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Banjer1982
07/07/2010, 04:41 PM
I just came home and everything I have is dead. The water stinks really bad and is tea colored. The skimmer has orange build up in it. All I had in my tank was the snails, 3 peppermint shrimp, a clownfish and a goby. Also had a euphylia. Does anyone have any explanation as to what could've caused this. I just did a water change a week ago

milkman55
07/07/2010, 05:07 PM
How long has it been since you were home last?

Any power outages in your area?

enasco
07/07/2010, 05:09 PM
Hi,

Sorry about your loss. I had something happen to me a few months ago, but my problem was I had tried to remove the live sand to add new sand and in doing so I brought to the surface all the elements found underneath thus posioning the water and loss everything yet only a black percula which I have had for 2.5 years which is still with me.

One of the things I have heard will cause this is if during the day the lights went out for a determine amount of time, this I have heard can cause a total wipe-out and as you say a smelly fishy smell.

Eddie

TheH
07/07/2010, 05:17 PM
Was there something big in the live-rock that perhaps you didn't know about? What was the water volume?

AndyH5512
07/07/2010, 05:37 PM
Is it possible that someone put something in the tank? Unless you have been gone for a couple days, it strikes me as odd that it happened that quickly.

awestruck
07/07/2010, 05:46 PM
Sorry to hear this. Is there any chance copper somehow got into your tank? It's deadly to marine animals, especially invertibrates.

MoneyGone
07/07/2010, 06:08 PM
We had a powerhead seal go bad in a tank at my work that leaked into the tank turned dark and almost everything died.

nuccadoc
07/07/2010, 06:14 PM
First off, sorry for your loss.

You haven't given us enough information. The more, the better. How is the tank set up? How long had it been set up? Have you added or taken anything from the system? What where the latest system parameters you had before the crash? We need details to determine what happened.

Scott

firereef
07/07/2010, 06:18 PM
Sorry for your loss. I had everything die in my tank about a month ago. I took off the glass shield on my metal halide reflector, not knowing it was there for uv protection. 6k worth of coral dead.

Anemonebuff
07/07/2010, 06:21 PM
Quick death like that sounds like poisoning from windex/bug killer or the like.

Banjer1982
07/07/2010, 06:24 PM
My tank is a 34 gal salona. I've had it set up close to a year. I don't exactly remember what my perameters was but they were ok or I wouldve went ahead and corrected the problem. Just did a water change a week or two again and I use ro water. My perameters now are out of whack. Ph 8.0, ammonia .5, nitrate 40, nitrite 1.0. They were not like this. All my tankmates were very healthy not showing any signs of something wrong. The water is tea colored and in my skimmer the foam is orange and also my filter is orange. Only person who is around my tank is my gf and she helps stock the tank so I don't suspect any foul play.

Banjer1982
07/07/2010, 06:26 PM
Oh I was only gone from home about 13 hours

MadOTC
07/07/2010, 06:30 PM
Really the only thing I can think of is some kind of extreme change in temp. Were you using a heater/chiller with the tank? I have had my entire tank in rubbermaid containers without circulation or light for a couple days and everything lived just fine. Everything being killed off that quickly sounds like some kind of poisoning like was already mentioned, or some kind of malfunctioning equipment that cause either extreme heat/cold which would for sure kill everything off.

awestruck
07/07/2010, 06:47 PM
You might want to try the chemistry forum. Maybe someone there has some ideas.

nuccadoc
07/07/2010, 06:48 PM
Banjer I have the same tank. Did you modify the system? I know a lot of people do. I have to agree with madotc with the possibility of something toxic ending up in the tank. With such a small volume of water it wouldn't take much. What is the tank next to? Are you using the glass lid? Are you using the MH pendant? If you are then a chiller is pretty much necessity. Hmmm.....the answer is there man we just need to dig it out.

noahm
07/07/2010, 06:50 PM
The color seems like something maybe got dumped in?? The params are off because stuff died, not the other way around, I suspect. Orange could just be the color of dead stuff residue, but maybe something else. Are all the bodies accounted for? Anything that could have fallen in? Are you dosing anything? Missing any food containers? Any changes over the last couple of days?
Just trying to trigger ideas.

nuccadoc
07/07/2010, 07:12 PM
Did your gf stick her hands in the tank while you were gone? Did she have lotion on her hands? Or maybe she had just done her nails. Just throwing out more possibilities.

