All fish are gone... investigation is ongoing!!!

My inverts and corals are just fine, so it is something specifically with the fish, so I am going to try this and see what happens. At least 10 different corals including zoas, frogspawn, hammer, acan, green star polyps, and some SPS. Lots of snails, a Cleaner Shrimp and crabs also. They are all actually thriving which is what has us stumped!

Thanks!

It's not really possible in my line of work, so I am forced into intense cleaning and a GOT (GLOVE ONLY TANK!!)

I am working on that right after the water changes, no sense in dosing before then. I realized I was reading my kit wrong after I last tested. STUPID!!! Ya I wasn't too happy about that. DKH of 11 minimum is coming!

All I noticed on the fish was ick. With my coral and inverts doing well, I'm not suspecting nh3 or no2 but I still have to test for them. I have a nh3 test kit from Elos but I don't have a major in chemistry so I can't figure it out

 

bmshe...nice catch-up there!

 

I can only type so fast!! To reiterate, the biggest thing that is stumping us is the fact coral/inverts are thriving, fish are dying!!

 

what kind of substrate and rocks were you using? how old was this tank? oh and from what I read, you just ran a filter then last resort hooked up the ps? what kind of food and how often...sorry to keep adding... I'm thinking

 

Sand only, 40 lbs. Fiji live rock 45 lbs. base rock, 1 year old on 1/3, and yes, hooked up the protein skimmer thinking it might be dissolved organics or something. Flake food, very small amount every other day, target feeding baby brine shrimp to corals once a week at most. Put a peice of broccoli in for the tang and FF.

 

Did you wash that broccoli? Did you grow it yourself? Maybe pesticides/fertilizers, that wouldn't bother the inverts, since they mostly eat crap anyway.... and I think with that many fish, I'd run a ps all the time...was there a reason why did you not want to use yours?

 

The skimmer is actually borrowed it isn't mine. I was getting along fine without one so I never worried about it. Some people have luck without one, I just finally decided I wanted to rule out that possibility. I did rinse the broccoli very well with rodi water, plus some fish died before I put the 1st peice in anyways. Not all those fish were in there at the same time, the most at one time was the tang, ff and clown. With those 3 I was keeping a close watch on my nitrates.

 

are you going to get a skimmer? full time? cool about rinsing....hmmm....... how high were they?(nitrates?) what kind of salt did you use? what kind of heater? was this tank brand new when you bought it?

 

i don't know if you covered this yet BM but have you been putting your bare hands in the tank? any protection? I really don't think harsh chemicals could be getting into the water column without affecting the coralites in some way...

 

Sorry to hear about your fish losses.

I'm wondering if most of the contamination isn't directly from your fingers to the food. If that's the case the fish would be consuming it drectly and no amount of carbon would help. That would also be an explanation why the corals are unaffected. You'll need to wear gloves while feeding too unless you shake the flake in.