Help! All the fish are dead...

[jmaneyapanda]

I'll express my personal opinion here. Too many people are so quick to point the finger to the "grassy knoll". Inadvertant toxins, collection illness (cyanide), or other such issues. In my experience and opinion, ammonia is one of the greatest killers of fish, especially in quaratine or unusual circumstances. There is no reason, whatsoever a tank that is 8 months old should show any nitrite. The fact that it is, says that ammonia was there, and if ammonia was there, something is not right. We can dscount this all we like, and blame the fish death on candles, cleaners, aliens, chupacabra, whatever. But sometimes you need to see the forest through the trees.

Just my thoughts, though.

 

[dakota9]

True, nitrite follows in the path of ammonia, but in all my years in the hobby (barring a medicated tank many years ago) I've never seen an established system show significant signs of ammonia, yet have seen nitrites with low level spikes due to overfeeding or presumably from dirting filters..

It's my experience that ammonia builds and drops quickly as it converts to nitrite. Its also my experience that nitrite lingers around longer, requiring more time to disapate. Being that in an established system, ammonia is fairly quickly converted to nitrite, which requires a longer time to process, I contend its possible to have higher levels of nitrite generated from significantly lower levels of ammonia.

How much over feeding, how many dead fish or how poor the circulation would you have to have to spike ammonia in an established system of that size? If this is the issue, they have significant problems that out reaches the scope of online diagnostics.

To believe that this would be caused by ammonia would be to overlook the incredible coincodence that the tank was majorly serviced within 24 hours of the die off, that the fish died in unison, and that the person in charged went completely without realizing the fish were under duress.

How odd it would be they would have died AFTER the water conditions improved.

 

[jennm]

All valid points - and I'm certainly not dismissing them, by any means.

I wouldn't rule out the toxin theory though - because an overnight die-off, particularly after a water change, often leads back to something accidentally getting in the tank.

I concur that ammonia is a huge threat in high pH - and that nitrite follows and lingers - but usually the fish show signs of stress, they don't just drop dead overnight.

Whether it was a "foreign toxin" or a naturally occurring one (ie ammonia/nitrite) - I think we all agree that it was a toxin that killed the fish - we just might not agree on what sort of toxin.

Jenn

 

[cooper9177]

I have had an anenome split and nuke a small tank, and I also had a large ritteri anenome go through a powerhead years ago and within 10 minutes all of my fish were dead except for the clowns.

 

[jmaneyapanda]

Dakota9;334792 wrote: True, nitrite follows in the path of ammonia, but in all my years in the hobby (barring a medicated tank many years ago) I've never seen an established system show significant signs of ammonia, yet have seen nitrites with low level spikes due to overfeeding or presumably from dirting filters..

It's my experience that ammonia builds and drops quickly as it converts to nitrite. Its also my experience that nitrite lingers around longer, requiring more time to disapate. Being that in an established system, ammonia is fairly quickly converted to nitrite, which requires a longer time to process, I contend its possible to have higher levels of nitrite generated from significantly lower levels of ammonia.

How much over feeding, how many dead fish or how poor the circulation would you have to have to spike ammonia in an established system of that size? If this is the issue, they have significant problems that out reaches the scope of online diagnostics.

To believe that this would be caused by ammonia would be to overlook the incredible coincodence that the tank was majorly serviced within 24 hours of the die off, that the fish died in unison, and that the person in charged went completely without realizing the fish were under duress.

How odd it would be they would have died AFTER the water conditions improved.

I dont understand this concept. If ammonia will convert quickly, it will produce the same amount of nitrite. It wont really go anywhere else, per se. So if 50 "units" of ammonia are converted quickly (using your description), it would make 50 "units" of nitrite. If the nitrobacter bacteria (which convert nitrite to nitrate) work slower and allow the nitrite to "linger", there would be a gradual accumulation of nitrite in every established tank. In the healthiest of tanks, ammonia is produced constantly, as a by product of metabolic processes. A cycled tank has suitable populations of bacteria which will convert ammonia to nitrite, and nitrite to nitrate. There is no "linger". If one of the processes isnt up to speed, then there is a breakdown in the nitrification cycle somewhere.

Im not saying the issue is oiverfeeding, dead ornamentals, or por circulation. Im saying the biofilter was damaged somehow, likely from the RO filter wash. If that was a significant part of the biofilter, that is a fatal blow. Because the biofilter wasnt able to keep up with the natural normal production of ammonia, the levels became toxic.

 

[jmaneyapanda]

JennM;334801 wrote: All valid points - and I'm certainly not dismissing them, by any means.