Fishamatank
07/07/2010, 07:21 PM
Do you cheat on your GF?

firereef
07/07/2010, 07:33 PM
Do you cheat on your GF?

Lmao!!!!!

Banjer1982
07/07/2010, 07:34 PM
No I havnt cheated and no she don't mess with the tank. I've heard that if a snail dies it can mess your water up quick. Could that have happened and I just hantavirus noticed it and I'm thinking the color could be from all the amphipods, the orange shell they leave behind or whatever it is I had those in the tank from them

Banjer1982
07/07/2010, 07:35 PM
Damn spell check. Hantivirus=haven't

Myvirtue
07/07/2010, 07:35 PM
wow that sucks im sorry bro

tibob32
07/07/2010, 07:40 PM
is all the equipment in good working order? A busted pump could have leaked some lubricant in the water

nuccadoc
07/07/2010, 07:40 PM
Unless it was a really large snail that died I wouldn't think it would cause a crash like you experienced.

Banjer1982
07/07/2010, 07:45 PM
Well my scenario I'm using is a snail died and caused the ammonia to spike killing almost everything. Only thing that lived is an emerald crab. I check my tank everyday but how easy is it to look at a snail setting somewhere and not think something of it. But anyways everything is gone now and looking forward what should I do to get things back up and going? Should I just do a complete water change and have to cycle it again or just change most of the water and start restocking? Any suggestions?

Banjer1982
07/07/2010, 07:47 PM
I'm gonna check my pump tomorrow and see if it's ok. It was pumping because I turned it off. Dunno if it will still pump if it's cracked because I've never experienced that.

nuccadoc
07/07/2010, 07:52 PM
I would do a complete water change just to be on the safe side. Wait for the parameters to settle back down and start restocking. Reef tank correct?

nuccadoc
07/07/2010, 07:53 PM
Good luck! :)

Banjer1982
07/07/2010, 07:56 PM
Mainly a FOWLR. I only had 1 coral. It'll probably die. I have it in a holding tank for now

Jason S
07/07/2010, 08:03 PM
Any metal clamps, screws, pipes, bolts, Bobby pins, etc? The orange color could be rust.

Just a thought.

Fishamatank
07/07/2010, 08:14 PM
1 dead snail didn't do it....

MoneyGone
07/07/2010, 08:20 PM
We had a powerhead seal go bad in a tank at my work that leaked into the tank turned dark and almost everything died.

Take your powerhead out and see if it is leaking a light brown fluid. There is oil in the powerhead and it might have leaked. Left the office one night came back in the next morning and it was brown water and smelled aweful and lots of dead fish/coral.

FYI powerhead was still running when it was taken out of the tank.

outy
07/07/2010, 08:28 PM
pull everything out and wash it saltwater including the sandbed.

your tank is filled with the nasty stuff right now and it all needs to be cleaned.

As fas as a snail i dought it, 34 is small but it should have made through a snail death if the rest was healthy.

34g is suseptable to temp changes on a fast basis

equipment failure

or something large died but even then in 13 hours theres not that much decay yet.

time for you to investigate, good luck on the rebuild

b2d2t
07/07/2010, 10:26 PM
what about a cracked heater?

njdevilsfan
07/07/2010, 10:43 PM
could be the tanic acids used to stain your stand
do you think a pump or hose came unattached and hit the bottom of the top of your stand and back into the sump?

Raggamuffin
07/07/2010, 10:50 PM
sorry for your loss, and a complete redo from start sounds like the order today. Toss the sand put rock in a rubbermaid for a month... talking complete redo since you can not pin point a source. if you DO end up 100% positive you found the reason then there may be other options.

pledosophy
07/07/2010, 11:09 PM
[QUOTE=Banjer1982;17340711]Well my scenario I'm using is a snail died and caused the ammonia to spike killing almost everything. /QUOTE]

Did you have any snails the size of a volley ball?

