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isaac1
01-16-2011, 05:18 PM
Hi about 2 months ago when I was working out of town I got a call from my wife telling me everything was eaither dead or dieing she described it as everything was crawling out from under the rocks and dieing I lost 2 clowns a coral buety half a dozen crabs and well over a hundred amphipods but to my supprised when I came back and finally got a chance to exam the tank I noticed all my corals were fine and doing great as well as a hermit crab that hangs out on the top of my life rock ( all my corals are placed mid to high in my tank) I have no explanation for the loss water peramiters were all within range so after doing numerous water changes and battling red slime algie for the past month I decide to take a gamble and add two chromis to the tank as a test project if any one has ever had the same thing happen or any ideas or clues to what have might caused this I will appreciate all feed back

whatcaneyedo
01-16-2011, 05:49 PM
Its hard to say without more information. Age of the system, equipment, water parameters, pictures etc would certainly help.

chris121277
01-16-2011, 05:51 PM
Sounds odd, is there any chance that there was a large temperature swing?

reefermadness
01-16-2011, 05:53 PM
Oxygen?

isaac1
01-16-2011, 06:02 PM
The tank is a 25 gallon marine land bow front I'm running a prizem hang on skimmer to hydor koralia 425 gph power heads a flu valve 205 canister filter one eheim jäger submersible water heater 100 w lights are t5 with both bulbs I have about 40 pounds of live rock 30 pounds of carab sea sand and I use coral reef brand salt my salinty is usually between 1.023 and 1.025 aminnia is 0 nitrate and nitrite are zero ph is 8.2 that's my readings for today I have frog spawn hammer corals xneia and a brain coral hopefully this can add some insight I will post a picture soon

isaac1
01-16-2011, 06:07 PM
Negitive on the tempature swing and I've never moved my rocks around I was thinking it might have been a dead spot pocket built up under the rocks but I would think if it was my corals and hermit would have died

Flash
01-16-2011, 07:06 PM
did you add any fish to your tank right before this happened?

isaac1
01-16-2011, 07:57 PM
Negitive but I did buy the two chromis and frog spawn off u yesterday lol

Flash
01-16-2011, 08:11 PM
well I know that silly!!! just askin about your other fish... a parasite that one of them was carrying?

isaac1
01-16-2011, 09:16 PM
The only thing out of the ordinary that I noticed was about a week before the coral beauty came down with ich pretty bad for about 3 days out of the blue but I've delta with ich tons of times so I don't think it was that

daniella3d
01-17-2011, 12:34 AM
could be anything.

Lack of oxygen if the tank is overcrowded

Ammonia spike

Something toxic like an anemone or a sea cucumber died or expulsed its organs.

Marine velvet (but that would not kill amphipods)

All these fish in a 25 gallons I would say lack of oxygen killed them all and then there was an ammonia spike that killed the rest. That combined with ich or maybe marine velvet.





Hi about 2 months ago when I was working out of town I got a call from my wife telling me everything was eaither dead or dieing she described it as everything was crawling out from under the rocks and dieing I lost 2 clowns a coral buety half a dozen crabs and well over a hundred amphipods but to my supprised when I came back and finally got a chance to exam the tank I noticed all my corals were fine and doing great as well as a hermit crab that hangs out on the top of my life rock ( all my corals are placed mid to high in my tank) I have no explanation for the loss water peramiters were all within range so after doing numerous water changes and battling red slime algie for the past month I decide to take a gamble and add two chromis to the tank as a test project if any one has ever had the same thing happen or any ideas or clues to what have might caused this I will appreciate all feed back

AquaticFinatic
01-17-2011, 12:44 AM
You said nitrate was zero but it couldn't have been if you was fiting red algae? :neutral:

daniella3d
01-17-2011, 04:10 AM
I have some cyano that refuse to go away and my nitrates and phosphates are always undetectible on both tests that I have. I had my water tested to be sure by some professionals and same results..undectible. Yet I do have cyano, ID by a microscope.

The cyano seem to be able to survive by making a nutriment reserve, at least from what I have read about it, so even cutting the light might not get it. It's a tough thing to get rid of sometimes.

You said nitrate was zero but it couldn't have been if you was fiting red algae? :neutral:

viperfish
01-17-2011, 01:38 PM
daniella3d is right, you can most certainly have Cyano bacteria in a system with an undetectable nitrate level. There will be nutrients in any tank and it doesn't take much to feed the cyano. If the bacteria is absorbing the DOC's before they can be skimmed or absorbed by carbon, GFO, etc then it can thrive. Vodka dosing will bring a tank to a ULN state but it will make cyano grow like wildfire. I had an outbreak a short while ago and tried everything I could thing of, at the end of the day it was Chemi Clean that cleared it up (I also pulled my biopellets and replaced with GFO but I won't be so bold at this point to say the pellets were the cause or contributor).

daniella3d
01-17-2011, 01:47 PM
Same here, I had to use chemin clean and it got rid of it in my small nano and going to do it in my 75 gallons to clear the dissolve organic.

Chemin clean work well in case of a build up of dissolved organic, wich is also my case. Makes the skimmer goes nuts for a white though but it works.


daniella3d is right, you can most certainly have Cyano bacteria in a system with an undetectable nitrate level. There will be nutrients in any tank and it doesn't take much to feed the cyano. If the bacteria is absorbing the DOC's before they can be skimmed or absorbed by carbon, GFO, etc then it can thrive. Vodka dosing will bring a tank to a ULN state but it will make cyano grow like wildfire. I had an outbreak a short while ago and tried everything I could thing of, at the end of the day it was Chemi Clean that cleared it up (I also pulled my biopellets and replaced with GFO but I won't be so bold at this point to say the pellets were the cause or contributor).