything to the tank cuz I didn’t do enough research for what my tank needed. I made sure not to add fish and invertebrates to my tank that could cause an issue because I’m a beginner. I do have a Biocube 32. With two power heads, a reactor, skimmer and a heater with a controller. A few days before I lost my fish the temperature in Wisconsin got pretty cold and my tank temperature got to around 74-75 degrees so don’t know if that had something to do that.

 

[Labora]

No 74-75 degrees short term isnt going to kill anything. I don't know about SPS coral though because I'm not in that game.

 

[Reefer5640]

I doubt the drop in temp had anything to do with it. Tanks can get pretty cold before killing everything. How much iodine were you dosing and how often and which brand? Over dosing iodine could have crashed your tank.

 

[chris17gable]

I doubt the drop in temp had anything to do with it. Tanks can get pretty cold before killing everything. How much iodine were you dosing and how often and which brand? Over dosing iodine could have crashed your tank.

I apologize. It was actually
CoralAmino - Free Form Amino Acid Supplement - Brightwell Aquatics. I followed the instructions on dosing and did the minimum as possible.

 

[chris17gable]

I apologize. It was actually
CoralAmino - Free Form Amino Acid Supplement - Brightwell Aquatics. I followed the instructions on dosing and did the minimum as possible.

I’ve also used vibrant to help clear algae and microBacter clean.

 

[Reefer5640]

Yeah I doubt those had any play in the problem. An overdose in aminos can lower oxygen levels or cause a bacteria bloom or cyano depending on the brand. But I doubt that was the case. The more I think about it, the fact that you’ve got a nem and other inverts still alive in the tank means things are doing okay. How does the remaining life look in the tank? If they look okay you might be okay to just do a large water change and run some carbon to be safe. Wait a good while before adding anything. It’s always scary starting back up when you don’t know what caused the issue initially

 

[csb123]

Is there a chance you had a power outage, carbon monoxide, or something like that? It’s odd to have such a catastrophic loss, without loss of life support.

 

[chris17gable]

Yeah I doubt those had any play in the problem. An overdose in aminos can lower oxygen levels or cause a bacteria bloom or cyano depending on the brand. But I doubt that was the case. The more I think about it, the fact that you’ve got a nem and other inverts still alive in the tank means things are doing okay. How does the remaining life look in the tank? If they look okay you might be okay to just do a large water change and run some carbon to be safe. Wait a good while before adding anything. It’s always scary starting back up when you don’t know what caused the issue initially

I had a pulsing Xenia, and lemon laser clove which have died. My sunset stylo seems to be hanging on by a thread. And my seafoam cyphastrea seem to be fine.

 

[Cell]

What kills fish and coral rapidly but leaves inverts unharmed? Can't be too many options.

edit - ok, so I guess it didn't kill all the coral.

 

[chris17gable]

Is there a chance you had a power outage, carbon monoxide, or something like that? It’s odd to have such a catastrophic loss, without loss of life support.

We haven’t had any power outages. I mean it could be possible to have had carbon monoxide problem but I’m not sure how it could have happened.

 

[Tuffyyyyy]

We’re you using a skimmer? My money is on you dosing something that depleted the oxygen in the tank, killing the fish. The decaying fish caused an ammonia spike and then killed the corals.

 

[chris17gable]

We’re you using a skimmer? My money is on you dosing something that depleted the oxygen in the tank, killing the fish. The decaying fish caused an ammonia spike and then killed the corals.

I have been using a skimmer. The fish weren’t in the tank for a full day before I took them out of the tank.

 

[Reefer5640]

We’re you using a skimmer? My money is on you dosing something that depleted the oxygen in the tank, killing the fish. The decaying fish caused an ammonia spike and then killed the corals.

That was were my mind was heading too. Did you by chance test the water at the time of the crash? What was your pH, ammonia, nitrates (higher nitrates could mean your tank already processed the ammonia but maybe not super fast since it was a newer tank). Do you happen to have any pics of the fish after they died? After you mentioned the fish not doing too good it could also be that something like ich, velvet, bacterial (or some ailment) plus all the food that wasn’t eaten wiped out your tank and you just didn’t recognize the symptoms. Then the ammonia spike put a hurten on your corals. My last tank crash (yes I’ve had a few over the years) was because of a tank relocation and a nitrate spike. Killed all the fish and 90% of the coral. Only things to live were the nems, snails, and a couple corals