Got home to white haze and all snails dead!!

[pjhaddock]

OK, I dont even know where to start. I got home today from work with a slight white haze in the water. Got to looing around and noticed that there were no snails on the glass or rocks anywhere. All the snails had their foot out, but were upside down or not moving on the bottom, DEAD! EVERY snail in the tank, hundreds of them, all of them in the sump dead too. All the fish seem ok and the corals seem ok, however can tell that something is not right, the GSP's have something on them and are retracted, but other than that everything else seems ok. The shrimp are not moving around much, but the fish are very active still... The water has a strange odor to it, kind of a weird fishy smell and a whitish film on the surface of the water in the sump. The pumps seem to be OK.. Any ideas where to even start???????????????/ Thanks!

I have not dosed ANYTHING in the past week other than dripping the kalk like usual, I fed Mysis shrimp last night which I do one a week or so.

Philip

[Freed]

Are you dosing kalkwasser? Too much calcium in the water and alkalinity too high? What are your water parameters?

[Freed]

I would check the calcium levels and the alk levels. You may be experiencing a calcium/alkalinity snow storm if those levels are too high.

[sage1970]

I would think that a water change would help...along with picking out anything that is dead already.

Bummer of a deal!

[pjhaddock]

OK, here are the results of all tests.

Ca 415
KH 2.9 (lower than usual, usually ~3.5)
Mg 1440
Temp 81
PH 8.1
Amonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
PO4 .5 (higher than usual, usually less than .25)

What a mess, working on water changes now, guess I need to dig in and try to take out all the hundreds of tiny dead snails too. Oh, also, all the hermits seem ok so far as well. so the ONLY thing to die was EVERY snail.

[pjhaddock]

I just finished a 30 gallon change so far from the sump and took out most of the snails that I could get to. I started a mix of 30 more gallons of water but cant change that until much later tonight or tomorrow. Anyone have any ideas what the heck might have happened or is going on??

[slojmn]

I would hold tight with the 30g change, maybe run some carbon in case some sort of pollutant got into the tank. Give it a couple of days before doing another water change as long as everything that is still kicking looks good. Test your params in the morning and evening for the next week or so just to stay on top of these numbers. You may even want ot test for nitrites and ammonia with the loss of so many snails. The water change should help that situation for now. Weird. I jumped right on the alk/calcium snow storm situation but your numbers look good. Salinity??? You may also want to check all pumps, could something have leached in from a faulty pump??? did a heater burn up/melt??? just some random thoughts. What a bummer, sorry for your losses :(

[mr pink floyd]

maybe a penny fell in??
wouldnt cause cloudyness, but would kill inverts

[pjhaddock]

I only have a Mag7 (return) a Sedra 5000 (skimmer) and a Reeflo Dart (closed loop) I checked all pumps and did not smell anything and they looked fine (still a possibility though) BUT the one time I did have a pump burn up it smelled alot different than this and left the water a dark color and oily feeling (in a water change can thank god, and thanks RIO lol). This smelled like dead fish almost, but not quite. The salinity was high at ~37 when I checked before the water change tonight. I just changed the carbon out last week, so I will change it out tomorrow when I get home from work just to make sure (its cheap ya know). I guess my phosban is all used up though since the phosphates were up, need to change it out too. Thank goodness my losses so far have only been a bunch of snails. On that note, weird but after the water change and circulating for an hour or so, a FEW of the snails starting moving again in the bucket I put them in. We will see what is going on in the morning and tomorrow night. Thanks all....