Sudden invert deaths

[mattroth54]

I’m starting a new reef tank, filled with rodi water and live rock about 3 weeks ago. Clowns x2 added with live rock. About 2 weeks in, diatoms showed up. Added cuc, looked great after they worked for about a week. Everyone seemed super happy and healthy. Since parameters have been rock stable, I added a few Zoas and a YWG. I dipped the zoas in standard mix of bioadvance complete insect killer, and did double 15min soak in tank water to rinse. Coral into tank after rinses. FWIW, the YWG was temp and exchange acclimated, without pouring any lfs water into DT. A couple hours after adding new critters today, my cleaner shrimp, both emerald crabs, and a few hermits died.

47g aio
30ish lbs live rock
12ish hermits
Mix of snails
Fighting conch
Cleaner shrimp
2 emerald crabs

Parameters:
79 degrees
Salinity 1.024
ph 7.9
Alk 6.3
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Phosphate 0.4

I did add a half gallon or so of water from a newly setup qt tank that’s been running empty for a week or so to replace volume from the exchange acclimation. This tank has never seen any meds or copper.

I also added a couple new power heads this afternoon, which stirred up the tank a bit. When they came on and stirred the tank, the cleaner shrimp got excited and started his feeding frenzy. 2 hours later him and the crabs were dead.

I have a copper test kit coming tomorrow, but can’t imagine that’s an issue.

Any ideas how these guys died? Def took the wind out of my sails after a great start.

 

[Tahoe61]

New tank syndrome in a tank 3 weeks old. Too much, too fast.

 

[mattroth54]

With all that live rock? Wouldn’t this be an instant cycle setup? Fish are totally fine, btw. Not sure if that matters.

 

[Idech]

You’ve really added your animals really fast. I wonder if you had an ammonia peak with all the sand blasting everywhere. Maybe CUC are more sensitive to it.

I would definitely take it easy with adding inverts and fish. They need a mature tank to have food to survive.

 

[mattroth54]

Ammonia has been zero from the start. I thought same, but testing after this happened showed still zero. I’d also think the fish would be stressed with an ammonia spike…they still look great.