# Sudden Multiple Deaths! Please Help!



## OnePsychLynne

Please help! I am panicking. At around around 6pm my tank was fine, everybody was swimming around happy except for one mexican turbo snail that appeared to have fallen over onto his "back". I moved him next to the rock and went to lay down. At around 8:30pm, my husband woke me up and told me my tank was cloudy and my two firefish gobies were dead, my coral banded shrimp was dead, my pulsing xenia was shriveled up to nothing, and we thought all the snails and the two serpent starfish were dead. We've moved what we can get a hold of at the moment (there's a lot of live rock to work around) and the snails appear to be recovering, as do the starfish. My yellow tang has since succumbed to whatever this is and is barely hanging on in the quarantine tank with the snails and starfish. We're taking out the rock to get the rest of the inhabitants: a kole tang, two ocellaris clownfish, a pajama cardinalfish, and four green chromis. I also have a mushroom leather toadstool that doesn't appear to be affected but the polyps aren't extended. The problems that we think may have contributed are the temperature is close to 84 degrees when it's normally not over 81 or 82. And the protein skimmer wasn't working-my husband found that when he found the cloudy water-he said the impeller wasn't turning but he thinks it was running before the water got cloudy. The water parameters are: ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 5, pH may be 8.4 or 8.8-it's so hard to tell the exact number with the cards, copper 0, calcium 380, specific gravity 1.023. The tank is 150 gallons and has been set up for over a year. We do regular water changes. Does anybody have any idea what has happened? Please help.:BIGweepy:


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## Kellsindell

Wow, i'm really sorry to hear that. 

Since it's so late, more then likely you can't get to a LFS. do you have any carbon to run? also get that skimmer started asap. 

It could be the skimmer not working to aerate the tank and livestock isn't use to this, or The temp being so high, or the PH, what was the alk? and where all these taken shortly after the indecent?


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## Kellsindell

:?:


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## onefish2fish

what size tank, brand/model skimmer? any other filtration? 

what did you do to the tank earlier in the day? dosing? feeding? . . .


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## Pasfur

I need more details. What exactly is the filtration? Livestock? Every minor detail is important in this situation. 
Substrate type and depth? Recent feeding, maintenance, water changes? New additions? Anything at all would help. A long winded post of seemingly insignificant details would be helpful. A picture of the tank, a full shot, would be nice.


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## OnePsychLynne

Thank you, everybody, for your support. We do regular water changes every two weeks. We used to do them every month but the nitrates got too high and we increased the frequency of the water changes. It's hard to know where to start-this is an awful experience. 
 Kellsindell, I'm sorry, but I don't currently have a way to test the alkalinity. I did all of the testing immediately after we discovered the incident. onefish2fish, the tank is 150 gallons and has been set up for over a year. The skimmer is a ASMG II (?) and we use a standard wet/dry filter with the white/blue filter pads. My husband fed the fish some pellets early that morning before he left for work around 6am but other than that we had not done anything else to the tank. I was going to feed them before I went to bed. Pasfur, what we had for livestosk is: two horseshoe crabs, one large coral banded shrimp, five mexican turbo snails, one striped serpent starfish, one purple serpent starfish, two ocellaris clownfish, two firefish gobies, one large yellow tang, one medium kole tang, four green chromis, one pajama cardinalfish, two tiny pulsing xenia-one about 1/2 inch in diameter at the top and the other about 1 and 1/2 inched at the top, and one mushroom leather toadstool coral about 1 and 1/2 inches at the top(closed). We had a mandarin goby but she died a couple of days ago from starvation (I tried everything with her). The livestock in red have died since this occurred. I'm not sure about the horseshoes-I only saw one this morning. The substrate is Caribsea aragonite and is 2-3" deep. There is 117# of live tock. The xenia appears "melted" and has shriveled up to nothing. The mushroom is standing straight but does not have it's polyp extended. The major difference was the pH was higher than normal and the temp. I don't know if something in the tank malfunctioned and made the water toxic or could one of the animals be toxic? I've never read anything about them being toxic exept maybe the mushroom? The scariest part of all of this is what if we can't find out what it is? We won't know how to stop it from happening again. I got really attached to my fish and this is a horrible experience.


