Death everywhere....

[JeremyGlen]

Ok. I woke up this morning to a tank of death. Well, it was just all 3 of my fish and my cleaner shrimp. They were all alive when I went to bed and now there is half of one fish that has not been consumed, I think since I cannot find the bodies of the other two fish. I'm trying to figure out what would kill only the fish, who were not sick at all, and one shrimp. All my snails, crabs, starfish, etc. are still alive and my corals look just as healthy as before.

The only thing I can come up with is a bad cube of food? I fed the fish last night and basically everything that ate the food died. I fed a cube of small frozen mysis from a pack I've been using for a couple of weeks now. Other than the food, I have not added anything other than my success calk, which has been going on for a few months now.We had a party here last night, but if something was poured in or spilt in my sump, everything would be looking bad and dying.

Could an electrical surge kill just the fish and nothing else? My computer got a surge last night that turned it off and the tank is on the same breaker as the computer. I would think that an electrical surge that could kill the fish would blow out my controller, which has surge protection in it.

The worst part is the clowns that died were the first fish I got when I started my first tank 3 years ago. They have survived 4 moves and many different emergencies so its like a pet died, not just a fish I've had for a couple of months, like my wrasse. Please help with some possible causes.I need some thoughts on the matter. I'm stumped.

Also, before anyone says anything, I'm going to test my water, even though I doubt anything will be wrong with it. It has been 2 weeks since my last water change. My nitrates barely ever register and the water is "perfect" all the time.

[betiuminside]

Jeremy,

I am sorry to hear all this...

* Shrimp- Maybe he changed his skin and is totally hiding... if not... that is VERY WEIRD!
* Fish- I had some fish disappear as well before, 1 of them I had NO CLUE! What happened to him, the others I found them in the sump. Which it was amazing... I had to move everything around IN the sump... and POW!! There it is...

So my recommendation is to look around your tank, or in your sump or pipes. Please find them, otherwise you will have a very bad ammonia spike that not even your cleaning crew or skimmer will save you. In other words, I prefer to move everything around than them die on me IN the tank.

Good luck!

[JeremyGlen]

The shrimp is dead. I watched the bristleworms and crabs pulling out its insides. It just died.

As for the fish, I haven't seen them in the sump yet, but I have found a fish down there before. The side with my skimmer is quite open and I would be able to find them quickly there. The other side of the sump is filled to about 3" below the surface with LR rubble w/ cheato above the rock, kinda hard to hide in there. The overflow I have is kind of hard to get into unless they both decided to jump in the corner of the tank and happen to land in the overflow.

I suspect they are eaten or under the rock being eaten. I am going to watch my ammonia very closely and I have 10g of water ready for a water change if I need one immediately. So far, the ammonia is still at 0. We'll see what happens in the next day or so.

I really do think that something in the food or something the food came in contact with in the 10 min it was thawing out killed the fish and shrimp.

[rocketeer]

Wow, tough break. Sorry to hear it.

Jack

[urban79]

make me not want to feed my fish cube food...

Sorry bro...

[JeremyGlen]

I'm not taking it that bad. Its sad, but I can get fish I really want. I'm going to make the best of it and get something cool.

[cpreefguy]

thats a good attitude to have :)
I always get really discouraged when anything like this happens

[cpreefguy]

Also, if it were the food, its likely that your starfish and crabs/snails would be dead too because they would of had to have had eaten some of the leftovers.

[scuba_steveo]

what are the tank levels?

[JeremyGlen]

I checked everything yesterday evening and it was all "perfect".

Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate undetectable
Temp stays between 77.9 and 81 all the time
SG 1.024

I'll check them again today, but I doubt anything has changed. All of the dead bodies are gone now and everything looks normal, except no fish swimming around.

[matt]

Your theory about the bad food is plausible to me, although I have never heard of anything like that. The only other possible explanation I can come up with is a nasty parasite or fish disease that came up out of nowhere. But, I know it's likely you would have seen some evidence of sick fish before they all died. Just to be safe, you might want to leave your tank fish-free for a month to be sure all traces of any possible parasite have disappeared. This is a tough one, sorry!

[scuba_steveo]

If you had dead fish in there for a while and your ammonia is still at zero then I would be surprised.

[Richard]

Did your pumps turn off? The things you lost (fish & cleaner shrimp) are heavy respirators and would die before the corals and other inverts if your oxygen levels dropped real low. Just one possibility...

[JeremyGlen]

The clean up crew had the clown and shrimp that were visible completely eaten in a matter of 4 or 5 hours. I've tested everday and have yet to detect any amonia at all.

The pumps would have only been off for a couple of hours. I've had the pumps shut off for a short time like that without anything dying. If the power had gone off, the clocks and stuff around the house would have been off. Everything was normal when I woke up Sunday morning.

My friend keeps saying that he thinks it was an electrical surge that killed them, but I just don't believe it. The electricity would have killed all my shrimp and other clean up crew too, wouldn't it?

[JeremyGlen]

Ok. It has now been over a week since all my fish died. I have yet to see even the smallest rise in amonia or anything.

The only thing I have noticed is a considerable rise in the amount of skimmate that is coming out of my skimmer. It fills up to about an inch deep in a week where it used to take like 3 weeks to get. Not really sure why it is doing this, but I guess its good?