Nearly Everything Died Over Night

[juliear74]

Thank you all so much for your help and suggestions. I really appreciate your feedback and will follow your suggestions.

[justahobby]

I agree w/ eveyrone else, but curious what water source are you using? There's been pipe repairs locally since the last flood. I came home a few days ago to find I had to flush my faucets. Just a thought.

[juliear74]

Hi Justahobby - gosh I didn't think about the water issues. We have purification system in the house and use that for our aquariums - but the main is from saws.

[ErikH]

Smell your live rock. If it stinks, it's not cured!

The PH of your water, temp, salinity, and oxygen levels in your water change water may not have matched, and a sudden swing could have also caused the losses. Sorry for your losses!

[ramsey]

Hi Justahobby - gosh I didn't think about the water issues. We have purification system in the house and use that for our aquariums - but the main is from saws.

You may want to make sure it's not hooked up to any copper lines (outgoing from the RO unit). Copper's toxic. Also, you may want to buy a cheap TDS meter and check your TDS though this is not likely why things died. If I had to guess, I'd say the tank's not cycled. Let your live rock cure for about a month or two then add a cleanup crew (make sure ammonia, nitrites are 0 and nitrates are low <5ppm, 0 is better). Don't worry about brown stuff on the sand or algae, it will go away and it's actually a good sign. After having your cleanup crew for a few weeks, as long as everything is doing good, add a coral or two. Then a few weeks later, a fish. See what I'm getting at? The slower you go with this hobby, the better. If you don't believe me, look at Justin's signature.

Sorry for your loss though and look at it as a learning experience.

[Bill S]

I agree with all of the above. As ramsey said, you should re-think your water souce at some point in time, but that's not your problem. You should NEVER have detectable amounts of ammonia in your tank. If you do, there are other problems. And throwing a product at it is just a bandaid.

Like others have said, almost all of us have been through the same thing before - there is something about this hobby and people wanting to rush things.

Since everything has died, I'd just let the tank sit for a while. Check out your water supply, and unless you are using an RO/DI system, you might want to think about changing your water source.