All Fish Died - Why

[magicnumber6]

I cried today. when I came home at 4pm found ALL my fish dead! The only survivors, I think is a snowflake morray eel, which doesnt look to healthy but is still alive and the bubble anemome is blown out, but might stil be ok. Too the eel out and put him into another tank, cant re house the anenome.

Tested the water and the only thing I found abnormal was ammonia was 0.5 instead of the usuakl zero. But this might be due to the dead in habitants? The only thing I have done was last night at 9pm I took out the V2 skimmer and gave it a clean in fresh water (to get rid of salt creep) put it back and noticed it wasnt working very well, at 4pm today all dead, and the skimmer still not working properly. I dont know why? Surely just the skimmer not working for say 18 hrs wouldnt do this?

Taken all the dead fish out now, just concerned about the living rock and polyps on them. What should I do regards the rock?

 

[mvough]

My deepest sympathy to you and your tank. I cant give much feedback since I'm a newbie in marine life. A little skimmer thing shouldn't have had that great an impact on your tank especially when it's less than a day. How's your temp and all? If everything's norm like you said...then this is quite a mystery.

 

[1entra]

You sure nothin could have heppend to your tank whilst you were away like somebody spilling something in it or pollutents being used in the room? it seems very strange and I'm sure it must be very upsetting so I also send you my sypmpathies!

 

[jeasko]

Deepest sympathies is the only place to start

Have to say very unusual to have everything die that quick, whats your water paramters? when you siad there was a problem with the skimmer can you be more specific? have to agree with the previous post is there any chance that something has poluted the water or is there a possibilty something has jammed the skimmer giving off a toxin?

also what was in the tank ie live stock, coral and live rock and what size is the tank?

 

[dilbert]

I would also assume that something poisonous got into the tank as 0.5 ppm ammonia wouldn't even harm a fragile shrimp.

Only as mooray eels are said to take up to 50 ppm nitrite they are presumably also able to take more poison.

I hope you can find out what happened.

 

[n3ont3tra]

I would also assume that something poisonous got into the tank as 0.5 ppm ammonia wouldn't even harm a fragile shrimp.

Only as mooray eels are said to take up to 50 ppm nitrite they are presumably also able to take more poison.

I hope you can find out what happened.

0.5ppm ammonia is more than capable of killing a shrimp. The ammonia probably came up because of the dead fish...
most fish can take up to 50ppm of nitrAtes easily... not NitrItes.

do the fish have any marks on them or anything like that?

 

[chrissaysyes]

You sure that nem is alive and not dead? A dead nem could nuke a tank pretty easily.

 

[n3ont3tra]

oh and how big is the tank w/ the sump?

 

[Demm]

this may be a long shot, but could it be that without the skimmer working, there might have been low oxygen levels in the tank, and that might have caused a few fragile things to die, and the spiking levels from the already dead fish could have cause the rest to follow suit?

 

[jeasko]

Another possibility all be it slim, is there any possibility that your PH or KH has crashed as this could have the same effect of wiping out a tank?

 

[dilbert]

most fish can take up to 50ppm of nitrAtes easily... not NitrItes.

I posted this just because it is a quite remarkable figure: 50 ppm nitrite NO2.

I read this somewhere where also other fish have been mentioned that can take more nitrite than any water test does show as maximum figure, but the mooray eels were mentioned as the hardiest.

 

[magicnumber6]

Hi everyone!
Thanks for the posts, I have been busy sorting this out. I tested the env again, and I found the ph had droped to 7.7 last measured a week ago at 8.0, cant explain why the drop? Did a small water change 2 days ago, but followed my normal procedure (I use RO water and always heat it up before putting into tank) so cant explain the ph drop.
the tank is 200l and inhanitants:

snowflake moray eel
yellow tang
powder blue tang
porcupine puffer
shrimp goby
longnose hawkfish
maroon clown
large buble tip aneonome
mushroom leather coral
This tank has been running for 9 months with no problems and all the fish have been living together about 2 months ok.
Mywife said she noticed yesterday that the porcuine puffer had a seemingly large bulge underside (she described it as a pot belly)?

As per above if the skimmer had beocome "blocked" etc could that have put extreme toxin back in the tank? If so surely I would have detected that when I too the measurements? The only two things found are the 7.7ph and the 0.5 ammonia?

I am feely very sad!! Some good news is that I have a larger tank still running, but you know when something like this happens you start to worry!!...

 

[jeasko]

Know exactly where your coming from and so does anybody else that has a bad experience, unfortunately we learn by our mistakes if we know what they are, all you can do is continue and hope you find what the problem was

Just as a point of interest do you monitor your KH? as if your Kh is low it has a direct effect on your PH and no matter how much buffer you use it will not riase the PH which could explain your drop in PH.

 

[Lynden]

Many eels can breathe air, and some can travel over land, including a few morays if I remember correctly; fish that can breathe air are largely immune to the effects of nitrite/ammonia poisoning since these need to be breathed in to have an effect.

An ammonia reading of .5 is capable of doing damgae but I'm almost certain it wouldn't be enough to cause so many acute deaths.

The way I see it, it was low oxygen killing the animals. If your skimmer wasn't working correctly and you don't have much surface movement (I assume) your tank will empty of O2 very quickly, and CO2 levels will rise as the organisms in the tank respirate. This would also explain the low pH, as CO2 levels are inversely related to pH levels.

Either way, get the skimmer working, the nem will need it with all this waste.

Lastly, good luck, and you have my empathy.

 

[jeasko]

Lynden
very good point low surface agitation can cause all sorts of probs even more so without the skimmer working.
Why is it when somebody comes up with an answer you always kick yourself coz somewhere in the back of the cavity I call a brain the information makes sense and the possible answer is obvious once someone writes it down!!!!!