5 year tank crashed over night

[AMG63Addison]

Hey everyone, I lost all my fish last night. I fed them at about 6 oclock in the evening tank was fine. walked by tank in morning and tank was visibly extremely cloudy. fish in tank are foxface, white tail tang, melanarus wrasse, coral beauty, all were dead. Tank is about 5 years old. No changes or new fish for atleast 2 years or so. Does any one have any idea what could of happened

 

[Gumbies R Us]

#reefsquad

 

[AMG63Addison]

Hey everyone, I lost all my fish last night. I fed them at about 6 oclock in the evening tank was fine. walked by tank in morning and tank was visibly extremely cloudy. fish in tank are foxface, white tail tang, melanarus wrasse, coral beauty, all were dead. Tank is about 5 years old. No changes or new fish for atleast 2 years or so. Does any one have any idea what could of happened

90 gallon tank

 

[AMG63Addison]

Also, do not think its connected to this but my blue Green chromis seemed to have something wrong with swim bladder over the past week and then went missing so assuming he died and I just didnt think much of it at the time, he went missing about 2 or 3 days ago. I did not think his dead body would spike ammonia enough to do this being its an established tank?

 

[W31Olds]

I would check your heater/ water Temp. It also could be a low O2 problem. Was your skimmer running? Or a dosing problem. Have you added any Chemicals?

 

[AMG63Addison]

I havent had skimmer running for about 6 months or so. No chemicals ever in tank.

 

[BryanM]

Cloudy sounds like a bacteria bloom, which consumed a large amount of oxygen, which in turn suffocated your fish.

A stuck on heater IMO is the likely cause.

 

[Tahoe61]

So sorry.

Check and double check all equipment.
Did you feed the same food and amount?
It happened at night, the water is cloudy, a bacterial bloom takes hours to develop, so I would be inclined to believe an anoxic event took place. A severe bacterial bloom can deplete available oxygen, fish suffocate, which promotes an already developing bacterial bloom.
Are you dosing any carbons?

 

[i cant think]

Hey everyone, I lost all my fish last night. I fed them at about 6 oclock in the evening tank was fine. walked by tank in morning and tank was visibly extremely cloudy. fish in tank are foxface, white tail tang, melanarus wrasse, coral beauty, all were dead. Tank is about 5 years old. No changes or new fish for atleast 2 years or so. Does any one have any idea what could of happened

What has the atmospheric temperature been like today/this week? If it’s like it has been over this side of the pond here’s what I’ve been finding that tanks around the UK have been crashing;

The atmospheric temperature has increased (to around 38°C in some places, but on average 35°C), this has resulted in bacteria loving life, causing various strains of bacteria in the water to bloom, and result in that white milky/cloudy water. This white milky/cloudy water can also be triggered by spawning events from inverts and coral, resulting from increased temperatures - a stress factor which causes spawning naturally, and is often used in spawning labs. This milky/cloudy water, whether from spawning (which can again, cause bacteria to feast and bloom) or directly bacterial, lowers oxygen levels further, high temperatures can also cause lower oxygen levels (due to the higher kinetic energy breaking already weak H2O bonds). And adding bacteria into the mix, these oxygen levels plummet further - but due to many corals and inverts living in potentially low Oxygen areas naturally, they are often adapted to be able to handle much lower oxygen than fish can. This results in crashes which are fish death with barely any coral or inverts death (aside from that which we see from the initial, sudden change in temperatures).

 

[AMG63Addison]

Cloudy sounds like a bacteria bloom, which consumed a large amount of oxygen, which in turn suffocated your fish.

A stuck on heater IMO is the likely cause.

I do have heater ran through my hydros control unit

Cloudy sounds like a bacteria bloom, which consumed a large amount of oxygen, which in turn suffocated your fish.

A stuck on heater IMO is the likely cause.

i

So sorry.

Check and double check all equipment.
Did you feed the same food and amount?
It happened at night, the water is cloudy, a bacterial bloom takes hours to develop, so I would be inclined to believe an anoxic event took place. A severe bacterial bloom can deplete available oxygen, fish suffocate, which promotes an already developing bacterial bloom.
Are you dosing any carbons?

ThankSame food and amount as normal

 

[i cant think]

I havent had skimmer running for about 6 months or so. No chemicals ever in tank.

Definitely get the skimmer running - it will help a massive amount with low dissolved oxygen levels (especially during the summer months).

 

[AMG63Addison]

What has the atmospheric temperature been like today/this week? If it’s like it has been over this side of the pond here’s what I’ve been finding that tanks around the UK have been crashing;

The atmospheric temperature has increased (to around 38°C in some places, but on average 35°C), this has resulted in bacteria loving life, causing various strains of bacteria in the water to bloom, and result in that white milky/cloudy water. This white milky/cloudy water can also be triggered by spawning events from inverts and coral, resulting from increased temperatures - a stress factor which causes spawning naturally, and is often used in spawning labs. This milky/cloudy water, whether from spawning (which can again, cause bacteria to feast and bloom) or directly bacterial, lowers oxygen levels further, high temperatures can also cause lower oxygen levels (due to the higher kinetic energy breaking already weak H2O bonds). And adding bacteria into the mix, these oxygen levels plummet further - but due to many corals and inverts living in potentially low Oxygen areas naturally, they are often adapted to be able to handle much lower oxygen than fish can. This results in crashes which are fish death with barely any coral or inverts death (aside from that which we see from the initial, sudden change in temperatures).

thank you, I did see hermits still alive in tank

 

[Rocks reef]

What type of filtration is on the tank? Any means on nutrient export?