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## OnePsychLynne

Pasfur, I just realized I forgot to tell you about the algae. We have a lot of what looks like hair or filamentous algae in the tank on the live rock. We started getting it about six months ago when the nitrates got high and we haven't been able to get rid of it. We suck as much of it up as we can when we do the water changes but it comes back. We originally put the yellow tang, kole tang snails and a lawnmower blenny (he died a couple of days after we put him in there but that was a month ago) in the tank to control the algae but none of them were eating it.


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## OnePsychLynne

I found this post on WetWebMedia which I thought was interesting but I never touched the toadstool. I wonder if it felt threatened by the algae (the algae is starting to touch the toadstool)
*Sarcophyton leather toadstool (and the near death of my tank) - 04/16/06 
*Hello, 
<Hi, Leslie here with you today> 
Maybe I'm an idiot but I learned a important lesson this week, thought it would be a good idea to share this with people. 
<I doubt that . Admitting and sharing our mistakes so others can benefit from them is a very honorable gesture. Thank you! > 
I took my leather toadstool out of the tank and thought I would propagate it by cutting it in half. Well when I cut it open a massive amount of " juice " came out (no big deal) I rinsed it off with saltwater and put it back into my tank. Well within 5 minutes my fish were going nuts, my Kole tang turned so pale he was almost white and was instantly covered with spots, my Clownfish was breathing very heavy, my Bubble Tip Anemone looked completely dead and my finger leather closed completely. Needless to say I freaked out and did a quick search on Sarcophyton being toxic to fish, yup found out the extract can kill your fish in 30 minutes. I quickly went to the LFS I work at (no one that works there knew this was a deadly procedure) and picked up 15 gallons (55 gallon tank) of water and did a quick water change (and dumped the toadstool). My bubble tip immediately looked completely normal, the fish resumed breathing normally and other than an ich outbreak everything was fine the next day. Anyway just wanted to let people know that if you are going to do something like this make sure you have a really good carbon filter that moves a lot of water quickly, and I would definitely not attempt doing cutting one up in your tank. Found it interesting that everything that I read about propagating a leather said nothing about it being toxic, found out that there are actually 50 toxic chemicals in a Sarcophyton leather toadstool (after the incident of course). Like I said, maybe I'm an idiot but I just wanted to get this out there so people don't repeat my mistake. 
<You made a mistake. I know for a fact you are not the first and you will not be the last. We all make mistakes. It seems to be the theme for today’s queries. I have certainly made my fair share. An idiot most likely would not have acted as quickly as you did to resolve the problem. Your quick thinking and action hopefully saved the rest of the creatures in your tank. Fingers crossed that they recover from the ich. I don’t do any propagating myself but most of the folks I know that do use separate propagation tanks.> 
Thanks. 
<Thank you for sharing your story. Best of luck with your tank, Leslie>
Another difference is that I couldn't save my tangs-they never recovered.
My husband has checked the tank for "stray voltage" and hasn't found any-I would have thought is would have killed everything instantly anyway. The toadstool is drooping now. It's exhibited this behavior in the past with no ill effects. I'll wait and see.


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## Pasfur

I am nearly 100% certain your problem is in no way related to your toadstool. I know you are looking for answers so this all makes sense... searching for something, anything, that could possibly explain why your fish are suddenly dying after over a year of success. The truth is, you will find that almost nothing happens suddenly in the marine hobby. Most everything happens very slowly and gradually, until it hits a breaking point, and then the results appear to occur suddenly. We need to identify what has been happening gradually that caused a change to occur, which is now resulting in a disaster. This will take some brainstorming, so lets get to it.

You said you increased water changes because your Nitrates were elevating. However, you posted Nitrates of 5ppm. Was this a typo? Are the actually 5ppm? How high did they get? How long ago did you switch to more frequent water changes? How much water do you change? Do you use tap water or RO water? When was your last water change? 

I am also wondering what is causing the cloudy water. It does not sound like a bacterial bloom. Unfortunately you will have to purchase more test kits if you really want the answer. You need to test alkalinity, calcium, and phosphate. This is vital for our discussion and could immediately identify the cause of your problem.