I wouldn't rule out the toxin theory though - because an overnight die-off, particularly after a water change, often leads back to something accidentally getting in the tank.

I concur that ammonia is a huge threat in high pH - and that nitrite follows and lingers - but usually the fish show signs of stress, they don't just drop dead overnight.

Whether it was a "foreign toxin" or a naturally occurring one (ie ammonia/nitrite) - I think we all agree that it was a toxin that killed the fish - we just might not agree on what sort of toxin.

Jenn

Agreed. It very may have been a introduced foreign toxin. Or the curse of bigfoot. Im not saying it isnt. Im just saying I read way too often that the tank crash is caused by "some" airborn toxin, or stray voltage, or a faulty heater, or whatever. I think too many people are quick to jump to anomolous conditions causing it. Anomolous conditions arent prevalent. They are anomolous.

 

[jmaneyapanda]

ares;334817 wrote: personally .5nitrite from an API test kit... Im essentially writing it off as a false reading. .5 is ussually the slightest hint of color, almost impossible to clearly tell. IMO anyway...

.5nitrite killing a fish would be unussual as well. sure, that might be .5 left from 20 yesterday, cause by who knows what. But this all seems as presumptive as anything else. and we will never really know... maybe the fish had ich for 2 weeks now and just finally died today, its not always easy to spot if your not looking for it.

Or maybe the "fresh water" for the water changes had enormous levels of ammonia:

http://www.atlantareefclub.org/forums/showthread.php?t=26058&highlight=salt+ammonia">http://www.atlantareefclub.org/forums/showthread.php?t=26058&highlight=salt+ammonia</a>

Who knows. Im just saying, dont ovverlook the only evidence we have, which is nitrite.

 

[fish scales2]

You guys all make greats points but I believe there is somethings that we are not considering yet, this would not happen to be IO salt would it? I have seen a lot of Ammonia and Nitrate issues in just the last month on several tanks. The odd thing is my IO has been showing readings of Ammonia so I have swithched to SeaChem. My clients tanks are no longer showing any signs of nitrates. Combine the ammonia in the salt water with the ammonia that could be present in the "freshwater" used in the water change could cause exactly what has taken place.

 

[jennm]

ares;334817 wrote: personally .5nitrite from an API test kit... Im essentially writing it off as a false reading. .5 is ussually the slightest hint of color, almost impossible to clearly tell. IMO anyway...

.5nitrite killing a fish would be unussual as well. sure, that might be .5 left from 20 yesterday, cause by who knows what. But this all seems as presumptive as anything else. and we will never really know... maybe the fish had ich for 2 weeks now and just finally died today, its not always easy to spot if your not looking for it.

Funny you mention API tests Take a look at my new thread in "Product Reviews".

I did not test the ammonia or nitrite kits, but I did do a little experimentation today using API tests and a control.

Jenn

 

[jennm]

I doubt very much that rinsing the canister media destroyed the biological. If there's live rock and live sand (even dry agagonite to start with, becomes populated with beneficial bacteria when the tank cycles)... IMO fooling with the canisters wasn't enough to foul up the whole system.

Now... the whole low O2 notion that was mentioned a while back, might have something to it that I didn't think about.

Canisters are IMO a poor choice for SW. They are great in planted tanks (FW)... because they keep O2 low, CO2 high, which can also help keep pH a bit low... and nutrient levels high - all things that are great for a FW planted tank.

Saltwater tanks need the opposite - more dissolved O2, higher pH...

Any saltwater not aged enough, can contain ammonia. If the water wasn't aged and/or aerated enough prior to being added, if the tank already was teetering on low O2, adding new water with either not enough oxygen, and/or trace ammonia from not being aged/aerated enough, could have caused a temporary drop in O2, and/or pH, and/or a small ammonia spike...

Usually when there's a low oxygen issue, the bigger fish go first as they require more oxygen.

Jeremy - while I agree that a lot of what I bring up is anomalous - stuff like this happens more often than you may thing (ie voltage, toxins etc). It is the exception, not the rule, but I see it a lot more than you may think... where enough Q&A reveals that somebody forgot to wash their hands (and use hand lotion - wiped out 100g reef overnight), or they had 5 plugin air fresheners in one room with a tank (yet the 120 in the basement was fine, and the 55 near the plugins had a wipe out)...

I ask these questions and consider these scenarios because I've seen them happen more frequently than I'd like to - they can and do happen.

I'm not saying that every wipe out can be attributed to those weird things, but part of investigating why is considering all kinds of possibilities.

Jenn

 

[leslie]

Wow, I was feeling bad about doing this to my son's tank. The toothbrush has been used numerous times on the rock in the tank with no negative effects. So now I have no idea what did this. The same day we added two new Koralias. Could that have been the culprit?

