A dying question?

[shimmy]

Ok so last night after hours when my tank should have been sleeping I was up and about. I looked into my tank to see the my fish because i think they are assum, but what i found was the to the most of my surprise. they were all on the bottem DYEING so I freaked out then pulled my self to try to save them. I setup a quick tank out of my bathroom tub and moved them all into it.
the dying question comes from none of them survived.
I tested the tank for everything i have a test for and found nothing wrong.

list of things done yesterday to the tank.
water change
aquascaping


list of lost life.
1 X FoxFace
2 X Clowns
1 X Coral banded shrimp
1 X Emerald Crab
1 X Sally lightfoot
1 X Anthia

What im trying to figure out is what i did wrong to my tank?
What caused them all to die?
Any ideas would be great im afraid to add new fish intill i maybe find out what went wrong.

[whatcaneyedo]

Is it possible that you released an ammonia pocket or some H2S by aquascaping? Detail how you set up for an performed the water change. I have nuked a tank before with a bad water change... Could you also detail your system for us. What equipment do you run, what are your water parameters, how old is the tank etc.

[shimmy]

ok my tank is a 72 gallon and been setup for about 2-3 months (I think maybe less)
ok for the water change I remove 2 pails (3 gallons a pail i think) of water and then add 3 buckets over the course of several hours. I always remove the water first the add fresh. I float the new buckets of water in my tank to get them up to proper temp to insure I do not send a cold or hot wave through my tank (reason it takes several hours to do a change) I perform a water change every couple days for I dont have enough time in the day to do the 25%. I always match the salt close to the tank or slightly lower depending on the current salt of the tank.

break down
remove water
fill bucket with fresh
add salt
add chemicals as needed (i.e. Prime)
mix and check again
float in tank to get to even temp
dump bucket slowly into tank.

Water change was done early in the morning finished around noonish

my tank is filtered using a Fluval 304.
I use a 300W heater to maintain temperature(never turns on for between my condo and the lights its hot... 83 F)
I use a powerhead I cant recall the maker but its a 1600L/hr

nothing new has been added to my tank since sunday.

only my hermit crabs are still alive but dont look good
all my corals look good

any other questions?

[toxic111]

one thing I would do is get a pail or 2 set-up to mix your water the day before the water change, use a powerhead & heater... once a tank is set-up and stable, a 10% water change will be enough weekly.

Also it sounds like your tank was really new for that much stock...

Sorry for the losses it can be hard to lose that much that quickly.

[Stevey87]

This happened to me one time when my tank was about your age. Everything is fine and one day I wake up and most are dead or breathing heavily on the bottom. The day before, I added a pump and a wavemaker but I think that's just a coincidence. They were one of the hardiest fishes you can get. That never happened to me since then.

[shimmy]

I can understand adding new stuff shocking the system but nothing has been added and even being a new system should something not spike or change for water quallity? I just dont understand on why everything was good all day everyone was happy then just to fall over.

I am not afraid of the cost or the time or the hurt feelings im afraid to add new fish for nothing desrvers to die that has not hurt me.

[shimmy]

Originally Posted by Stevey87

This happened to me one time when my tank was about your age. Everything is fine and one day I wake up and most are dead or breathing heavily on the bottom. The day before, I added a pump and a wavemaker but I think that's just a coincidence. They were one of the hardiest fishes you can get. That never happened to me since then.

did you ever find out what coused them to do so for thats sounds a lot like what was happining to me.

[Stevey87]

I didn't add fish for another month at least I think. It's not because I was afraid or anything, I just didn't feel like it. I still don't know why it happened like that.

[shimmy]

Originally Posted by Stevey87

I didn't add fish for another month at least I think. It's not because I was afraid or anything, I just didn't feel like it. I still don't know why it happened like that.

did you ever test your water?

[Stevey87]

My water was ok. No ammonia or nitrite. Nitrate didn't seem too high either and I doubt that all changed in one night. For me it wasn't the water.