All but 3 fish died yesterday. I'm feeling defeated.

[Peter Jason]

EMERGENCY: fish died off (beginner here)
possible issue 1.
Did I kill my live rock? To kill GHA, I dipped it park hydrogen peroxide (maybe 10 percent) and 90 percent water. I took that and put it a bucket of tank water to swish it around. All but 3 fish died yesterday. So, is all the beneficial bacteria gone? and the rock is pointless? But that was like 3-4 weeks ago
possible issue 2
to lower phosphates and nitrates, I dosed Phosphate-E and NoPox according to the directions. About 3 hours later I noticed my fish start to die.
Possible issue 3
I just added a picasso trigger to the tank (very passive guy). didn't touch my corals or even my shrimp
Im in panic mode
Possible issue 4
I set up a macro algae reactor the day before the fish died.

 

[BeejReef]

Very sorry for your losses Peter.

Can you please post some basics about your tank. How big, sump?, reactors, dosing, age?

Also, what are/were your parameters (ammonia, nitrate, phosphate, alkalinity, calcium, magnesium, salinity, temperature)

Which fish died, which survived? When were they added? What behaviors did you notice before the losses?

Some photos of your tank would help a lot too. You've put some really good ideas out there. How are the surviving fish faring?

 

[clm65]

Welcome to R2R....Wish the greeting was under better circumstances. I'm sure the experts here can help figure out what is going on.

 

[Peter Jason]

Very sorry for your losses Peter.

Can you please post some basics about your tank. How big, sump?, reactors, dosing, age?

Also, what are/were your parameters (ammonia, nitrate, phosphate, alkalinity, calcium, magnesium, salinity, temperature)

Which fish died, which survived? When were they added? What behaviors did you notice before the losses?

Some photos of your tank would help a lot too.

Surviving fish:

Picasso Trigger
Percula clown
Wrasse
Turbo snails
crabs

Fish that perished : (

2 azure damsels
percula clown
anthias
peppermint shrimp
4 chromis

I have a 75 gallon. It's about a year old. I have a canister filter. I run phosguard, filter floss and carbon. I have an aquamaxx HOB protein skimmer. I just installed a macro algae reactor. Unfortunately, I did not test the parameters before the incident. I did get a digital phosphate checker because I had a really bad GHA problem (see possible issue 1). The phosphates were at .11 and the nitrates were about 5ppm. I feel every 3 days. I use RO/DI water. My hydrogen peroxide friend gave me his TDS meter and my RODI came out at .01.

Before I added the chemicals the fish were amazing; they were themselves. There were no flags at all. I added Phosphate-E and NoPox after the lights went out at night (I run them for 6 hours, I have two kessil a160w).

 

[BeejReef]

Were you able to recover any of the dead fish, or are they gone?

 

[Peter Jason]

Were you able to recover any of the dead fish, or are they gone?

Yes, I moved the rock around and took them out of the tank

 

[Jon Fishman]

Sounds like you did a lot in a short period of time. I like a long “wait and see” period after every change in my tank.

 

[ReeferReefer]

Have you tested for ammonia? Easy way to tell if the rock is dead.

 

[Peter Jason]

Have you tested for ammonia? Easy way to tell if the rock is dead.

ammonia is .25ppm

 

[BeejReef]

So, they weren't eaten by the trigger fish. That would have been too easy. When you said you fed every couple of days, I wondered if maybe he wasn't in the waiting mood.

Had you dosed phosphate-e and NoPox before, or was this the first time?
How well does your skimmer work for you?
Have you tested for ammonia? I doubt you killed your rock, but if the tank was filled with GHA, the algae could have taken over as the primary processor of ammonia. Possible it could have built up after the GHA was pulled faster than your bacteria could rebound.

NoPox can cause O2 depletions (at least I've read that). Could be an issue with a hob skimmer if it's not working great.

The new fish could have a horrible disease.

Really hard to tell. Sounds like you take good care of your tank. Don't beat yourself up. I did a bunch of stuff over the long holiday weekend too. There's only so much time.

 

[Peter Jason]

So, they weren't eaten by the trigger fish. That would have been too easy. When you said you fed every couple of days, I wondered if maybe he wasn't in the waiting mood.

