What a horrible day!!!

[Angelajean]

Hello to all,
We have been planning our new tank. Thanks for all the help.

This morning I woke up and went to turn on the tank lights as always. Then the nightmare began. My sweet little red lipped blenny, Skippy was dead. Immediately, I felt sick like I was going to puke. Then I began could not find my clowns. Finally found them both dead. We just checked our water 2 days ago. All levels were 0. Last water change was last Friday 5 gallons.

The only thing I changed was moving some rocks around yesterday. I guess that could have disturbed the sand bed, which we have been cleaning it in sections, when we change water. Filter was changed last week. We also fed new food called formula one, a herbivore/omnivore diet.

All of my inverts were fine. We tried doing a 50% water change but ammonia was still .50 I was mortified. My son was crying it was horrible. We ended up taking all the coral, live rock, inverts out of tank. My husband went and bought a 10 gallon tank and RO/DI water. Taking sand out and washing it with the hose. My husband was such a trooper. He washed and washed the sand til water was clear. Should I keep the sand? When we set up the new tank (40 gallon breeder) and go thru a traditional cycle, the Biocube 14 will be a hospital tank.

I am so emotionally and physically drained.

Any ideas of what could have happened? Do I need to feed my serpent star, porcelain and zoos, mushrooms, xenia, toadstool? I thought I knew a little just to wake up and found out I know nothing.

What a humbling day.
Angie

 

[cvcdrk]

I don't know how you got from "2 days ago all levels were 0" to "ammonia was still .50". It also makes no sense that a massive water change wouldn't reduce ammonia as that is not physically impossible...especially when there is no additional source of ammonia because the fish are all dead.

Were the fish acting differently? Assuming all levels are good it is possible that it was a parasite/infection for the fish. Depends on how they were introduced into the tank and how long ago, I suppose.

Not really sure, otherwise. :-(

 

[kevdogg]

Sorry to hear about your bad luck.

I think that its possible that disturbing the sand bed may have caused a slight cycle to happen. Something that may have caused the ammonia to spike so high may have been the dead fish starting to decay.

The sand will be ok to reuse as long at you are sure that its clean now. After a few weeks with the live rock it will be live again.

From what I know about the corals all they really need is the proper lighting. You should be ok. The starfish may need a little food due to not having anything established in the new tank.

Again its part of the learning process and we ALL go through things like this.

Good luck on the reboot!

 

[Angelajean]

We have had the clown fish for 2 months. They were fine when I went to bed. Swimming following me when I turned out the lights in the living room.

The blenny was floated on Monday when we got him. Then we added some tank water and finally put him in.
Angie

 

[Angelajean]

Kevdogg,
If I would have had my rock, new sand and powerheads already here I may have just thrown caution to the wind and changed it all over. I ended up doing a 100% water change anyway.
So frustrating.
Thanks for the empathy

 

[cvcdrk]

Sand is cheap. I wouldn't risk reusing it. You can go bottomless for now until you set up the new tank if you really need to. The sand wouldn't do any better than new sand and there's always a chance.

It's very possible the blenny could have been sick and you not realized it. I don't know much about fish diseases so I'm not going to speculate, but since he was the newest addition and it was only a few days it is possible. The order of death is right, too. :-(
What state of decay were all the fish in when you found them? Did you remove them immediately? That's an awfully big ammonia spike for them not being dead more than 10 hours.
Stirring up the sandbed is still a possibility, but inverts and corals are far more sensitive to non-pristine water conditions and you said they were all ok.

If it was a disease I think protocol is to nuke the rock too, but maybe someone else has some other insight.

 

[MikeG]

Angelajean,

Sorry to hear this, and I know how you feel. I have gone thru many issues lately myself with my 180. Kevdogg is right, it is part of the learning process and we all unfortunately go thru it at some time. Please keep your chin up, it will get better.

 

[Angelajean]

If it was a fish only disease, why would I nuke my live rock? I have coral that are grown on to it.

 

[Angelajean]

Mike,
I would have maybe thrown in the towel, but my son wants to be a marine biologist and my husband I both decided that we should trudge through it and help him through it. Sometimes in life, you can't just quit. You succeed in life when you press on. We will be successful and when he is some big marine bio guy, he will thank his mom. LOL

 

[FishyReef]

I am really sorry to hear this as well :( I have no idea what happened, but my best guess is a mini cycle or perhaps something went wrong during the night like a temperature spike or power outtage that led to no oxygenation in the water. I also suspect the high ammonia was due to the dead fish and may not have caused the deaths, though certainly stirring the sand could have led to a mini cycle. Just for a little more info, what did you have for a clean up crew (number and types of snails, etc), and how much live rock did you have? Any chance your son or someone else could have contaminated the tank with something (for example, cleaning the glass with glass cleaner can cause ammonia to spike). Formula 1 is a great food, but how much were you feeding, and double check the expiration date on the package. Those are the only thoughts I have off the top of my head. I am soo sorry this happened *hugs*

 

[kevdogg]

If it were a fish disease it can hide out in the rock.

