Next steps with tank after all fish die?

[Chowder3]

Hi everyone!

So on Monday night all my fish died except my electric blue hermit crab. So sad. My tank was established on May 10th of this year. I was doing the BRS 5 minute video set up. So far so good ~no issues until now. In my tank we’re 2 pairs of clown fish and the blue hermit crab. Monday morning everything was fine and same for the afternoon. I fed them as normal and they ate as normal. Then at 8pm I saw one pair of clownfish laying on the bottom of the tank in the left corner. It looked like there were cuddling / sleeping but then I noticed they were not breathing normally. Not fast more slower. The other pair of clown fish were trying to swim normally but started thrashing / shaking if you will on the surface of the tank. I checked all parameters, temp and salinity = everything was where it needed to be (no issues at all). I have a water box all in one tank and added two nano Hydor circulation pumps at time of tank set up along with live rock and live sand. The last time I added any live stock to the tank was over a month ago. I really didn’t want much in my tank since this is my first tank and I didn’t want to over do it.

I need to point out the following as I am not sure if either of these had anything to do with my fishes dying.

I had just performed a water change that afternoon as I do every week. I did nothing different than every other water change that I’ve done. I clean everything with just a toothbrush (never used for anything but cleaning this tank) and water. I try to get as much water dried on everything I rinse/wash before I add it back into the tank (shake off). I put in a clean filter and cleaned the sponge (that came with the tank) I rinse off quickly the bag of carbon and bag of bio balls. I clean everything in the tank with the same tooth brush, glass scraper and suction device to help me remove the water and add it back. I also sift just the surface of the sand with that pump. I make my own saltwater using RO/DI water as I have always done so. I can’t see anything happening there.

However, last Tuesday Chicago was hit with a bad storm causing me to lose power for 14 hours. That sucked. Yes I learned too late that I should have had a battery back up. Nothing happened to them (that was visible) The power came on the next afternoon. I monitored them for a few days and saw no difference but here we are 6 days later and they are all gone (fish only).

I‘ve done research and all I can come up with is either lack of oxygen (from storm) poison (from water change or some how something in the air getting in the tank) or not having the pumps grounded (electric current) although I didn’t feel anything anytime that I put my fingers or hands in the tank. I never had any chemicals on my hand. So after all that my question is what do I do with my tank now? What I mean is I’ve read to do a 50% water change but I can’t find anything anywhere that tells me what to do with the sand and live rock. Is it ok? Do I toss it and start over for fear of a possible contaminant? I mean I don’t think it’s that but I have no way of ruling that out. I know I didn’t but what if something got in there. Idk. Was it a delayed reaction due to my power outage and if so then I know I can reuse my rocks and sand meaning start over. I guess I’m just looking for someone who may have gone through this as well and any recommendations on what I should do next before I try again with the same set up (maybe).
Thanks so much in advance and sorry for the long read.

 

[reefs4life]

Sorry to hear about the loss of your fish.

To start, which parameters have you actually checked? An ammonia spike could easily kill your fish.

Also, rinsing bioballs is typically not something I'd do unless you're rinsing them with the water you're taking out for your water change.

 

[Chowder3]

Sorry to hear about the loss of your fish.

To start, which parameters have you actually checked? An ammonia spike could easily kill your fish.

Also, rinsing bioballs is typically not something I'd do unless you're rinsing them with the water you're taking out for your water change.

Thank you very much! I check ammonia, PH, nitrates and nitrites.

 

[artieg1]

Sorry to hear about this. We've all been there. Trust me.

For a total fish death that quick, I think you are looking at ammonia, oxygen deprivation or perhaps some chemical accidentally introduced. Parasites will wipe everything out, too, but probably not that sudden. I would sterilize your tank, and start over slowly.

 

[KingTideCorals]

So sorry to hear about the loss!

In my honest opinion the power outage could be the culprit, especially if you had not switched batches of salt or done nothing to add new livestock/ or equipment.

That being said 14 hours with no oxygen flow in the tank makes it hard for these little guys of course it being 6 days after it happening has me thinking.

Of course, a lot of people WILL ask for your parameters before they will go into more detail and investigation, it would be a good thing to know your levels in the tank, but in my opinion it quite honestly could be oxygen deprivation. With that in mind did you notice heavy breathing from any of your livestock in the past 6 days?

 

[reefs4life]

So was ammonia level at 0? If you have a skimmer and good water flow, oxgyen levels couldn't have been a huge factor especially after 6 days IMO. I'm leaning towards an ammonia spike if it hasn't effected anything else

 

[secret_reefer337]

My first impression is the bio ball being washed but with live sand and live rock, I doubt it will give a big shock. Death during power outage due to lack of oxygen will happen immediately (I have experienced it last year when an almost 20 hour power outage happened and wipe out all my fish except pair of clownfish and gobbies). If all of your parameters are checked and in line, the fish might have been sick for a awhile without you knowing that's why they died.

 

[Chowder3]

Sorry to hear about this. We've all been there. Trust me.

For a total fish death that quick, I think you are looking at ammonia, oxygen deprivation or perhaps some chemical accidentally introduced. Parasites will wipe everything out, too, but probably not that sudden. I would sterilize your tank, and start over slowly.

‘Thank you so much. May I ask, when you say sterilize the tank, what do you mean by that?

 

[Chowder3]

So sorry to hear about the loss!

In my honest opinion the power outage could be the culprit, especially if you had not switched batches of salt or done nothing to add new livestock/ or equipment.

That being said 14 hours with no oxygen flow in the tank makes it hard for these little guys of course it being 6 days after it happening has me thinking.

