All but one fish died within 4 hours

[BeanAnimal]

Does it not temporarily bind ammonia/nitrite to non toxic forms?

No

 

[SlyPuffer]

No

WOW. I need to buy a lottery ticket then! I can’t even count how many tanks I have fish in cycled with prime ( with some of them having super high ammonia/nitrite ) and never had a fish loss! I’m glad I switched to no fish cycling.

 

[Dburr1014]

Does it not temporarily bind ammonia/nitrite to non toxic forms?

No, it has been proven it does not.

 

[Dburr1014]

WOW. I need to buy a lottery ticket then! I can’t even count how many tanks I have fish in cycled with prime ( with some of them having super high ammonia/nitrite ) and never had a fish loss! I’m glad I switched to no fish cycling.

Yes, you probably should! Cuz it wasn't the prime!

 

[BMThunder]

You probably didn't mean it to be but it struck me funny.

I guess it could happen he didn't add salt. It's not they way I read it though.



I thought this was odd to say also. I've never heard of a fish getting sand stuck in their gills and suffocating. Can you point to a case of this happening? If like to read it.


Sorry if I offended you.

No blood, no foul.

I use the vacuum tube method for cleaning my sand bed. At first i would cleaned everything, cleaned the algae off the glass, all of the sand i could get to...till one day i noticed how my water was a cloudy white (assumed fine sand) and my fish were gasping for air. That's when i realized what i was doing. It's a guess, but that's why I think "could of" happed.

 

[mpatterson42]

Assuming this was a bacterial bloom and depletion of oxygen, would a fully glass lid (like the Aqueon Versa Top) have made this process even faster? I'm thinking of getting one for a fish only system (not worried about lighting) but the gas exchange and something like this has me worried.

 

[WaterWerks]

Assuming this was a bacterial bloom and depletion of oxygen, would a fully glass lid (like the Aqueon Versa Top) have made this process even faster? I'm thinking of getting one for a fish only system (not worried about lighting) but the gas exchange and something like this has me worried.

Yes a full glass lid would lower the C02 to fresh air mixing at the surface. Recently when to screen and the fish breath so much slower and way more active. Even with my C02 scrubber running on the the skimmer

 

[Dburr1014]

Yes a full glass lid would lower the C02 to fresh air mixing at the surface.

It may or may not.

It depends what the CO2 content of the air is surrounding the tank. If the CO2 is higher in the air the glass cover is actually protecting the tank from dropping lower.

 

[papou667]

Hello, from someone who is limit to small tank to another. 50X30%=15. Are you telling us that did a water change with 15 gallons of distilled water? What's your salinity level? I use distilled water, but only to top off evap water and that's a gallon at a time. You cleaned your sand bed, unlike the larger tanks, we don't have room for error. I learned you have to VERY careful when doing that in small tank. the fine sand gets caught in the fish's gills and suffocates them. Now, i just do two to three spots at a time, and the next time I'll different spots. you going to have set up RODI system, mix your own water or buy pre-mix (which is what i do (costly method)). When your shrimp died it became crab food. Sorry for you lost. I gotta be somewhere around $800 in losses. I'm not a diligent keeper, that's why i choose hardy fish only.

Sorry for the late reply, I have been sick the last couple of days, and with work I did not think to come here before tonight! I used distilled water to mix my salt, I looked up RODI systems, but I have a new appartement and the bath tap come with this fancy nozzle on which I can’t attach anything, the only place I could attach one would be the laundry room, which would be a little inconvenient… I live in Canada and the tap water is pretty clean, lfs uses tap water and they have some pretty beautiful tanks (but buying from them would mean buying tap water mixed with salt…) I still found that distilled gives better results and less algae growth! As for the sand cleaning I will definitely be a lot more conservative from now on, gf is already reminding me of our incident every time I raise some sand while cleaning the glass

 

[JohnnyReef13]

Hi, this is would be my first post but I have been on site for a good time now.

So last evening I did a good clean up of my tank and did a 30% wc. I went to sleep at 1am (6-7h after wc) and everything seemed fine, I woke up in the middle of the night at around 5 and all my fish were dead except for my ywg who is grasping for air. At first I taught my H. Magnifica who is now on the glass nuked the whole tank, but it doesn’t seem injured. I don’t know what to think honestly…

I have 3 blue leg hermit, 1 emerald crab, 3 snails and a tuxedo urchin that are all looking alive, not good but alive…

My nem still looks alive but not in good shape

My corals are not looking good either…

Candy cane
Zoas
Kenya tree
Galaxea

The tanks has been running for a little bit more than 6 months and everything was stable.

These have been my results for the last tests I did earlier this week :
Ammonia : 0
Nitrite : 0
Nitrate 10
Phosphate : 0.25
Calcium : 420
DKH : 10
Sal : 1.025

I started running carbon as soon as I saw the tank.

Any ideas what happened? I haven’t had any casualties yet except a few snails and a shrimp who was found split in half overnight a couple weeks ago

Hey! @vetteguy53081 what do you think?

 

[papou667]

I feel so sad whenever i see a dead fish/invert/etc, whether is mine or someone’s else.
All i can say is I'm very sorry it happened to you. And i hope you don't give up and keep reefing. Is worth it. If you ever have any concerns or questions, this is a great community where we always try to help each other.

I will! The ywg did survive and we went and got him a pistol a couple of days later when I saw all my parameters going back to normal and it’s now thriving! We just added a pair of clown and they love there new nem! I see this has a learning experience, as sad as it was

 

[vetteguy53081]

Sorry for the late reply, I have been sick the last couple of days, and with work I did not think to come here before tonight! I used distilled water to mix my salt, I looked up RODI systems, but I have a new appartement and the bath tap come with this fancy nozzle on which I can’t attach anything, the only place I could attach one would be the laundry room, which would be a little inconvenient… I live in Canada and the tap water is pretty clean, lfs uses tap water and they have some pretty beautiful tanks (but buying from them would mean buying tap water mixed with salt…) I still found that distilled gives better results and less algae growth! As for the sand cleaning I will definitely be a lot more conservative from now on, gf is already reminding me of our incident every time I raise some sand while cleaning the glass

Distilled water often low in PH. If this is a newer tank, you may have experienced a spike. I do NOT recommend Tap water for reasons below and shame on LFS for suggesting this. Why?
With so many sales on RODI units- worth the now small investment. You dont need bath faucet as you can use under kitchen sink and tap into cold line or apply a TEE at the shutoff.
For starters, the amount of Alk in tap water can potentially double this number easily and affect CA and PH not to mention content of heavy metals, chloramine, pollutants. fluoride and other elements not contained in sea water. tap water also offers no ph buffering and note many areas have copper in their tap water which you do not want in your system. Next will be phosphates in water which will cause further issues.
As you can see - Risk is the issue