JennM;334764 wrote: I don't think that's enough of a disturbance either - was the toothbrush new? Flouride is deadly.

A small disturbance in the biological like that won't cause a wipe-out. Mother Nature is not that fragile. I'd lean toward toxin in this instance too.

Jenn

 

[jennm]

If the toothbrush had been used for the tank before with no ill effects it wasn't that.

(I always specify "new" or "tank specific" toothbrush because some folks reuse/recycle old toothbrushes used for brushing teeth...that won't fly with a tank)

If anything the Koralias helped, not hindered.

Jenn

 

[rtackett]

What about pH and alk?

 

[ralph atl]

Yes, there could have been a toxin that entered the system, but unlikely.

Therefore, Jeremy would be correct except I would also like to add something more to the story.

Levels of bacteria take a little time to build up, though maybe less than you think. They will remain at a level of the current food source, not more. So now you wipe out 50% by cleaning filter, you have all this ammonia being made with no place to go. If you have a good solid system of sand & live rock, the bacteria will start to expand quickly. 30 minutes to 4 hours maybe. As this level starts to increase, Ammonia is still being made, and now nitrite is being made. Some with start to convert to Nitrates now, but too much time has elapsed for the fish at this point. The other thing that happens is oxygen depletion. The bacteria that break down are aerobic, meaning they consume and bind oxygen during their processing. The more waste in a tank, the more bacteria feeding on it. These bacteria can use up too much O2 and you have dead fish. By the next day, you have everything normal again.

 

[dannybradley]

JennM;334852 wrote:
Canisters are IMO a poor choice for SW. They are great in planted tanks (FW)... because they keep O2 low, CO2 high, which can also help keep pH a bit low... and nutrient levels high - all things that are great for a FW planted tank.

It's off subject, but I have to call out how very wrong your are there. It's a common misconception that low O2 means high CO2. They are not exclusive of each other. In addition to that, plants only consume CO2 during the day to create food for growth at night. At night, they release CO2 while consuming oxygen to burn their stored food for growth. Keeping low O2 in a planted tank is asking for a midnight disaster. You can bubble CO2 in and still have plenty of O2 in the water for the fish.

Finally, a low pH is not beneficial to many plants. For example, pretty much all Cryptocoryne sp. thrive in 7.5, yet only grow moderatly well in acidic water.

JennM;334852 wrote: I doubt very much that rinsing the canister media destroyed the biological.

Aerobic bacteria grows where you find the most oxygen. This is where you have the most water movement, which in this case, sounds like the canister filters. That style of filter coupled with no powerheads assures the vast majority of nitrifying bacteria lives inside. Also, the media is specifically designed to have a huge surface area to house the bacteria, live rock just happens to have a pretty decent surface area, but not equal to man made biological media.

 

[jmaneyapanda]

JennM;334852 wrote: I doubt very much that rinsing the canister media destroyed the biological. If there's live rock and live sand (even dry agagonite to start with, becomes populated with beneficial bacteria when the tank cycles)... IMO fooling with the canisters wasn't enough to foul up the whole system.

Now... the whole low O2 notion that was mentioned a while back, might have something to it that I didn't think about.

Canisters are IMO a poor choice for SW. They are great in planted tanks (FW)... because they keep O2 low, CO2 high, which can also help keep pH a bit low... and nutrient levels high - all things that are great for a FW planted tank.

Saltwater tanks need the opposite - more dissolved O2, higher pH...

Any saltwater not aged enough, can contain ammonia. If the water wasn't aged and/or aerated enough prior to being added, if the tank already was teetering on low O2, adding new water with either not enough oxygen, and/or trace ammonia from not being aged/aerated enough, could have caused a temporary drop in O2, and/or pH, and/or a small ammonia spike...

Usually when there's a low oxygen issue, the bigger fish go first as they require more oxygen.

Jeremy - while I agree that a lot of what I bring up is anomalous - stuff like this happens more often than you may thing (ie voltage, toxins etc). It is the exception, not the rule, but I see it a lot more than you may think... where enough Q&A reveals that somebody forgot to wash their hands (and use hand lotion - wiped out 100g reef overnight), or they had 5 plugin air fresheners in one room with a tank (yet the 120 in the basement was fine, and the 55 near the plugins had a wipe out)...

I ask these questions and consider these scenarios because I've seen them happen more frequently than I'd like to - they can and do happen.

I'm not saying that every wipe out can be attributed to those weird things, but part of investigating why is considering all kinds of possibilities.

