55g tank, all levels ok. all fish died overnight

mjshealy

Reefing newb
Have a 55 gallon tank, had a yellow tang, 2 misbar clowns, a orangetail blue damsel, a pom pom crab, a chocolate chip sea star, a condylactis anemone and 5 hermits(for cleaning purposes) I have been battling cloudy water for weeks now. Everything was going fine for a couple of months, and then I added the anemone and hermits, three days later did my 5 gallon water change for the week, and I noticed before the water change it looked like the fish were breathing hard. The next morning I awoke to find everything dead but the hermits. Salinity @ 1.024, pH at 7.8, ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 0 phosphate 0. no cleaning or air freshners are used within 10 feet of tank. Temp stays at 80. I had a problem with my nitrates and nitrates going up, I upgraded to the marineland emperor 400 90 gallon filtration system and they went to 0 within 24 hours. My fish died a week ago. I tried to introduce a pseudochromis 3 days ago, but he was breathing hard during drip acclimation and died within 5 minutes of being put in the tank. What could be wrong? I'm sorry for the long info, just trying to be thorough. Thanks in advance.
 
stray current??? or maybe the anemone was on his was out and your that 1 in a 100 case where it nuked the tank but I have lost three and never hade any die off you could take a water sample to you lfs just to confirm you don't have a bad test kit very sorry to here you lost your live stock
 
No current that I can find. It seems very strange to me that the anemone nuked the tank and also the one fish I tried adding 3-4 days later. He didn't last a couple minutes. I don't know what else I can test for, but any ideas or explanations would be helpful. I'm just wanting to get my aquarium going again, and can't figure out what happened
 
One possibility is that you are getting bad readings from some of your test kits.

I had a problem with my nitrates and nitrates going up, I upgraded to the marineland emperor 400 90 gallon filtration system and they went to 0 within 24 hours.
I'm assuming you are only referring to nitrites (and not nitrates).
For a brand new (dry) biowheel, it will take several days for the bacteria to colonize and start taking a dent out of the nitrites. Consequently by reducing the nitrites, the same bacteria will be increasing the nitrates.
Nitrites going down to 0ppm 24 hours after adding a new biowheel seems unlikely. Either there were 0 nitrites to begin with, or the test kit is not properly registering nitrites (false negative).

What are you using to measure salinity/specific gravity?
Plastic hydrometers are notorious for going out of calibration, or are not calibrated properly to begin with.
 
Yes I did, but all levels were fine according to their tests too. I believe it was a bacteria bloom, since then my water has cleared and I think I'm about ready to add a fish.
 
I am sorry to hear you lost all of your fish. I hope you figure out what happened in your tank so your next fish thrive!
 
I hope you can find out what happened , don't be discouraged . It made me sad for you and this experience. Nobody wants their pets to die
 
Back
Top