Toddrtrex
07/08/2010, 12:19 AM
The color is really throwing me off, and I have a feeling that figuring that out will go a long ways toward finding the root cause.

About a year ago I have some stray voltage and my orange/red digi bleached out, while the tank didn't color, the skimmer sure did (( this was a 75, so it could have been diluted.
This is what the skimmer cup looked like,

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y189/toddrtrex/Fish%20stuff/skimmate.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y189/toddrtrex/Fish%20stuff/skimmate2.jpg

For reference, normal skimmate for my tank,

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y189/toddrtrex/Fish%20stuff/skimmate3.jpg

bnb180
07/08/2010, 12:47 AM
I had a similar problem b4. I came home and a majority of my corals were dying. Over 3 days, more and more coral died. My tank was full of corals and I lost over 50%. I ran carbon and did massive water changes. I had a 180 gallon tank so that was a lot of work. Never figured out what happened, until one day (months later) I rearranged my sump and found a broken heater. Sorry to hear about your lost, good luck on your new setup.

sslak
07/08/2010, 06:48 AM
My money is on broken equipment. Orange coloration sounds like rust or some other chemical reaction taking place in the tank.

Check all your heaters/pumps/powerheads, even the skimmer pump etc. Just because they are working doesn't mean they aren't leaking voltage or rust or something into the tank.

Banjer1982
07/08/2010, 07:50 PM
Thanks for all the replys. Checked my heater and it's fine. Going to check my powerhead tomorrow. If it's cracked I'm gonna ditch everything but if it's not I'm just going to rinse all my rocks and sand and replace all my water. Hopefully that should be good enough.

chrismunn
07/08/2010, 08:18 PM
anybody been spraying any cleaning chemicals in the vacinity of the tank, or even anywhere in the room that the tanks in?

how do you top off evap, manually or ato?

what, if anything, do you dose, how much and how often?

do you test for EVERYTHING that you dose?

how much rock do you have in the tank?

do you have a sump, and whats in it?

there are so many things that could've caused this, from an over dose of a single chemical, rapid floccuation of alkalinity or temprature, to accidentally and unknowingly dropping something into the tank. if your rocks were going to leach some toxicchemical into the water it would have likely done it a long time ago. a single snail dieing and rotting away in a 34g tank certainly will not cause this. do you look into your tank very often? if it were because something unknowingly died, you would have noticed changes in the tank that would have qued you off before the crash, i.e. cloudy water or anabnormally heavy and fast spreading algal bloom.

my money is on either some foreign object falling into the tank or an accidental addition of something into the tank too rapidly (namely alkalinity)... not sure about the orange color,but ide imaging that if there was enough rust in the tank to color your skimmate orange everything would probably have slowly withered away in front of your eyes long before the crash.

sorry to hear about it by the way, hope you figure it out...!

Banjer1982
07/09/2010, 07:10 AM
No one has sprayed anything in the room and I top off manually with ro water than I run. I don't dose anything cause usually my water stays in pretty good condition. I try to do a small water change once a week and a large water change once a month. I change about 5 gallons a week and 10-15 gal a month. I'm gonna pull out my powerhead here in an hour or so and check it. I have one emerald crab left. I guess he is tougher than everything else

cmoreland
07/09/2010, 07:36 AM
I hate to come off the wrong way here but you were gone for 13 hours, there is no way you could know if something didn't get dumped into your tank either accidentally or on purpose unless you had a cam on it the whole time. I've never seen orange colored skimmate, and I don't think something would cause rust that quickly. I suspect some sort of foreign fluid or susbstance.

My $.02, don't take that the wrong way, I'm not calling you or your GF a liar but something is definitely very odd about the orange color. Not normal at all. What does the skimmate smell like? You can easily tell if it's some sort of cleaning agent, oil or chemical by getting a good whiff of the stuff.

