Unexplained deaths

[kmmahan]

I just woke up and my purple tang, Midas blenny, coral banded shrimp and maybe more are dead-- two of my anemones are detached-- my pumps are on-- my temp is okay-- my nitrates, ammonia, nitrites, nitrites are 0-- my p.H is at 8.0-- a little low- but should not be the cause of this-- my wrasse is lying on a rock and he looks like he's breathing hard-- last night everyone was fine-- Yesterday I fed them a cube of brine shrimp and phytoplankton-- At night I fed the tank a little bit of cyclopeeze--I also added 5/16ths of oyster eggs-- I added about 20 lbs. of live sand last week-- I have been doing water changes every week-- this is unexplainable-- My maroon clown and my pajama cardinal are alive-- I am going to do a water change right now-- but I don't understand . . . I have a very small elegance coral that I have had for about 4 months-- he was fine until I knocked him over last week-- They are very delicate so of course he is forming this web stuff-- It has been a week-- I didn't take the elegance out because it hasn't started to recede and it opens up everyday-- Another thing that I just thought of is I bought a pretty good size long tentacle plate coral last week-- When I got home he pretty much tripled in size-- I know they can release toxins but can it hurt the fish? I thought it would hurt the coral-- My Xenia's, brain, candy cane's, gorgonians, star polyps, deep sea yellow, carnation, bubble coral, long tentacle plate, red mushrooms, and rhodactis are fine-- they are all out-- all snails, hermits, starfish, and feather dusters appear to be fine-- somebody please help-- the wrasse may have been sleeping b/c he is swimming around fine now-- I have had a problem with my bulb anemone's looking all weird-- the LFS said he feeds his white fish from the market (tilapia) -- I have fed my tank creatures tilapia a few times--- I will be looking out for your responses--

[kmmahan]

salinity 1.025-- should I test for anything else?

[dakar]

That totally sucks rocks!

Sounds like some sort of parasite running rampant. Are there spots or discolorations on any of the fish?

As for as testing goes, I'd run every test you have, gather as much information as possible so we can see as much of the picture as possible. Is your skimmer acting normal, not pulling any strange colored or excessive skimmate?

[Reptoreef]

I am at a loss... describe the appearance of your fish over the last few days. As of now, Dakar's thoughts make the most sense.

[kmmahan]

The fish have been very healthy-- no spots-- beautiful colors-- especially my purple tang-- voracious appetites-- It is crazy-- I was up until 3 am watching movies-- I checked the tank before going to bed-- I woke up about 10 am-- and fish were dead-- the last thing I did to the tank was turn off the skimmer and feed the tank cyclopeeze and oyster eggs-- I turned off the skimmer because that's what the directions suggest-- but I have been doing that for awhile now-- The skimmer has some mucky algae on the return flow part-- and of course the cup is like half filled with brown water stuff that I assume is the protein-- I like to feed the coral at night because the brain and bubble have their tentacles out-- ahhhh-- my anemones reattached but now they are unattached again-- can a parasite affect them? What causes anemones to unattach? Can turning the skimmer off for a period of time cause problems for my fish? Can the sick elegance cause problems for my fish? I just took the elegance out-- my experience with them is that once they start to go they usually don't make a come back-- I know the purple tang was starting to pick at it-- but not any of the other fish --

[kmmahan]

Umm-- I checked the calcium -- it's at 400-- can calcium levels be too high? Also-- I can take pics but I have trouble uploading them b/c it says the file is too large-- any suggestions on how to reduce the file size of a pic? I am very very sad . . .

[dakar]

Shutting down the skimmer when feeding cyclopeeze is a good thing, otherwise they tend to go crazy and overflow, doubt that has anything to do with it.

Your Calcium level is just fine, from what I've gathered levels > 480ppm is the trouble range. So long as your alk is high enough to support it your fine there.

Without any visable signs of parasites or disease I'd suspect whatever you fed last night... perhaps the oysters were spoiled or tainted in some way? Doesn't make a lot of sense though since most critters feast on decaying fish and stuff.

As far as the pics go you just need to reduce the size down a bit, think I set the max to 600 pixels square. There is an image resizer applicaton on the Navigation Bar over there <-------- though now that I think about it I haven't re-tested it since moving the board to it's present host... guess I'd better do that. There are several programs out there that can do it for you, freeware/shareware, many included with digital cameras too...so no need to spend big bucks on something like Photoshop. But if push comes to shove you can email them to Reef_Angel or myself and we'll happily resize and shoot them back to you.

[jerryc]

You mite wont to look at your CO2 with the fish lode you have it can possible
get to low .
Don't no but just a thought.

[kmmahan]

How can I check CO2 levels? How can I improve CO2 levels?

[kmmahan]

So what I am looking at is spontaneous death between 4 am and 10 am-- can low CO2 or bad filtration (stupid canister filter-proquatics 2400) or anything else like that cause the death of two seemingly healthy fish and a huge coral banded shrimp whom I've had from the very beginning?-- How can I tell if my fish food is bad? Oyster eggs are expensive- but I will chunk them if there is any possibility that it poisoned my babies-- It seems like they were poisoned or something-- what other kind of parasites are there that could kill off fish so fast? I have some pics of my fish that I took two days ago-- I will try and resize them and submit them right now--