Something to consider on your new tank it to quarantine everything before it goes into the tank. Since you are now going to have a spare tank I would consider it.

 

[cvcdrk]

Yeah you have two options for the rock really if it turns out to be disease/parasite:
Let it stay live and with coral and let it sit in a running tank by itself for at least 6-8 weeks to be sure the life cycle of any disease or parasite is gone.....or you can nuke the rock and you'll be up and running (with a much weaker biological filter) in about 2-3 weeks once it's cycled.

 

[Angelajean]

I know that no glass cleaner or anything like that was used.
We fed a cube of the formula one.
We have 20 pounds of live rock in the Biocube.
CUC: 3 nassarius snails, small; 6 red foot hermit, 3 blue foot hermits, 10 tiny ceriths, 3 margaritas, 2 turbos. We also have a serpent star, porcelain crab and 2 peppermint shrimp. Every time we get a third peppermint one dies so we have stuck with 2.
Formula One food expires 4/2014 so that's fine. I do not want to repeat this down the line so I want to try and figure it out as best I can.

Also can you suggest a pump for the new 40 gallon breeder? I can't afford a refugium right now. I have 2 hydor koralia 1050's coming as far as powerheads.

Thanks,
Angie

 

[Smitty]

Sorry to hear that. That's hard too say what killed them, especially since your inverts and corals are fine. And it should be fine to re-use the sand.

 

[FishyReef]

Everything looks just fine from what you've posted. Perhaps the blenny brought in some sort of disease that wiped out the fish? Again, I'm really sorry this happened to you, but don't let it stop you from continuing in the hobby! Here's a link to a good article on how to do preventative quarantining if you want to do this with you future fish - its not a fun process but will assure that your fish are disease free when the come into your tank!

How to Quarantine Marine Fish — Advanced Aquarist | Aquarist Magazine and Blog

You can also quarantine inverts and corals in a separate tank in case they are carrying any sort of pest: Melevsreef.com - Avoid Those Pests! Just make sure to you a different quarantine tank from the fish QT since there will be meds going in the fish QT

 

[little_fish]

Feeding a whole cube of the food would have caused an ammonia spike like you saw. The fish only need about 1/4 of a cube every other day. The corals you do have are extremely hard and are well known for surving a tank cycle, so i dont think they would be as bother by the high ammonia.

I am so sorry for your troubles.

 

[Angelajean]

I think you are right about the food. Do you feed everything every other day? Do you alternate foods?
Is there a hearty fish that I would want to keep that I should try in the future? It will be a couple of months before we get something like a clown, etc.

This morning our test showed
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
pH 8.2

So evidently a 100% water change was successful. When I get my 40 breeder set up on Monday, can I expect a cycle combining dry rock with live rock?

I also ordered new live sand all from MarcoRocks Aquarium Products.

I am a little confused on this part. I really want to get out of the small tank. Filter, filter what to get in the economy line. I have a prizm deluxe protein skimmer that skims the top of the water as well. I know it is not the best, but I am running out of money for the upgrade so I am looking for a better used skimmer craigslist, but in the mean time. (I homeschool my 13 yr old and it is curriculum buying time.) Also could I use a marineland or some type of filter like that and change the filter medium etc to make a HOB refugium. Perhaps this does not work like I think. Back to research.
Thanks for all your help,
I am extremely appreciative it.
Angie

 

[Bifferwine]

Sorry to hear about your fish. :( It is always tough to lose a pet, especially when there are kids involved! They get really attached to them.

I agree with Hannah, though. If I had to make a guess, I'd say the overfeeding caused an ammonia spike. That probably killed the blenny, which is the most sensitive of the fish you had. The blenny dying could have spiked the ammonia/nitrites even higher, which could have killed the clowns. I don't think it was due to fish disease, because a disease would not have killed all the fish at the same time. If it was a disease, the disease would have killed one fish, then the remaining fish would have been killed by the resulting ammonia/nitrite spike; not the disease itself.