Banjer1982
07/09/2010, 09:50 AM
Cant really deceive the smell. About like curing live rock, just a bad smell. I had alot of amphipods and they leave behind an orange shell. I had them sticking to my glass and on my rocks and sand bed. Most of those are gone now as if they dissolved. That's the only explanation I can get out of the color. Because my skimmate and I have a white filter and both of those are now the same color as those shells or whatever they are. I'm about to pull out the powerhead right now so I'll update in a few to say if it's cracked and leaking or not

Banjer1982
07/09/2010, 10:03 AM
Decieve=describe. Just pulled the powerhead and it appears to be fine

chimmike
07/09/2010, 10:14 AM
Im wondering if you had a nudi or slug hitchike without know, get out and get sucked into the powerhead.

enasco
07/09/2010, 10:20 AM
Yes, that is what I did, look at my pictures "after my crash" I changed my water completely, added a polyfilter, and changed my carbon. The only thing I did different was I threw my LR's and live sand away and got new ones and new live sand as you will see in my pictures. Note this also, when it comes to water quality-->snails will hold a big change in water so if they are gone its a major concern at that present time the water quality. Also, yes the same thing happened to me when I came in the house the smelly smell like if the LR's are not cured which is a sign of fowl sea water.

So I would definitly make a complete water change, rinse the LR's (live rocks), put a new carbon even go as far as a polyfilter and wait a few days or a week than check your parameters.

Eddie

enasco
07/09/2010, 10:31 AM
When it comes to top-off water I have reservoir next to the tank in a closet high on the top shelves and it feeds by gravity RO/DI into the sump were I placed a float.

I dose ESV part I-II every morning, iodine x2 per week.

I do check for everything I dose:--)Cal, Alk, & PH, specific gravity of the water.

In my 46 gal bow tank I presently have: 89 lbs of LR.

I have a simple sump no Fuge, but plan later on to add one and I do run a skimmer, but only from the late afernoon until the following morning.

Eddie

mm949
07/09/2010, 11:25 AM
maybe someone used your fish buckets to clean somethin else?

Floowid
07/09/2010, 11:47 AM
Look at anything you added to your tank recently. I only mention this because one time I bought a rock with green mushrooms on it from my LFS. a few days after my ammonia started to spike, followed by the rest. My whole tank would have crashed until I noticed that the "rock" my mushrooms were on was breaking open. Turns out it was some sort of clam or mussle, which died in the collection process. It was a big clam and had I let it go one more day, it would have wiped out the tank. I still use the underside of that shell as a sunshade to kill off nuisance algae and the odd aitpasia.

Banjer1982
07/09/2010, 01:44 PM
I'm waiting until I have all my ro water ran and aeriated before I drain my tank then I'll check all my live well dead rock now. Should I also rinse off my bioballs. Any of those not familiar with a solana the skimmer water exits onto a polyfilter then trickles down over carbon and bioballs then to the return pump

enasco
07/09/2010, 03:07 PM
Not really what happened (I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER) I tried removing the sand bed which had been there for two years and in doing so all the toxins underneath came about causing my total wipe out.

eric@tampa
07/09/2010, 06:23 PM
Sorry about your loss,I have the same tank and left out the bioballs from the begaining was told they will become a nitrate factory...fyi.Hope to see a rebuild soon and good luck.eric

enasco
07/10/2010, 10:26 AM
Hi Eric,

I've heard that too, but in may case all the parameters were normal. What happened to me was upon disturbing the sand bed I brought up all the toxins found underneath and made the water poisonous, but everything is back to normal and I'm starting to rebuild my reef again.

Eddie

jtl2
07/10/2010, 11:18 AM
Do you live in an apartment or house? If apartment, exterminator may have paid a visit.

enasco
07/11/2010, 04:31 PM
I used Raid on the kitchen once, but have used it before and never had this problem before. I had been told this could have been that and not the disturbance of the sand bed.

Eddie

JoeRonda
07/11/2010, 04:54 PM
I would set up a LR holding tank, get that running and see if things live in there. That will eliminate the possibility of something leaching out of the rock. Then move on to the next step. And yes I would tear down everything. Sorry for your loss.