Is there an unusual smell coming from the aquarium? The sump?

Lets start there. I will check in frequently today so this discussion can move forward at a timely pace.


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## Kellsindell

Could honestly be the horseshoe crabs doin the sand thing and causing a lot of uproar in the tank. The same thing happens when a pump falls and blows the sandbed around. I'm guessing the skimmer was stopped by the sand that was caused by the horseshoe crabs, because of the sand. many of the fish can't handle the shock of so much ammonia (especially a well cycled tank) and it killed the fish, it could have also caused your PH to fall because of lack of O2 in the system (skimmer) and your ORP could have dropped very rapidly causing stress on top of the stress they are already going through... where you certain the fish were indeed dead? and not just stressed? They can be extremly stressed and lay on the sand looking as though they are dead, when infact they are not. 

This is just a thin guess, we need far more thought on this...


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## Kellsindell

as for you green hair algae, you wounldn't get that unless you had nitrates over 5ppm. how big of waterchanges are you doing?


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## OnePsychLynne

Pasfur, Back in November my lionfish got caught in the rocks and expired. He was eight months old so a pretty good size. We were gone over the weekend and couldn't find him for two days after we came back. We think he was dead for about five days total. Anyway our nitrates were over 120ppm so we did a 50 gallon water change two days in a row and the nitrates came down to 30ppm. We had only been doing water changes once a month 10% or 15 gallons so at that point we increased to 30 gallons every two weeks. The last water change I did was March 8th, 30 gallons. We use RO water from our LFS and mix up our own saltwater with Instant Ocean salt. The only test I don't have right now is the alkalinity...the rest are ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 5, pH 8.6, copper 0, calcium 380, phosphate 0, specific gravity 1.023. We took out a piece of live rock to scrub off some of the algae and it smells king of "fishy" which is the same way it smelled before. We've already changed 45 gallons today. We were going to change 45 more gallons tomorrow but my husband wants to do it tonight. the water is not clearing up and until this incident yesterday it was crystal clear and always had been-even after my lionfish died. Incidentally, we added a small Poly Filter and it's alread changed color to either blue or green. According to the package the blue indicates copper and the green ammonia but both of the tests were 0-I don't understand where copper would come from anyway. I will try to post some pics but I don't know how much you'll be able to see.


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## OnePsychLynne

*Here are some current pics*


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## OnePsychLynne

The first picture is the main tank and shows some cloudiness. The second and third pics are color changes my live sand has attained for whatever reason. That started about four months ago (I thought maybe it was dissolved pellets the horseshoes and starfish missed). The fourth picture is what my mushroom looked like this afternoon. This morning it was standing up straight but I moved it and I thinks it's irritated with me. The fifth picture is of some hair algae? The tiny pink thing in front of it is what is left of my pulsing xenia. You could not see the algae behind it before it melted-it melted in the space of two hours yesterday. The sixth picture is a more accurate picture of the kind of algae that's been tring to take over my tank.


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## Pasfur

Your ammonia and nitrite are both zero, so we should be able to rule out a bacterial bloom. I'm still wondering why your water is cloudy. 

Calcium can precipitate when alkalinity is high and pH spikes. This creates the illusion of cloudy water. The precipitation lowers phosphates, and you have a zero phosphate in an aquarium with algae growth. This is possible, but without an alkalinity test we can only guess. You absolutely need an alkalinity test kit to run a marine aquarium long term. It is honestly the most important test you should do every week to judge the overall stability of your system.

Another possibility is something that is rarely discussed anymore, but was a huge problem in the 1980's. Back then, the term "wipeout" was the biggest fear of the marine hobbyist. The fishkeeper would go to bed with a healthy take and wake up with everything dead. This fits your story as well, because most of the time these aquariums were over a year mature when this happens. Blame was generally given to a nutrient buildup which was suddenly released from the biomedia, and was most common in systems that needed frequent water changes to combate HIGH NITRATE levels. The problem almost disappeared completely because the modern marine aquarium almost never uses biomedia. Live rock, aragonite sand, and a protein skimmer are all that is necessary, provided you have enough live rock. ( In your case, from looking at the picture, you could stand to increase your live rock by about 50%.)

