Death part III

[erikharrison]

For God's sake, I need help. Last night I moved our tank from one apartment to another. Everything was peachy. Then my glass top broke, and I had to clear out the debris. This morning I left for work, all the fish seemed just fine. I come home today for lunch to a bunch of dead fish. I have not checked my levels yet so I don't know what they are.

1.) Could my tank have had a mini spike due to the move? Anemones are fully open, as is my goniopora, which is the first thing to close up.

I turned my wet/dry off last night because I did not have the hang on attachment, just an open-ended tube. I did have my carbon packed filstar on though.

2.) I did about a 15 gallon water change (its a 47g tank) and used dechlorinated tap water. The phosphates should have been in check, but I am asking if that could cause it? My skimmer was off overnight as well.

Anyone else ever lose all of their fish in a move? The sandbed stayed intact through the move, and was not disturbed while re-introducing the water.
Any ideas before I sell everything and call it quits?

[erikharrison]

I lost my lion
foxface
humu trigger
puffer
yellow tang

[erikharrison]

anyone?

[txstateunivreefer]

id throw everything you got at it carbon a H20 change and also ck for stray currnet dump in some prime too did you forget to add it last night? i doubt it think of everything you did ive lost fish on a move being a college kid however not all of em like that after a move. if you have anything left id move em to a bucket or bin for now incase something is wrong with your display

[apedroza]

I have lost fish in the past during a move, but not all of them. Maybe the stress of the move along with excess nutrients being released from the sandbed contributed to a strong shift in your water parameters and caused your fish to croak. Just my 2cents.

[erikharrison]

Chris- I did use Prime :) That's my crutch!
Joshua- The last time that I lost my whole tank o' fish I did see that the mag5 had lost power and did not come back on, Had a funny feeling then about it, but this kida soldifies it.
Anthony- I kinda had the same feeling, but I am now leaning on Joshua's idea as well.


I feel unbelieveably bad for my fish, especially my lion. That lion was bought as a baby, sold as a juvenile to Scott, then I bought him back and Thelma held him for me, some of her fish died, mine lived, I got him back, moved, then bam. I think I will buy ugly fish that have 0 personality, that way if they die, I won't be so attached. I take such great care when I move stuff or do any tank work, as not to adversely affect my own little wonderland, so it sucks that I lost them out of sheer ignorance. There are more than a handful of intangibles in any given crash, but after this I can say that it was probably my fault for not going back to my other apartment at 3 am and getting my darn outlet for my return. Woe is me.

[LoneStar]

Oxygen, turning that sump off probably depleted it.

ditto ;)

[erikharrison]

What's funny is how much emphasis is stressed on levels etc. without particular warning as far as oxygenation goes. I have alot of flow in my tank regardless of the return. I figured they would be alright on a 20x20 foot print with a seio 820 aimed at the glass. Also my other filter was on. I heard as long as there is a little flow, they should be fine. The tank is UBER tall, so I guess it needs the wet dry to facilitate more oxygenation than what flow alone can provide. In hindsight to my last tank crash, this is a 20/20 situation.
Dang, now that I think about it more, the first time my tank was ABOUT to crash I added an airstone, and it saved my fish. I didn't even have the sump then just the filstar. Seems I have found the common denominator!
--The more you know-- (lol at the PSA)

[don-n-sa]

Yes, turned off wet dry, turned off skimmer , a 47gal stuffed full of fish. Basically you suffocated them. Sorry to sound harsh, but its what happened.

I have killed my share of fish with my errors as well...my last one...I added a powder brown to my display with an established powder blue. Bad decision. The powder blue sliced him and killed him within minutes. I felt like and idiot.

[cpreefguy]

a battery powered airstone found at walmart does wonders when moving

[erikharrison]

LoL to make light of the situation my buddy Max made a good joke. The only fish that may still be alive is my maroon clown. This is his third survival of tank crashes. Max said that he is a murderer. He is the only fish to live through them. lol.

[Bill S]

I'd agree with the above. Disturbing the sand bed & not enough flow.

[erikharrison]

its aimed at the glass on the opposite side of the tank from it. It makes for some major flow in that tank. Add in the 300 gph from the Filstar, and it is more flow than fish can handle in there, I am assuming because of the FP. It looks like a tornado effect, so mixing isn't an issue. I guess with the small footprint there needs to be the wet/dry. My very first Help post on my tank kinda shows that. All I had for flow was the filstar, and I had similar issues before the introduction of the wet/dry.

[hobogato]

small footprint and tall tank spell disaster if overstocked because of the low surface area for gas exchange - to replentish the dissolved oxygen. by turning off the skimmer and the wet dry, you limited your tanks gas exchange to just the surface on the top of the tank - probably too small for adequate gas exchange with the high biomass in the tank.

[erikharrison]

yeah, it sucks!

[erikharrison]

UPDATE!!!! :) My maroon clown is as happy as a little gurllllll. Also, my humu trigger and my puffer are still alive! The puffer may not make it, but I hope so! The humu is swimming around like normal, looking for food. I am keeping my fingers crossed for my little puffer! The salinity was off, down to 1.012, so somehow last night at 3 am when I was doing my water, something went wrong. I am gradually bringing the salinity back up to normal, so hopefully there will be some survivors!

[Texreefer]

I agree with ace 100% and am positive this is the cause and let me just ad that i was gonna say it before Ace but i was at work ;)

[thedude]

I'm confused... Do you have a double ended fixture and did the UV shielded glass pop? Tempered glass should never break with heat (as Mike said in another thread) and if you put that halide on your tank unshielded you are going to do some major damage.

Imagine sitting in a tanning bed... for 12 hours.

[Texreefer]

Now hold on a minute, since you're trying to take credit away from Ace I may point out the 4th reply to the original post?

LOL :P YEAH but you forgot to mention the lack of surface area as the root cause :D

[Texreefer]

Just giving you a hard time Ace,,,,,,, Ace was the kid in school that always had the right answer :w00t

[sharkboy]

Don't mean to hijack this thread but I am fixing to redo my sump fuge area which means I am going to disturb a lot of stuff....I have to take out about 40 lbs of live rock and roughly 75 lbs of live sand in my fuge to redesign the hole thing. Is there any thing I should do specifically to avoid a catastrophe?