ALL MY FISH DIED OVERNIGHT!

[Parfitt1234]

Hello

 

ALL MY FISH DIED OVERNIGHT!

 

i recently bought a new tank (105L) upgrading from my 40L. I made sure the salinity was the same, ph the same etc. 
 

I bought two new pieces of live rock. 
 

I transferred everything over from the old tank first (old love rock, coral) then transferred the fish into a bucket with old tank water and put a couple of cups of the new water before adding them in (I think I didn’t do this long enough for them to acclimate. They were doing fine and then this morning all fish (two clowns and one azure damsel) were all dead!

 

Do you think the reasoning for this is that the new water shocked them too much? Even though I made sure temperature, ph and salinity was the same. KH GH was the same also. All the crabs etc are alive. Do you think the shock was the reason? 
There wouldn’t be something out of the new live rock that could’ve killed them? Like some sort of hitchhiker? I’m still a beginner so I’m still learning so any constructive answers would be great as I want to make sure the water is fine before adding more fish. Thank you

 

AMMONIA: 0

NITRITE: 0.50 (this shocked me this morning when I tested as never had a problem with nitrite in the other tank. But surely this isn’t enough to kill all my fish?)

NITRATE: 10ppm

PH: 8.1

GH: 425 mg/I (V.Hard)

Total alkalinity: 40mg/I

KH: 80mg/I

 

ALL OF THESE WERE THE SAME IN THE OTHER TANK.

 

any help appreciated thank you!!

[Tamberav]

The new water would not kill fish as long as salinity and temp are close enough. I never drip or acclimate fish and I even do 80 percent water change on my pico that has two fish. Their bodies can easily handle small swings in temp and salinity. Especially clowns and damsels. These are not fragile fish.

 

Likely what happened is the new rocked caused a small cycle you did not catch in time (ammonia is back to 0 before you tested but nitrite remains hence a indicator there was excess ammonia). The tank probably responded with a bacterial increase or bloom which rapidly decreases oxygen and the fish suffocated but the crabs are alive because fish have a high oxygen demand comparatively.

 

That's my best theory but just one theory.

 

Adding live rock to an established tank comes with these risks and generally the best action is to either put the rock in a bin to cycle or cycle the tank then transfer everything over.

 

Sorry you lost your fish 😞 Part of this hobby is learning from our mistakes but we hope to get lucky and learn from someone else's mistakes instead.

[Parfitt1234]

Okay thank you. Ammonia was 0 last night though and I have an ammonia alert on the tank and it was safe way up until I went to sleep?

[Parfitt1234]

And they’re quite hardy fish aswell aren’t they? I added prime yesterday aswell

[Clown79]

Did you have any air hose or powerhead in the bucket with the fish? 

 

If not, that would cause lack of oxygen which would lead to issues.

[Parfitt1234]

No I didn’t but they were in the bucket no longer than 5 minutes

[Tamberav]

7 hours ago, Parfitt1234 said:

And they’re quite hardy fish aswell aren’t they? I added prime yesterday aswell

It can go up and back to 0 quickly...I am not saying ammonia killed them...I am saying lack of oxygen did which prime would not do anything for.

 

If you moved a sand bed that is another thing that could cause a bloom.

 

We can't do an autopsy on fish but being the inverts are ok...it points to oxygen issue to me...the cause of increased bacterial activity is excess sudden nutrients or ammonia. 

 

These fish are hardy against disease and ammonia even but they need to breath like anything else and could easily perish in a low oxygen environment.

[Clown79]

8 hours ago, Parfitt1234 said:

No I didn’t but they were in the bucket no longer than 5 minutes

So you set up the tank completely and only had the fish in a bucket for 5 mins?

 

I'm not sure exactly what happened.

 

I do my transfers differently

 

[Parfitt1234]

The new tank was in a different spot, I put them in the bucket so I could add everything into the new tank. I wanted to add some of the old coral sand into the new aquarium so I didn’t want to stress the fish out even more and I put them in the bucket so I could add some of the new water into it. I was just following advice of what people have told me!

[Clown79]

4 hours ago, Parfitt1234 said:

The new tank was in a different spot, I put them in the bucket so I could add everything into the new tank. I wanted to add some of the old coral sand into the new aquarium so I didn’t want to stress the fish out even more and I put them in the bucket so I could add some of the new water into it. I was just following advice of what people have told me!

I am sorry for your losses.

 

I don't recall seeing any threads on tank transfer besides your thread on questioning transfering your sand bed over, so i am not certain what advice you were given on how to transfer a tank. 

 

Its not the small amount of old coral sand that was the issue.

 

 

[Matteo]

Sorry for your loss mate. 

 

Sometimes tank transfers don't go smoothly even if we do everything we thought we could. 

 

Don't beat yourself over it. If anything let the tank settle for a bit then I'm sure it'll be safe to add fish again. 

[Parfitt1234]

Thank you. 
 

I suppose yes we learn from mistakes in this hobby! Unfortunately they died from the mistake.

 

Just making sure everything is okay and then will go and get some more!

[mcarroll]

On 7/25/2020 at 5:16 AM, Parfitt1234 said:

GH: 425 mg/I (V.Hard)

Total alkalinity: 40mg/I

KH: 80mg/I

In general I like @Tamberav's bit of Sherlocking, based on the nitrite clue, and agree.

 

I admit that I'm curious about your report on hardness/alkalinity.  None of those measures looks like what you get from an alkalinity test kit....which is going to be expressed in either dKH, ppm or meq/L.

 

I'm not 100% sure that there's a 1:1 translation, but the numbers reported for "KH" and "total alkalinity" appear to be much lower than what would be typical or ideal in a reef tank....no more than about 4 dKH (where we'd like something ≥7 and 6 is considered a problem).

 

What test kits are you using?

[I'm Batman]

Anytime I add rock to a tank things lose control.