I still think we need an alkalinity test result.


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## OnePsychLynne

*Devastation*

Pasfur, I have another piece of the puzzle for you (although I'd really rather not at this point). Yesterday my banded serpent star was eating and moving about the quarantine tank. Before I went to bed I noticed that the very tips of all of his arms were missing which I thought was really bizarre. I wondered if maybe the horseshoe crabs or snails were somehow responsible but they hadn't bothered him all day. I also noticed that my purple serpent star's legs were breaking (he had been attacked by an orange crab months ago and was still regenerating), which I thought was really heartbreaking since he'd already been through so much. The pictures below will show you the devastation I woke up to this morning. The banded star has completely disintegrated into a pile of pieces and the purple serpent doesn't look all that great. Whatever was in the water appears to have destroyed them from the inside out?


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## Pasfur

Ok, this is becoming a nightmare. At this point i really don't care what caused it, we have to take some quick steps to get this under control. Lets go into emergency mode and attack every possible problem.

First, we have to get your temperature down. We can run a marine tank at 84F long term. Are you still getting a reading of 84F?? If you are, buy a small fan, a "computer" fan, and clip it to the rim of your tank. Blow the fan across the light strip. This should help a lot. You may want to buy a 2nd fan and blow it on your sump. We need to get this temperature under 80F.

Next, you need to get a 2nd confirmation of your ammonia and pH. I do not believe your test kits are accurate, or perhaps it is a flaw in your testing technique.

Also, clean your hydrometer with vinegar or lemon juice. Rinse it well, and then retest your salinity.

Next, take a clean white coffee filter. Take a glass of water out of your aquarium, slowly dump it threw the filter. Does the filter change color or is there any accumulation of any kind in the filter?

Now, you need to aggressively run activated carbon for the next 12 hours of so. Buy a nice big bag, give it a good rinsing, and place it directly in the water flow. I like the Kent Marine brand.

Is the skimmer working well now? Has the sand bed been disturbed? 

Keep posting pictures. We can see more in a single picture that you can type in a thread.


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## OnePsychLynne

The temp is down to 77.1-due to the water changes I would assume. The heater we have is not capable of really heating 45 gallons of water to an optimal temp. I retested everything and got some very noticable differences this time:
Nitrate 30 (It's possible I didn't shake the last one because I was upset-I can't remember; or would stirring up the sand bed, which we've done quite a bit over the last two days, cause this to increase?)
Nitrite 0
pH 8.2 (a lot different than yesterday)
Ammonia 0.25
Copper 0
Phosphate 0
Calcium 360
Specific Gravity 1.022
Temp 77.1
The skimmer is working well now and my husband just increased the pressure so hopefully it will foam better. There was not any noticable accumulation on the coffee filter nor did it change color. We are cleaning the hydrometer with vinegar now and will retest the specific gravity. We have disturbed the sand bed a lot over the last two days. My husband created a kind of "Python" type device to clean the substrate-we don't normally clean the substrate but we aren't sure if that's where the baddies are coming from. We had a couple of emerald crabs turn belly up since yesterday but the horseshoe crabs are doing okay in the quarantine tank so far. When should we consider putting them back in the main display? There's no sand in the quarantine tank and I don't know how uncomfortable thay are or how much it stresses them out not to have sand. Please keep in mind that all of this testing was done on the water after we did the first water change but not after the second water change we did this morning, so I will have to retest in a couple of hours to tell you what everything is right now (except the temp and SG, which is real time.) My husband just shouted to me from the family room that the SG is still 1.022 (after the vinegar cleaning.)


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## Pasfur

The ammonia reading is your problem. The question is, where did it come from? It is possible that when your skimmer stopped working, and combined with the elevated temperature, it created a low oxygen environment that killed some nitrifying bacteria. 

I have very little confidence in my answer, because you have disturbed the sand bed. You should NEVER stir up the sand bed in a marine aquarium. The marine environment is very different from freshwater. You have a wide variety of bacteria living at different depths within the sand bed. Different depths have different levels of oxygen and when you mix up the sand, it causes bacteria to die. We can be confident this has occurred. It is very possible that your ammonia reading of .25ppm today is a result of bacteria dieoff within the sand bed, and was not responsible for the initial problem. 

