Dead fish everywhere!!!

[sampsonndelila]

I caught my 6 inch fox face last night and transferred him to my QT tank. I did the drip method. I acclimated the water for almost an hour.

When I put him in the smaller tank and he laid on the bottom. Grasping for air. He was a strange color. I remember from transfers before he was kind of a drama Queen.

This morning the tank was murky the fox face buried himself under a large rock in the tank, My two clowns were dead, my mandarin goby, and my pseduchromis (sp) were all dead. Is there any way the fox face had a heart attack and released his poison.

I had a file fish two starfish and a BTA survive the event. I am pretty upset. Should I have known better?

[moe]

ouch I really feel ur pain, same sort of stuff happen to me this past weekend with a anemone and just poison everything except my clowns. Really sorry for ur lost.

[clone]

what it sound like is, when that fish was burring itself,it released a nitrate pocket,and nuked your whole tank.

[sampsonndelila]

I didn't even know that could happen.

[Bill S]

Explain a little about your "smaller tank".

It sounds a little weird... Also possible that the smaller tank was low on O2 to begin with, and you drop a 6" fish into it, that was freaking out to begin with, and O2 levels got too low. That along with disturbing a sand bed?

[sampsonndelila]

It sounds probable. The only air I have in that tank is the water from the return pump making some bubbles, it has always been enough till now. the small tank is a 29 gal bio cube. 1 inch sand bed and 30 lbs of rock or so.

[ACE]

Did all of those fish live in your QT tank?

[ErikH]

+1 for oxygen starvation. I had four tank crashes before I realized that my tanks footprint did not allow for proper air exchange at the surface of the water ONCE my mag5 return pump kicked off and would not restart without a hammer hit. Not one person could ever explain why the deaths occurred, especially when my levels were 0 where they needed to be and PH etc was all in check. I lost alot of fish that day and since then have been very aware of how fragile fish are.

[sampsonndelila]

Did all of those fish live in your QT tank?

Yes, I used their tank as an intro tank. I put everything in there when I first get them to make sure they are not sick before I introduce them to my big tank.

[Squiers007]

So you placed all of those fish in there all at once? or you had them in there one at a time as you bought them?