Help 7 fatalities overnight!

[DaKoDa.DaVId]

I started a new 180 gallon long tank 2 months ago. It was empty and cycling for 7 weeks. I added 2 bottles of biological filter when salinity was right. Sense then I’ve slowly added my smaller tank inhabitants into my new 180. My levels have been fine testing them very frequently. Last night we had a problem with our sump, having our previous sump still we decided to pull out our broken sump and put in the old. Then I woke up to 3 cardinals dead 2 chromes dead my mandarin goby almost dead. My Nemo almost dead and all snails dead plus my urchin dead. My tank is covered in what looks like a white stringy slime and cloudy water.  My local fish store is closed today and I need some answers 

[j.falk]

Test your water...see what your parameters are.  See if your tank is still cycling and showing ammonia and nitrite?

 

Check your temperature and check your salinity...has anything changed?

 

Sudden cloudy water usually = time to do some water changes.

 

Is it possible the old sump could've been contaminated with cleaning products or soap?  Both of those will kill aquatic life quickly.

[Tamberav]

Can you explain the process of how you switch the sump? What was kept and what wasn't? Media? Fuge? Rocks?  How was it cleaned? Was all the water changed out of the sump in the swap? Was water sitting stagnant at any point and re-used? How did you clean the sump? etc. 

 

The cloudy water/white slime sounds like bacterial bloom which will lower oxygen, be sure to have a lot of surface agitation. The cause of such things are generally excess nutrients/organics in young tanks. Sometimes disturbing rockwork/sand can do it. It's possible its from all the dying critters I suppose. 

 

I would test ammonia and I would remove all dead things and dose prime if you have it. Also run a bag of carbon in a high flow area such as a reactor or baffle in a sump, ect and prepare for water changes. 

 

It is hard to say at this point if you had an ammonia spike that killed life or if the critters died from some other contaminant that killed them and their corpses caused an ammonia spike.

 

 

 

 

[Humblefish]

Where had the old sump (you are now using) been stored? Any chance it came into contact with a toxin such as bug spray or a household cleaner??

[DaKoDa.DaVId]

We transferred all water to old sump could haven’t been contaminated with anything it wasn’t sitting stagnant or cleaned with any cleaners. We saved all our sand rock and chaeto and just turned all our equipment off and transferred it all over we had some walls of the newer sump fall. I can’t honestly think of anything coming into contact with it. We recently started using “ fuel “ for our corals. We only dosed it twice with that. We did a 20% water change sense our tank has been up in running probably at least 5 times. About one every 9 days I’d say. We did frag some corals could excess amounts of coral glue be a part? Or we did switch a salt brand which brought a change in ph it went from 8 to 8.4 suddenly. 

[DaKoDa.DaVId]

Currently trying to save the 3 fish I have left. Took them out of main tank and put them in our Refugium with the thought my cheoto would purify the water a little better right there. I’m at a loss 😩🤷‍♀️

[DaKoDa.DaVId]

[j.falk]

Those readings are from 9 days ago...a lot can change in 9 days time.

 

The fact that your tank didn't foul out until after the sump change leads me to believe it has something to do with this old sump that has been reinstalled.  I don't think it has anything to do with using the "fuel", changing salt brands, or using coral glue that is made for the specific purpose of creating frags.

 

[DaKoDa.DaVId]

1 hour ago, jfalkartist said:

Those readings are from 9 days ago...a lot can change in 9 days time.

 

The fact that your tank didn't foul out until after the sump change leads me to believe it has something to do with this old sump that has been reinstalled.  I don't think it has anything to do with using the "fuel", changing salt brands, or using coral glue that is made for the specific purpose of creating frags.

 

Yea apparently a lot changes in just hours. I have more readings thats just a full page to show the progress sense set up 

So what can I do as of now? Keep doing water changes? 

[Tamberav]

So you moved the sand?

 

Likey culprit right there. Probably full of trapped organics.

31 minutes ago, DaKoDa.DaVId said:

Yea apparently a lot changes in just hours. I have more readings thats just a full page to show the progress sense set up 

So what can I do as of now? Keep doing water changes? 

 

Dose prime....run carbon as well.

[Clown79]

13 minutes ago, Tamberav said:

So you moved the sand?

 

Likey culprit right there. Probably full of trapped organics.

 

Dose prime....run carbon as well.

This^ is the most likely issue.

 

Completely disturbing the sand can cause an ammonia spike, especially if the sand is never vacuumed. 

 

 

I would test ammonia first.

 

Do a waterchange, Add new carbon, add additional water movement will help.

 

If there is ammonia present, dosing Prime will detoxify it but your ammonia tests will be inaccurate for 48hrs so using a Seachem ammonia badge is advised because it's not effected by Prime.

[Humblefish]

^^  Agree with sand possibly causing an issue. In addition to what has already been mentioned, sometimes hydrogen sulfide can be found in anoxic regions under the sand bed. If this gets disturbed/released into the water column (or into the sand) bad things generally happen. Always best to use new dry sand and pitch the old stuff.

[Aquariumchemistry]

Just like tank cycling, sumps need to slowly gain bacteria also. Switching sumps could have released dead organics, a nutrient spike, or unwanted compounds. Ammonia can be a killer

 

Other than that its common for fish to have a mass death overnight from issues of dissolved oxygen. If you switched in a lot of unaerated water it could have suffocated them. Oxygen drops at night when bacteria uses oxygen to break down organics. Also would check temp