By the way, the depth of your sand bed is exactly what you do not want. You want under 1'' or greater than 4''. Anything inbetween traps nutrients and is capable of releasing these nutrients back into the system, without the proper denitrification occuring. Your situation could easily be a result of incorrect sand depth, especially if your horseshoe crabs have been stirring the sand. 

Given that you have already disturbed the sand bed, I would take this negative situation and turn it into a positive. I suggest taking steps to fix your issues long term. First, I would fix the depth of your sand bed. You can add additional sand or syphon out sand to LESS THAN 1'' depth. I often tell people less than 1/2'' because it is vital that you truely go under 1'' depth and i'd rather be safe than sorry.

I would also take the opportunity to fix your filtration. Given that you have an ASM skimmer, it is likely that the biomedia is causing your Nitrate spikes. The ASM is an awesome skimmer, but you have no way of forcing 100% of the water thru the skimmer prior to entering the biomedia. Your sump design can allow the water to flow thru the skimmer chamber first, but not force the water to enter the skimmer prior to entering the biomedia area. I love the ASM... I am using on on my new 180.... but the design of the skimmer is most effective when live rock is the only biomedia used. As i indicated earlier, you need more live rock for this method to be reliable. I would suggest increasing your live rock structure by 50% or more and sowly removing the biomedia. I would remove 25% of the biomedia per week for the next 4 weeks.

At this point i am seeking a permanent strategy to keep this problem from reoccuring. If you follow the above advice you should see a HUGE reduction in your nitrates. This will allow the fish to develop stronger immunity to disease and should small problems occur in the future, this will help prevent them from becoming big problems.

Finally, the testing of alkalinity is vital. I keep coming back to this because i believe alkalinity to be the biggest overall measure of the systems stability. By testing alkalinity you can see into the future and prevent issues before they occur.

Oh yes, I would continue water changes to bring down the ammonia.


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## Pasfur

http://www.fishforum.com/live-rock/purple-algae-21918/page3/#post183481

This thread will explain a lot more detail about alkalinity and calcium and how to adjust properly.


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## OnePsychLynne

If I understand you correctly the reason the sandbed must be under 1" or over 4" is that under 1" there isn't an overabundance of nutrients that the bacteria can't break down and over 4" there are enough denitrifying bacteria to break down the nutrients that get trapped in the sandbed without there being a negative impact on the entire system? Please be patient with me-this is a new concept for me. Also please clarify what you mean by removing the biomedia-which biomedia. Unfortunately, the only test kit for alkalinity I could get from my LFS was a dip strip (awful, I know) and it reads somwhere between 200-300 (it's not possible to get a better reading than that-the color is supposed to be green and is actually blue so I just went with the shade). I will go to our other LFS tomorrow (they're not open today) and see if they have the kits there. The purple serpent is dead now, too. I think only one of the snails will survive. How long would you expect it to take for the tank to recover, if we continue our same regimen of changing the water every week and increase the live rock and sandbed (I don't want to decrease it because of the horseshoes)?


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## OnePsychLynne

Looking at the purple algae post reminds me that about a month ago the tips of some of that hair algae were turning purple like that...but only in a few spots, not all over the tank. One of the spots was right behind the xenia that melted.


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## Pasfur

OnePsychLynne said:


> we use a standard wet/dry filter with the white/blue filter pads.


That biofilter.


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## Pasfur

OnePsychLynne said:


> If I understand you correctly the reason the sandbed must be under 1" or over 4" is that under 1" there isn't an overabundance of nutrients that the bacteria can't break down and over 4" there are enough denitrifying bacteria to break down the nutrients that get trapped in the sandbed without there being a negative impact on the entire system?


Almost. At over 4'' there are different TYPES of bacteria in place which function in different ways. One of these are denitrifying bacteria that lower Nitrate by turning it into Nitrogen Gas, which leaves the system naturally. But yes, at under 1'' the bed remains stirred well with sand sifters and nutrients generally do not get trapped.

