significant loss overnight

[leslie]

Here's what happened..

We have a 30 gallon with a 10 gallon sump/fuge. Yesterday we swapped two Koralia nanos for two Koralia 1's. We also removed a softball sized rock and scrubbed the algae off with a toothbrush. Same tooth brush we always use for this purpose. We then rinsed the rock in RO and put it back in the tank. That one rock was on the sand bed but we didn't kick up a storm when we removed it or replaced it.

Last night we noticed all the Xenia was shrivelly. This morning the purple fire fish a six line wrasse were dead. Xenia still shrivelly, maybe more so.

Chemicals tested this morning: Ammonia, nitrate and nitrite 0
ph 8.0 (always this, no change)
SG 1.026
Temp 77.8

Any guesses what we did to cause this? I know you're not supposed to mess with a sand bed but the maroon clown and orange watchman goby do that all the time.

 

[seedless reefer]

Your params look fine.

Our xenia gets shrivled from time to time but you are correct that it is a good indicator of something wrong.

Maybe it was just the fire fishes time and the rock cleaning is coincidence?

 

[leslie]

I would think that except we also lost a six line. Too coincidental.

 

[dannybradley]

If it was fresh r/o water, you may have killed off something in the rock, including bacteria, causing an NH3 spike over night.

 

[leslie]

Zoas and palythoas are all fine. Other fish appear normal. Will do a significant water change this morning. We're just bummed.

 

[coolsurf]

I agree with the water change. You never can go wrong with changing out some water.

 

[linda lee]

Any time you add new equipment to the tank and something dies, you might want to check for a voltage leak. Also, are these new PH's? Could there have been some kind of residue on them?

 

[leslie]

That went through my mind, too. I didn't rinse them off before putting them in the tank. I have no idea how to check for a voltage leak. When I put my hand in my tank I don't feel a zing. And yes, they were new in the box.

 

[ralph atl]

I'm guessing it was the live rock, which harbors a ton of living organisms that died when removed from the water and rinsed with fresh water.

 

[leslie]

I tested water voltage and I'm low on that. So I don't think it's the Koralias which means it's the rock. If nitrates/nitrites are ok now, are our troubles over or should we expect more losses? Shrimp and snails are all fine. Xenia still looks like crap.

 

[drnecropolis]

Xenia can be kinda tempramental at times..some days mine looks great others it looks like crap..I would retest the water and go from there..

 

[dakota9]

How big was this rock? I started out my 30g long ago by occasionally putting one uncured rock at a time in the system. Concoquintal die off from one rock should not have killed healthy fish in a 30g system......

Can you thinkof anything else? This isn't making sense......

 

[linda lee]

Could it be that adding two K-1 PH's in a 30g after using insufficient K-nanos stirred up a significant amount of debris from the rock and/or sandbed?

The LR was only the size of a softball.

 

[dakota9]

This still isn't making sense....... Something else yet unexplained or unthought of would have had to happen... You guys wash your hands before entering the tank?

The only problem with disturbing the sand bed is if its a DSB and it was significantly disturbed deep enough..... Probably not with a softball sized rock in a 30g, nor with Koralia 1's.

This was posted this a.m., I'd like to know how the tank has faired up until now.

 

[leslie]

Could I have used anitbacterial soap on my hands without rinsing thoroughly and put my hand in the tank and caused this? Could it have been lotion on my arm? I'm really stumped.

And I have much more blow from my 3's in my 70 gallon than I do from the 1's in the 30 gallon.

But we certainly did something wrong...

 

[dakota9]

hm....... when I was a newbie in freshwater fish, I removed algea from the tank with a new scrbby sponge from the kitchen, problem was, it was one of those antibacterial treated ones and all the fish died, but even that took a few days to start happening.
A healthy Six Line Wrasse is pretty hardy, it would take more than alil spike in the water to kill it.
Theres no markings on these fish? Was the wrasse covered in a slime cloud?

 

[FutureInterest]

Sorry for your loss.

I know you want answers but we can only give you theories. Mine is simply that there was a pocket of sulfur under the rock and some fish are more sensitive to that than others... Sure some of the fish move sand around but that doesn't eliminate the possibility that deeper down you might have some sulfer dioxide pockets... especially under and around rocks where sand is less likely to be disturbed for long periods of time. Since you're not reading any nitrates/nitrates/ammonia it's one of the few possibilities imo. Could also be a freak coincidence but I don't think so...

 

[leslie]

That's a rock the goby loves to dig under and he's been knocking it over for several days. Don't know how that factors in to the equation. Largest maroon clown isn't looking happy at the moment. I just don't know what to do now.

 

[jmaneyapanda]

It is defintiely that you rinsed your live rock in RODI. This shouldnt have been done. There is a lot of incidental life and bacteria on this rock that cant tolerate the osmotic shock from a freshwater dip/bath. Sorry.

 

[mvm]

jmaneyapanda;295302 wrote: It is defintiely that you rinsed your live rock in RODI. This shouldnt have been done. There is a lot of incidental life and bacteria on this rock that cant tolerate the osmotic shock from a freshwater dip/bath. Sorry.

No doubt about it. I always couple any kind of sponge cleaning, rock scrubbing with a water change and use the waste water to rinse anything I have scrubbed, cleaned.