Tank Death

[darbyy7]

I have a 135 gallon tank with a few tangs, clownfih, a chromis, goby, sweet lips, and cardinal. 4 died one day last week and the rest have died since then except for the goby who seems to be doing fine. I also have many shrimp, urchins, snails, feather dusters, and a starfish who havent been affected at all.
The night before the first fish died I added water because the pump stared sucking air. I feed them brine shrimp, use rodi water and instant ocean salt. I took the water to get tested, nitrates and salt were a little high, but not enough to do any damage.
The sweet lips and tangs died first, followed by the clownfish, chromis, and cardinal.
Does anyone have an idea of what couldve killed all of the fish?

 

[btkrausen]

How old is your tank? Did you acclimate them going in? How long did they last before they died?

 

[darbyy7]

Ive had them all for a couple months. The newest fish was the goby who went in about 2 weeks before the died, and the sweet lips who was in for 3 weeks.

 

[btkrausen]

Did you notice anything strange about the fish, such as a possible disease, from the newly added fish?

 

[darbyy7]

The Kole tang and the pj cardial's color faded before they died. When the blue hippo tang died he as pretty discolored too. All of the fish except for the sweet lips had been quarentined first and werent showing any signs of diseases.

 

[dallas reefer]

Same thing happened to me. All was left, was the goby. My problem was ich.

The root problem (I believe) was a medusa worm.

Also from what I've been told about them.

 

[OMG Corals]

You said that after adding water this began to go downhill. What do you store your water in?

The fact that the fish looked discolored before they passed indicates something wrong in the water. Like a toxic or a sudden, drastic change in chemistry.

 

[darbyy7]

I keep water in 5 gallon zephyrhills water jugs. I had just bought fresh water that do so it hadnt been sitting for too long.
LFS store said it could have been from someone stinking their hand in water that had lotion or spray on?
Would feeding them only brine shrimp (and algae for the tangs) be a problem?

 

[btkrausen]

Brine is low on nutrients, kinda like a candy bar for us. They taste good but provide little nutritional value. You should be feeding Mysis instead, preferably soaked in some type of additive like Selcon or VitaChem.

 

[aquabull]

Normally nitrites will be readable if there was an outside contaminant. The discoloration does sound typical of a chemical burn.

 

[Me z]

Discoloration is also a sign of high nitrates. From what your discribing I would put my money on high nitrates. If your fish store is telling you they wouldnt do damage I would use a different fish store. Also hyper salinity combined with high nitrates = nasty death for fishes. Buy a refractometer with a calibration solution around 50$ so you know what your salinity is. Also buy a decent nitrate test and read up on a few ways to reduce them. 25ppm will stress fish out, 50 really stresses them out. Combine the fact that you had several large territorial fish in your tank says you stressed them to death. Learn from what happened and then try not to do it again.