I am concerned that you will not be able to successfully have a 4'' sand bed with Horseshoe Crabs. Their constant stirring will prevent the proper oxygen levels from being attained deep in the bed.

I hate to say it, but I think you would be best removing the Horseshoe Crabs or staying below 1'' depth.

In the next day or so someone is going to suggest that you use light defuser (eggcrate) to separate the sand layers so that they can not be stirred by the crabs. I have seen this idea cause serious problems when used in conjunction with a deep sand bed using a PLENUM. The light defuser slows water flow down to such a serious degree that calcification can occur and the bed can bind into rock. It isn't pretty. I have no experience when the light defuser is used without a plenum.

I would expect it to take 4 to 6 weeks for the system to stabilize. Yes, I would continue doing partial water changes until ammonia is zero.

Still concerned about alkalinity. Those dip strips aren't worth much.


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## OnePsychLynne

Hopefully I will be able to give you a better reading on alkalinity tomorrow. How often do you feed your fish?


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## Pasfur

I feed several small feedings per day. You will get a lot of differing opinions on this topic.


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## OnePsychLynne

I'm having trouble with the alkalinity test I've been running. It's a Red Sea brand and the start point is blue. When it changes to purple that's the alkalinity and you use a formula to convert it from mEq to dKh. If it turns pink it's 'over dose" and you repeat the test. I've done the test three times now and each time it goes from blue to light green to orange. I've been adding one drop at a time like it says so I don't over dose by accident. I've followed the instructions exactly and I get the same number so I don't know if I'm doing something wrong or if the colors on the test card are off. Anyway I get the slight green change at .75 which equals 8.4 dKh. That's is the best i can come up with at this point. I think that's low compared to what you said in your other post (10-12)?
Also, the mushroom is still drooping but doesn't appear to be decomposing. How long would you expect it to take to recover?


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## Pasfur

Alkalinity of 8.4dkh is low, but within acceptable range. I would prefer that you keep it at 10 to 12, but many hobbyists keep it at 8 to 10. 

How are things coming along with the water? Ammonia & Nitrite? pH? 

I just realized, if you have been doing some large water changes to solve this situation, then that alkalinity has been increasing, which means it could have been much lower a few days ago. Just a thought. We may never know. But this could certainly have been an issue and allow for a rapid pH drop and rebound.

The mushroom could take a week or longer to act normal, after the water is back to normal.


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## OnePsychLynne

Actually, I just finished doing some tests and I'm not really impressed.
Nitrates-30
Ammonia-0.25
pH-8.0 maybe 8.2
Phosphates-0
Calcium-360
Nitrites-0
Copper-0
SG-1.022
Temp-78.2F
What is causing the drop in pH and how do I bring it up? I read somewhere Arm & Hammer but how much? Can I use Purple Up to boost the calcium? Is a KH test the same thing as alk? I'm sorry for the barrage of questions-if I don't ask when I'm thinking about them I'll forget!
As an aside, yesterday, after only 24 hours, the protein skimmer was half full of greenish-looking gunk which normally doesn't happen in a whole month. I emptied it and today the stuff in it is basically clear-hopefully this is a good thing. Oh, one more question-is it possible that something we didn't know we had died and caused this problem in the first place? I only ask because the ammonia is 0.25 after a 90 gallon water change. On the bright side-the water is crystal clear and the remaining fish (and one snail) seem to be doing really well.


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## Pasfur

I'm curious about the ammonia. Have you ever had a zero reading with this particular test kit?

I don't see a pH problem. 8.0 to 8.2 is not bad. Your calcium and alkalinity are both a little on the low side, so a slight adjustment to both should correct the pH. I would use a 2 part buffer to accomplish this, or Kent Marine Super Buffer DKH and Liquid Calcium. I do not recommend Baking Soda because it is just not as good of a buffer long term as a commercial grade. A good buffer will contain carbonates and bicarbonates, as well as other buffering ions, not just sodium bicarbonate.

I have never used Purple Up, but do not see a reason for you to try it at this time. Lets get the basics fixed first.

I'm happy to hear the skimmer is producing. This is a good thing. Hopefully we are starting to see some nutrient removal and will see this ammonia level settle down soon.


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