Of course, a lot of people WILL ask for your parameters before they will go into more detail and investigation, it would be a good thing to know your levels in the tank, but in my opinion it quite honestly could be oxygen deprivation. With that in mind did you notice heavy breathing from any of your livestock in the past 6 days?

‘Thank you so much.
I didn’t notice any odd behavior. My specific parameters were 0 ammonia, 8 PH, 0 nittite and between 0 ppm - 5 ppm was the reading for the Nitrate .

 

[Chowder3]

So was ammonia level at 0? If you have a skimmer and good water flow, oxgyen levels couldn't have been a huge factor especially after 6 days IMO. I'm leaning towards an ammonia spike if it hasn't effected anything else

Thank you very much. At the time of death I took a reading of the ammonia and it was at 0 ppm.

 

[Chowder3]

My first impression is the bio ball being washed but with live sand and live rock, I doubt it will give a big shock. Death during power outage due to lack of oxygen will happen immediately (I have experienced it last year when an almost 20 hour power outage happened and wipe out all my fish except pair of clownfish and gobbies). If all of your parameters are checked and in line, the fish might have been sick for a awhile without you knowing that's why they died.

Thank you so much for this information. Sorry that happened to you too.

 

[Erick Armanii]

This sounds like an ammonia spike.

I have a few questions;
How old is the tank
What are you cleaning exactly with the toothbrush? Rock? Filters?
Do you have any plastic decorations?

Preforming a large 50% water change, then 14hour power outage further confirms lack of oxygen/ammonia burn on the gills.

You shouldn’t need or want to clean the bio balls or filter sponge as those are designed to create surface area for the beneficial bacteria which consumes ammonia.

 

[artieg1]

‘Thank you so much. May I ask, when you say sterilize the tank, what do you mean by that?

I would consider sterilizing the tank with bleach and starting over from Step 1. But others may think that is extreme. If you are certain it was an ammonia spike, then no need to sterilize.

 

[2Sunny]

What a major bummer. So sorry to hear.

I have a 20 gallon refugium attached to my system. A couple months back I had 2 Banggai Cardinals that I put in there because I was planning on introducing them to my one Cardinal in my main display to try and make a pair. One morning I went downstairs to find the smaller fish lying on the sand barely alive. He moved if I touched him but otherwise was near death. The larger fish was upright but not moving in the other corner. I moved both fish out of the refugium and into my sump. The smaller fish eventually died later that day but the larger made a recovery. Weeks later when the circuit breaker finally blew I found that the power head I put in the refugium to add flow had a corroded exposed wire. I never felt anything when my hand was in the water. My system is big and my refugium is pretty much totally separate from the rest.

Is electricity your problem? I have no idea, but given the fact that your water was aerated, your tank was more than a month old, and the fish died quickly really makes me suspect stray voltage. My next personal guess would be contamination in your water from something airborne. Do you live in a small apartment? Is it possible you had really high CO2? I've never heard of that killing livestock, but I do know friends of mine who live in a small apartment and have a Neptune monitoring their system realized that having even a couple friends over with the windows closed and the AC on made the pH plummet. So I wonder.

 

[WVNed]

There is no way to know. I would think of some kind of foreign substance in the tank. I do not think the power outage caused this.
There have been threads where significant others and children made additions to a tank. Cleaning and air freshening sprays are another one. Cleaning products accidentally placed in water change buckets. SOmeone found a bottle of perfume had been placed in the tank.


I would do a water change down to the gravel. Change the carbon. Run the tank for a week. Change the carbon again and do a 50% water change. Then reintroduce a single fish and see what happens.
If it died then I would do more extreme measures.

 

[Patientman]

Any room cleaning take place recently? Cleaners, furniture polish, glass cleaner even room fresheners overspray can affect tank inhabitants.

 

[reefs4life]

I have never heard of sterilizing a tank with bleach. I would totally advise against that.

Honestly, simple fixes for now are to maybe add a grounding probe which is fairly inexpensive and easy to add. Then maybe do a 20% water change in a week and leave the tank as is for another week. Adding GAC is also a good way of getting any contaminant out, if that may be the issue. Retest your parameters and if everything looks ok, maybe add one fish to see what happens.

Anything drastic at this point doesn't seem advisable. Remember that stability is the key to a healthy reef.

 

[Chowder3]

This sounds like an ammonia spike.

I have a few questions;
How old is the tank
What are you cleaning exactly with the toothbrush? Rock? Filters?
Do you have any plastic decorations?

Preforming a large 50% water change, then 14hour power outage further confirms lack of oxygen/ammonia burn on the gills.

You shouldn’t need or want to clean the bio balls or filter sponge as those are designed to create surface area for the beneficial bacteria which consumes ammonia.

As mentioned above I started my cycle on May 10th if this year. I clean the rim of the glass inside not out or on top and the chambers as far as I can get my hand in. No plastic decor only sand and rock. I didn’t do a 50% water change. I did the water change after the power went out and it was restored. I did the water change this Monday. My normal 20%. Thank you for the additional tips. I now know.

 

[Chowder3]

I would consider sterilizing the tank with bleach and starting over from Step 1. But others may think that is extreme. If you are certain it was an ammonia spike, then no need to sterilize.

Thank you. I am certain it was not an ammonia spike.

 

[Chowder3]

There is no way to know. I would think of some kind of foreign substance in the tank. I do not think the power outage caused this.
There have been threads where significant others and children made additions to a tank. Cleaning and air freshening sprays are another one. Cleaning products accidentally placed in water change buckets. SOmeone found a bottle of perfume had been placed in the tank.


I would do a water change down to the gravel. Change the carbon. Run the tank for a week. Change the carbon again and do a 50% water change. Then reintroduce a single fish and see what happens.
If it died then I would do more extreme measures.

Thank you so much!!!!! I am thinking this is the appropriate path for me.