Had you dosed phosphate-e and NoPox before, or was this the first time?
How well does your skimmer work for you?
Have you tested for ammonia? I doubt you killed your rock, but if the tank was filled with GHA, the algae could have taken over as the primary processor of ammonia. Possible it could have built up after the GHA was pulled faster than your bacteria could rebound.

NoPox can cause O2 depletions (at least I've read that). Could be an issue with a hob skimmer if it's not working great.

The new fish could have a horrible disease.

Really hard to tell.

skimmer does ok (Im a beginner, so I don't really know if a skimmer does well), it's not sump fancy but I dump it out every 3 or 4 days. This was my second time dosing NoPox and phosphate-e. My ammonia is .25

People on facebook groups are telling me my tank crashed. My rock is dead, and I need to cycle again. If that's the case, Im going to leave the hobby. This is just heartbreaking.

 

[Jon Fishman]

ammonia is .25ppm

There’s the problem

 

[southerntnreefer]

possible the picasso went on a murderous rampage? I have a niger, he was in my reef, until he took out a flame angel, and was caught snacking on chromis.. he lives in my fowlr now. Just throwing out that the triggers can be that way.

 

[Peter Jason]

There’s the problem

solutions?

 

[Jon Fishman]

solutions?

Treat it like a tank cycling. Feed light, don’t add fish, let the tank get ugly, etc

Dump some bio in a bottle in it

I would wait and re-test first though. Ammonia spike could be from fish dying off

 

[southerntnreefer]

and dont give up! we all hit these rough patches. Heck i almost gave up when i knew nothing and put a coral beauty in a 30 gallon hex tank. he went and killed everyone and then himself. Im still in it today, with 3 tanks, about to get my 220 running to condense, but still here!

 

[BeejReef]

You may never know what happened. It could have been a combination of small things. You have surviving fish, so you know it wasn't a "motor oil" style mistake.
Though I don't believe you killed your rock, I'm with Jon Fishman

keep an eye on ammonia and keep a careful eye on your surviving fish for any signs of disease.. white spots, flashing, gasping, hiding from light.
I'd personally lay off the phosphate-e and NoPox for the time being and see if your algae reactor is gonna work for you anyhow.

 

[Peter Jason]

You may never know what happened. It could have been a combination of small things. You have surviving fish, so you know it wasn't a "motor oil" style mistake.
Though I don't believe you killed your rock, I'm with Jon Fishman

keep an eye on ammonia and keep a careful eye on your surviving fish for any signs of disease.. white spots, flashing, gasping, hiding from light.
I'd personally lay off the phosphate-e and NoPox for the time being and see if your algae reactor is gonna work for you anyhow.

I'm DONE with chemicals. Would it be beneficial to put rock in from an established tank to help filtration? should I do more frequent water changes?

 

[ReeferReefer]

The solution is continued water changes. I would probably do 4, 30% water changes over the next 2 weeks.

Do not add any more livestock to the tank for 4 weeks.

Your tank is not processing ammonia enough, you will need to take time to build your biofilter back up.

No need to "re-cycle" the tank. Just let is calm down and recover for a bit.

Sounds like 2 or 3 things combined to result in your losses. You weakend the bacteria by treating your rock, you stressed the animals by adding the trigger and you reduced the available dissolved oxygen by using nopox.

Moving forward, I would not make as many changes to the tank as quickly as you did. Additionally I would stray away from using chemicals to fix problems in your tank. Water changes, changing out filter floss 2x a week and some carbon/gfo is all you really need.

In the future I would only implement major system changes around once a month. If you decide to add an algae reactor, do not change anything else in the tank for 30 days. Let the tank adjust slowly.

Reef keeping is a marathon, not a sprint. You can do this.

 

[artieg1]

There could be a dozen different things that did this. They key is to slow down. There's no quick fix here. Treat the tank as if it is cycling, add bacteria supplement perhaps, and just watch the tank and its inhabitants. Everyone's got stories of heroic water changes at 2 am, but honestly, nothing much good comes from drastic interventions, unless you are very certain of the precise cause and the precise solution. Slow down. Get the ammonia under control. That could take weeks. I wouldn't do anything else for now, and certainly not dose for phosphate or nitrate control. My two cents.