RIP 65 gallon Tank

[JeffSauer]

So I woke up this morning and everything in my tank was dead. Everything was fine last night when i went to bed, Temp was good, parameters all checked out and from what I could tell everything was fine cause I checked them before I went to bed. I had a purple tang get some ich about a month ago, I took him out, placed him in quarantine, everything cleared up and waited about a week before I put him back in there Saturday night…When I woke up this morning all my fish were completely covered in ich and everything was dead. Even killed the snails, crabs and shrimp. At that point I don’t think it was the ich, ive never seen it kill everything like that before. Any ideas?

[Kyle918]

So I woke up this morning and everything in my tank was dead. Everything was fine last night when i went to bed, Temp was good, parameters all checked out and from what I could tell everything was fine cause I checked them before I went to bed. I had a purple tang get some ich about a month ago, I took him out, placed him in quarantine, everything cleared up and waited about a week before I put him back in there Saturday night…When I woke up this morning all my fish were completely covered in ich and everything was dead. Even killed the snails, crabs and shrimp. At that point I don’t think it was the ich, ive never seen it kill everything like that before. Any ideas?

I am new to SW and actually have yet to set up a SW tank as I am still reading and saving money to do so so excuse me if I am completely wrong.

My first question is how long did you QT for? From what you wrote, it doesn't seem that you QT'd long enough. From what I've read, ich takes a minimum of 6 weeks to run its life cycle, regardless of if you can physically see it or not. 8 weeks is preferred just to be on the safer side.

The fact that all you fish had ich and were dead tells me that the ich was in its prime state when you transfered that fish back to the DT.

[sweedish15]

I cant imagine ich would kill everything in single night, including the snails. Did you have any corals, or fish only? Id assume corals would have died too if the other stuff did. Sounds to me like some major contaminant like clorine got in there, did you add some pool chemicals (to a pool obviously) or something last night before sticking your hand in your tank? Also if you have a heater in there somewhere, check it for cracks.

[discocarp]

Ich won't kill anything other than fish. If you left dead fish in there, you could get an ammonia spike to kill the snails and stuff, but no way did that happen overnight.

Regarding ich, you have to take all the fish out, treat all the fish, and leave the tank fallow for over 2 months. You can't just treat one fish and put him back in.

As to what happened to your tank, I have no idea other than it doesn't sound like just ich. If something was badly off it could have exacerbated the ich in the already stressed fish.

[GrandPa_J]

Did you test your water paramaters after the discovery? This might be of help in determining the cause. Sorry for your loss

[SSLVRNBLK]

I have never seen ich that quick... Something else is going on...

[OKDOHK]

The first thing i would look at is the heater(s). Does a controller take care of temperature? Are your heater(s) working? Alot of times if a heater goes, it tends to get stuck on, causing the temp to rise until the heater completely dies.

[JeffSauer]

As to everyones questions:
1.) Heater works great! i got home from work and unplugged everything to check and everything seems to be fine.

2.) I do my best to never put my hands in the tank even when a fish dies or something is moved (which is almost never) but when i do "have" to put my hands in the tank i make double sure that my hands are clean and wash with warm-hot water "ONLY" no soap.

3.) I know ich wont clear out a tank that quickly, i have a pretty good understanding on how to cure ich, what things work, and what things wont.

4.) the original fish that had the ich was my purple tang. I bought it from my LFS for a pretty good deal and QT it as soon as i got home. He got the usual 3 day ich and i left him in there for 6 weeks. The ich went away and stayed gone for 2 whole weeks and went ahead and put him in my DT. Everything was great for about a week and then he got ich again. As soon as i saw the spot i took him out and placed him in QT for ANOTHER month...waited a week after it went away. Placed him in the DT on Saturday and now everything is dread and covered in white fuzz.

Everyones fins were rotted away and were gone by morning if that helps. I figured fin rot but again, never seen fin rot kill that many fish that quickly.

[Kyle918]

As to everyones questions:
1.) Heater works great! i got home from work and unplugged everything to check and everything seems to be fine.