 

[MegabiteOG]

Very sorry to hear that. Outside of what others have already said, did you check if something fell into the tank or sump? Cleaning solution, open container of food, etc.?

 

[AMG63Addison]

Very sorry to hear that. Outside of what others have already said, did you check if something fell into the tank or sump? Cleaning solution, open container of food, etc.?

This i have not, and I do have a 3 year old. Will check when I get back home

 

[AMG63Addison]

What type of filtration is on the tank? Any means on nutrient export?

Just a reefmat filter roller

 

[Freenow54]

Hey everyone, I lost all my fish last night. I fed them at about 6 oclock in the evening tank was fine. walked by tank in morning and tank was visibly extremely cloudy. fish in tank are foxface, white tail tang, melanarus wrasse, coral beauty, all were dead. Tank is about 5 years old. No changes or new fish for atleast 2 years or so. Does any one have any idea what could of happened

Here is a clue . After 30 plus years I got Aiptasia. the guys that breed the Berghia are PhD and masters trained in this field. He said its common for 4 year old tanks to crash due to leaching from the substrate. I don't know whart yet but am getting them to help me with my 30 year old first. Then my 6 year old so I will make sure I get it all straight then make a post. I know that this does not help you now but By what they said it may be the substrate

 

[LeftyReefer]

Since you said no new fish for 2 years, so you can probably rule out disease.
The fact that it killed ALL of your fish in the same short time, I would guess it was a tank starved of oxygen, which may or may have not been caused by equipment failure...
I'd check for stray voltage or any equipment that might have failed. heater stuck on, etc..
If that doesn't turn up anything, my next guess would be large bacterial bloom depleted all the O2 in the tank.
Since it was cloudy, a good guess would be that a bacterial bloom depleted oxygen enough to kill your fish.
What was the water temp overnight?

You mentioned no skimmer. that's not great. I always run my skimmer 24/7. You can always raise up the collection cup if you don't want to skim DOC's. The skimmer still adds a ton of needed oxygen to the tank and helps stabilize pH too. I'd get that back online. next time it may be enough to save your fish.

It really really sucks to have a tank crash. I know. I'm truly sorry about your fish.

While not all of my fish per say, I had a whole tank full of corals wiped out over a few day period when a large magnet went bad in my tank while I was away on a 2 week vacation. horrible timing. Fish were all fine, but I lost every one of my SPS corals and most of my LPS too. 4+ years worth of corals gone. Only a couple of LPS heads survived and a few softies. came home to a tank of freaked out fish and 95% dead corals, covered in various forms of algae/cyano/etc... I was pretty devastated. I basically gave up for almost a year. did minimal maintenance and now I'm still trying to get things back to how they were before the crash. So I know how it feels. hope you are able to figure out what the issue was and get things back up and running. In the mean time, don't give up on the tank maintenance.

good luck.

 

[Freenow54]

Since you said no new fish for 2 years, so you can probably rule out disease.
The fact that it killed ALL of your fish in the same short time, I would guess it was a tank starved of oxygen, which may or may have not been caused by equipment failure...
I'd check for stray voltage or any equipment that might have failed. heater stuck on, etc..
If that doesn't turn up anything, my next guess would be large bacterial bloom depleted all the O2 in the tank.
Since it was cloudy, a good guess would be that a bacterial bloom depleted oxygen enough to kill your fish.
What was the water temp overnight?

You mentioned no skimmer. that's not great. I always run my skimmer 24/7. You can always raise up the collection cup if you don't want to skim DOC's. The skimmer still adds a ton of needed oxygen to the tank and helps stabilize pH too. I'd get that back online. next time it may be enough to save your fish.

It really really sucks to have a tank crash. I know. I'm truly sorry about your fish.

While not all of my fish per say, I had a whole tank full of corals wiped out over a few day period when a large magnet went bad in my tank while I was away on a 2 week vacation. horrible timing. Fish were all fine, but I lost every one of my SPS corals and most of my LPS too. 4+ years worth of corals gone. Only a couple of LPS heads survived and a few softies. came home to a tank of freaked out fish and 95% dead corals, covered in various forms of algae/cyano/etc... I was pretty devastated. I basically gave up for almost a year. did minimal maintenance and now I'm still trying to get things back to how they were before the crash. So I know how it feels. hope you are able to figure out what the issue was and get things back up and running. In the mean time, don't give up on the tank maintenance.

good luck.

back to substrate problems

 

[AMG63Addison]

heading back home now, will check somethings out and report back