Jenn

We'll have to professionally agree to disagree. Or, death match brawl it out.:tongue2:

Personally, I think its a red herring to implicate generalized "toxins" to cause generalized "death". Particularly in an acute case. Certainly there are househol chemicals which are toxic, however, I think we are not discussing this. For example, bleach lye, pesticides, etc, might cause a reaction like described, but obviously thats different than what we are talking about. Chemicals that may passively enter the tank may cause a reactive event, such as destructioon of the biofilter, or swinging pH, etc. But how does residual soap, lotion, etc, suddenly, and acutely kill fish? Sure, its bad for them, but how would a trace amount of this do this. Again, if we were talking about squeezing a container of lotion into the tank, that would be one thing, but we are talking are trace amounts that incidentally enter the water column, yes? And do not effect water chemistries, as far as we can tell. To me, that is too coincidental and un proven.

However, lets be honest, we are all speculating, as we dont have a clue.

 

[dakota9]

JennM;334852 wrote: I doubt very much that rinsing the canister media destroyed the biological. If there's live rock and live sand (even dry agagonite to start with, becomes populated with beneficial bacteria when the tank cycles)... IMO fooling with the canisters wasn't enough to foul up the whole system.Jenn

I agree!

I was recently at a member's house while she cleaned the filter of her 8gal nano. She just pulled the huge sponge out of the sump area (sponge dims were appr. 5"x 3"x 12" and the primary filteration of that 8gal system) and rinsed it under the tap, squeezed it out well, and returned it to the sump. So not only has she killed the biological matter on that filter but to some degree, introduced chlorine into the system. Her 8gal nano hasn't crashed because of this, and apparently, its done semi-regularly at the least. While i'm not saying that practice is optimum, it doesn't seem to be causing harm.

Too many times we hear that someone just maintanced their tank, and somthing like this happens. I wonder if it could be something as simple as RO water still containing chlorine. A bad membrane you assume is still good could allow chlorine to enter your tank, kill your fish and disapate within 24hrs. I buy my water from wally world usually, but since it typically runs at 1 to 2 ppm TDS, I go ahead and treat the water with alil dechlorinator anyway, just to be on the safe side (and out of habit from back when I used tap). I's say this would be a healthy habit for anyone since most dechlorinators also nueterlize ammonia, negating the whole IO/Ammonia issue........... More people should practice this.

I'm curious as to the condition of the living corals in the tank. Are they still open or have they gone dormant (as typically they will do after an event such as this)?

 

[dakota9]

Chemicals that may passively enter the tank may cause a reactive event, such as destructioon of the biofilter, or swinging pH, etc. But how does residual soap, lotion, etc, suddenly, and acutely kill fish? Sure, its bad for them, but how would a trace amount of this do this. Again, if we were talking about squeezing a container of lotion into the tank, that would be one thing, but we are talking are trace amounts that incidentally enter the water column, yes? quote]


Trace amounts of Irukandji jellyfish venom can kill a 200 pound man.....

Whose to say what unkown substances could kill a fish? We all know how sensitive ocean fauna is to copper.

Whose to say?

 

[dannybradley]

Dakota9;334912 wrote: I was recently at a member's house while she cleaned the filter of her 8gal nano. She just pulled the huge sponge out of the sump area (sponge dims were appr. 5"x 3"x 12" and the primary filteration of that 8gal system) and rinsed it under the tap, squeezed it out well, and returned it to the sump.

In every nano system I've seen, there's a bag of biological media after the sponge to serve the purpose of keeping a culture of bacteria alive inside the filter should you kill what's living on the sponge.

 

[jennm]

If the simple action of rinsing a filter pad/sponge/cartridge (insert media here) under the faucet could cause a wipeout, I'd have at least 40 maintenance tanks and countless hundreds (YES, hundreds) of customers in a constant state of wipeout.

In the oops-induced wipeouts I have seen - caused by lotion etc., the water tested just fine (all parameters within acceptable numbers, and consistent with other recent tests of the same water - no sudden changes). If it happened overnight and they come to me with a water sample the next morning, I find it hard to fathom that enough ammonia/nitrite could have come and GONE in ~12 hours or less to wipe out an entire tank of fish, and parameters return to zero by the time I get a sample.

Of course there are all kinds of other "what ifs" that we can't test for without sending it to a lab (and who does that?)

We can debate this til we're blue in the face - I think we've all made our points. We all have valid points, many possibilities - but in reality we may not know.

As a precaution, in the OP's circumstance, I would likely do another 20% water change or so, add a polyfilter which can pull a variety of nasties including ammonia, heavy metals and other potential risky compounds, wait a while and then after testing again, cautiously begin adding fish again.

Jenn