All my fish dead! Why??

[Melia]

a few days ago, all my fish had begun dying. I found that my nitrates were sky rocketing (500 ppm) and I was so disappointed I didn’t catch it earlier. I was panicking trying to save what I had left, so I did a total water change because of how crazy the nitrates were. Just this morning my last fish had died from the stress of the total change

I thought it was doing better, so I had bought a very inexpensive fish from petco yesterday. I bought a small sailfin tang, that was 25% off because it “had been there too long and needed to go to a forever home”, which seemed a bit skeptical to me. I told the worker I was worried something would happen. I got him down to 50% off and also got confirmation that if something went wrong with the fish I could return it full refund.

This morning, the new fish was dying and the fish I thought was doing okay from the crash was dead I understand that my old fish (a clownfish) wasn’t going to last long because it had been stressing out, but the new sailfin tang was on the ground laying down on one side, and an hour later had passed away.

All my levels are normal, Nitrates 20ppm, nitrites 0-0.5ppm, alkalinity 300ppm, pH 7.4-7.8, and amonia 0.25ppm.

What’s wrong? Why is this happening to my new fish?

 

[rock_lobster]

a few days ago, all my fish had begun dying. I found that my nitrates were sky rocketing (500 ppm) and I was so disappointed I didn’t catch it earlier. I was panicking trying to save what I had left, so I did a total water change because of how crazy the nitrates were. Just this morning my last fish had died from the stress of the total change

I thought it was doing better, so I had bought a very inexpensive fish from petco yesterday. I bought a small sailfin tang, that was 25% off because it “had been there too long and needed to go to a forever home”, which seemed a bit skeptical to me. I told the worker I was worried something would happen. I got him down to 50% off and also got confirmation that if something went wrong with the fish I could return it full refund.

This morning, the new fish was dying and the fish I thought was doing okay from the crash was dead I understand that my old fish (a clownfish) wasn’t going to last long because it had been stressing out, but the new sailfin tang was on the ground laying down on one side, and an hour later had passed away.

All my levels are normal, Nitrates 20ppm, nitrites 0-0.5ppm, alkalinity 300ppm, pH 7.4-7.8, and amonia 0.25ppm.

What’s wrong? Why is this happening to my new fish?

Shouldnt be any ammonia. Tank needs to finish cycling and stabilizing before adding more fish.

 

[Flexin]

Sorry to hear this. Based on your parameters your tank has had a cycle and it's not complete. As stated above, Ammonia and Nitrites should be 0 and stay at zero (meaning they have the ability to quickly transform ammonia to nitrites and to nitrates. How old is the tank?

 

[Melia]

Sorry to hear this. Based on your parameters your tank has had a cycle and it's not complete. As stated above, Ammonia and Nitrites should be 0 and stay at zero (meaning they have the ability to quickly transform ammonia to nitrites and to nitrates. How old is the tank?

I’ve had the tank for 7 months

 

[Flexin]

Something caused you to have a cycle and the tank to crash. Have you made any changes to the tank in the past two months? What did you add, what was removed? Also, if something died and it remained in the tank, that can cause a cycle also if the tank can't process the ammonia. Has this happened before? When?

 

[Fishfinder]

A water change shouldn't kill a fish, no matter how large. You need to find out why your nitrates were at 500ppm. Did you have a fish die in the tank and rot? How long have you had all these fish? If every fish died its a water issue or a disease issue

 

[Fishfinder]

How big is your tank?

 

[Melia]

Something caused you to have a cycle and the tank to crash. Have you made any changes to the tank in the past two months? What did you add, what was removed? Also, if something died and it remained in the tank, that can cause a cycle also if the tank can't process the ammonia. Has this happened before? When?

I’ve pretty much kept the tank the same, I had some feather duster worms die a while ago, and I took them out immediately. It was hard to find them and i wasn’t entirely sure if I got them both out. They rot very fast, but that was almost a month ago.

 

[Melia]

A water change shouldn't kill a fish, no matter how large. You need to find out why your nitrates were at 500ppm. Did you have a fish die in the tank and rot? How long have you had all these fish? If every fish died its a water issue or a disease issue

I’ve had the fish for a while, maybe 5-6 months the oldest and the newest was maybe 3 months ago.
My tank is a 20 gallon.
I can’t think of anything that would’ve been rotting in there, a month ago I had 2 feather duster worms crawl out of their tubes and rot in less than a few hours. I got home and immediately removed them and did a water change that day.

 

[Flexin]

As mentioned, a water change would not do it unless something was wrong with the water. When was the last time you tested your water in the tank? Sorry to ask so many questions so fast

 

[stevem650]

How many fish did you have in your 20 gal?

 

[amazongb]

Can you list the fish you had? Tang is too big for a 20 gal.. perhaps your fish load was too high..

 

[Melia]

As mentioned, a water change would not do it unless something was wrong with the water. When was the last time you tested your water in the tank? Sorry to ask so many questions so fast

I’m often busy and I don’t usually check my water levels unless something looks wrong, so the last time I had checked them was a while ago. I know that’s not good and i should check them every week, but I haven’t.

 

[Melia]

How many fish did you have in your 20 gal?

Can you list the fish you had? Tang is too big for a 20 gal.. perhaps your fish load was too high..

I had 2 Ocellaris clowns, 1 Valentini puffer, and 3 damsels. I also had a collectors urchin and a tiny rock boring urchin.

 

[paphater]

Are you using RO/DI water? Are you regularly checking salinity?

 

[Melia]

Are you using RO/DI water? Are you regularly checking salinity?

I have a hydrometer/thermometer floating in my tank, it’s always at the same salinity and temperature.

 

[Melia]

Are you using RO/DI water? Are you regularly checking salinity?

I do not use RO/DI water, whenever I add water to the tank I add the needed amount of salt and XTreme water conditioner.

 

[Flexin]

I checked your previous posts, by the time those feather dusters moved, they most likely were already dead for a while and were decomposing, and that was april 7th you lost the first one the second a few days later. Both of them dying most likely the cycle trigger and that was less than a month ago (by a few days). Also, for your nitrates to be that high, that took some time, a long time to get that high.

Is anything else remaining in the tank?

 

[Flexin]

And as a follow up, once you mix your water, test it before adding to the tank. A bad water source can contribute to complications over time in a tank.

 

[Melia]

I checked your previous posts, by the time those feather dusters moved, they most likely were already dead for a while and were decomposing, and that was april 7th you lost the first one the second a few days later. Both of them dying most likely the cycle trigger and that was less than a month ago (by a few days). Also, for your nitrates to be that high, that took some time, a long time to get that high.

Is anything else remaining in the tank?

I have hermit crabs, a humpback cowrie, some snails, lots of zoanthids, and a small shrimp that all seem to be doing fine.