2.) I do my best to never put my hands in the tank even when a fish dies or something is moved (which is almost never) but when i do "have" to put my hands in the tank i make double sure that my hands are clean and wash with warm-hot water "ONLY" no soap.

3.) I know ich wont clear out a tank that quickly, i have a pretty good understanding on how to cure ich, what things work, and what things wont.

4.) the original fish that had the ich was my purple tang. I bought it from my LFS for a pretty good deal and QT it as soon as i got home. He got the usual 3 day ich and i left him in there for 6 weeks. The ich went away and stayed gone for 2 whole weeks and went ahead and put him in my DT. Everything was great for about a week and then he got ich again. As soon as i saw the spot i took him out and placed him in QT for ANOTHER month...waited a week after it went away. Placed him in the DT on Saturday and now everything is dread and covered in white fuzz.

Everyones fins were rotted away and were gone by morning if that helps. I figured fin rot but again, never seen fin rot kill that many fish that quickly.

That was really the only thing throwing me off is the time it took for the entire tank to be infected and die. Also, can ich even spread to all the fish in a tank that quickly?

Could it be possible that one fish had ich, you removed it, but the ich already spread to the other fish in which case QT'ing one had no effect in regards to stopping the spread?

Even still though, overnight is insanse but if everything else test fine then ich seems to be the cause, or at least part of a snowball that lead to something bigger.

[bveister]

The only killer I know of that can kill like that is red velvet which from what I understand is really hard to detect until its too late...sorry to hear about the loss :(

[discocarp]

Velvet isn't going to kill snails, crabs, and shrimp. Something else happened. No oxygen, a contaminant, catastrophic equipment failure, a huge ammonia spike... It has to be something impacting the entire system. I wouldn't be looking at any of the usual fish diseases (even though ich was obviously an additional problem).

[usmc121581]

So I woke up this morning and everything in my tank was dead. Everything was fine last night when i went to bed, Temp was good, parameters all checked out and from what I could tell everything was fine cause I checked them before I went to bed. I had a purple tang get some ich about a month ago, I took him out, placed him in quarantine, everything cleared up and waited about a week before I put him back in there Saturday night…When I woke up this morning all my fish were completely covered in ich and everything was dead. Even killed the snails, crabs and shrimp. At that point I don’t think it was the ich, ive never seen it kill everything like that before. Any ideas?

You mentioned that you checked the parameters before you went to bed, woke up and everything was gone. By some awful chance did you get any of the testing liquids in the water? It is a far cry but, i do not some of those chemicals are corrosive in nature and that is all I can think of killing everything. Try to retrace your steps from Saturday when you put the fish back in, was the tank good on sunday? I know because my tank sits in the basement there are days I dont check it. Sorry about your lose.

1. Do you have a Sump?

2. You stated you Q the tang, did you use any type of chemicals to kill the ick, most chemicals to rid of ich contain copper which will surely wipe out inverts.

[GuvNa H2o]

I don't think the "ich fish" did all this to your tank. I have heard however that marine velvet does kill off invertebrates as well and have seen it first hand. I'm not saying however that this may be the cause and unfortunately you might find out why or not....
I do however think that when you start up again to buy new equipment's or test your equipment extensively before using them in your new build. I had a buddy add a new heater to the tank and for some reason the heater electrocuted and killed almost all of his fish.
How we know this is because when we tried to put our hands in we got shocked like no other. We proceeded by unplugging and placing our fingers in the tank till we felt no more shock....and it was the heater....

Good luck mate, you should get Sherlock on the case.

[JeffSauer]

I think I figured out what happened last night. I noticed one of my smaller nems were not accounted for. I had a carpet split a couple of months ago and the smaller piece haven’t been doing very well ever sense. My guess is it finally died and got sucked up by one of my Vortechs, chopped up, cycled around and killed everything and then got skimmed out. I started to clean everything last night after I noticed the disappearance and popped open the skimmer and sure enough…nem.

[discocarp]

Yikes. That could definitely be enough to start a tank crash. Sorry for the loss but glad you at least solved the mystery.

[klwheat]

Condolences :(

[GuvNa H2o]

WOW who would of thought...