Dead Fish...Dont know Why

Jennduhh

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Hey all,

I woke up this morning to a sad day. Both my transparent goby and my clown, along with my camel shrimp & sea hare were all dead. That being said, all of my crabs (hermit & emerald) along with my turbo snails, my tubiflex worm & conch snail are all alive & seem to be doing fine.

I can' figure out why. Everything's been going well. We're on the tail end of a small cycle because we moved to a new tank (old one cracked & wasnt repairable so was an emergency jump). The tank was near fully cycled when everything was moved. Ammonia was ar 0ppm, Nitrites were sitting .25ppm & Nitrates were sitting at 5.0ppm, which I now realize may have been the cause. PH is at 8.0.
I've been doing 10% water changes daily, along with adding Seachem Stability & Prime. I have a Corallife BioCube 16gal tank with LED lighting. It's mechanically filtered & jas bio-balls, along with activated carbon and a dry protein skimmer.

I'm fairly new to reef tanks, as I took over my boyfriends when he no longer had the time to cate for it properly. I've been managing his established tank for several years without issue until the crack. I've never started one from the ground up, so it's definitely been a learning curve & now I'm worried everything I've been told has essentially been wrong. I was reading this morning that Nitrates should NOT be over 5-20ppm depending on the inhabitants, whereas I've always been told that up to 40 was a safe level.

My first though had been they were poisoned by a thermometer that broke in the tank a few days ago, but after reading more into that, I don't believe it was the cause. The thermometer was missing a small chunk of glass from the very top, but from reading, the liquid was just alcohol & the small amount isn't toxic to fish. I did notice, however, that some water had leached into the beads in the base, so im wondering if that may have contributed? The small chunk of glass wasn't found, either, even after sifting the sand by hand, so I'm wondering if my sea hare may have eaten it, which in turn killed him & poisoned the tank.

There are so many variables that I'm truly not sure where to begin/what to lean into as the cause or what may need fixed. Clearly my Nitrite/Nitrate levels are the first step. There was a minor ammonia spike this morning, which I'm assuming is from all of the death that occurred overnight because I'm unsure of what time everything started to die. I last checked on it around 12am & didn't wake up/check on it again until about 11am.

I've since done a water change, changed my filter media, added more stability & Prime. The ammonia is back down, Nitrites/Nitrates sitting a little under where they were, but probably still not low enough.

Thoughts would be helpful. I feel horrible that I've lost all my babies at some fault of mine and can't figure out what.


Thank you all in advance!
 

TX_REEF

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I think a broken glass thermometer could cause this in such a small tank, to be honest with you. Do you do 10% daily water changes all the time or just because the thermometer broke? If the former, you can definitely do less, 10% daily really isn't necessary under normal circumstances. What's the salinity of the system? temperature?
 

Mr. Mojo Rising

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Did you move your old rock into your new tank?
Did you move your sand into the new tank, did you rinse the sand?
 
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Jennduhh

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I think a broken glass thermometer could cause this in such a small tank, to be honest with you. Do you do 10% daily water changes all the time or just because the thermometer broke? If the former, you can definitely do less, 10% daily really isn't necessary under normal circumstances. What's the salinity of the system? temperature?
I've been doing the 10% to try to speed up the initial cycling process, since it didn't get to be fully cycled before they had to be moved.
& the thermometer was what I was leaning towards most, as well.
 
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Jennduhh

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Did you move your old rock into your new tank?
Did you move your sand into the new tank, did you rinse the sand?
I did. 2 large rocks that had been in the previous tank for approximately 4 years. The sand was a mix of the sand from the original tank & supplemented with new sand to deepen the sand bed. It did get rinsed/soaked prior to adding.
 

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" I was reading this morning that Nitrates should NOT be over 5-20ppm depending on the inhabitants,"

Source please....as thats not solid advice....
 
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Jennduhh

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" I was reading this morning that Nitrates should NOT be over 5-20ppm depending on the inhabitants,"

Source please....as thats not solid advice....
Just straight up Googling lol. Googled "Safe Nitrite/Nitrate level for Marine tanks" & read through the first 6 pages or so.
Happy to know that it's false information.
Aside from here, where do you recommend to find actual factual information?
 
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Jennduhh

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Sounds like an oxygen issue if they died overnight.
Is there a way I can test the oxygen levels in the water? I've always done freshwater that needs bubblers, but have always been told that Marine tanks don't need them.
Could the oxygen have been depleted because of the alcohol in the broken thermometer?
 

FUNGI

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Is there a way I can test the oxygen levels in the water? I've always done freshwater that needs bubblers, but have always been told that Marine tanks don't need them.
Could the oxygen have been depleted because of the alcohol in the broken thermometer?
If you where running your skimmer, I highly doubt that lack of O2 was the cause.....
The broken Thermometer is now the only thing left in question.....
 

FUNGI

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Is there a way I can test the oxygen levels in the water? I've always done freshwater that needs bubblers, but have always been told that Marine tanks don't need them.
Could the oxygen have been depleted because of the alcohol in the broken thermometer?
Salifert makes a cheap O2 tester.....
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TX_REEF

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I've been doing the 10% to try to speed up the initial cycling process, since it didn't get to be fully cycled before they had to be moved.
& the thermometer was what I was leaning towards most, as well.
water changes will not speed up your cycling process, in fact it might even hinder your monitoring of the cycle since the parameters are being constantly diluted. Regarding O2, do you have surface agitation for gas exchange, or a protein skimmer? Do you have some photos or a quick video of the whole system? Posting a youtube link works best. If you want a good guide for starting a new saltwater tank, give these a read:

 

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Is there a way I can test the oxygen levels in the water? I've always done freshwater that needs bubblers, but have always been told that Marine tanks don't need them.
Could the oxygen have been depleted because of the alcohol in the broken thermometer?

I just don't see how the thermometer liquid would have done it unless that was broken during the night.
 
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Jennduhh

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I just don't see how the thermometer liquid would have done it unless that was broken during the night.
It did get broken, but it was the day prior. I woke up the day before yesterday to find the thermometer laying on the sand bed. It was the Imagitarium Glass Thermometer, but free-floating. Unsure it got broken, because the power-head wasn't running at that time. I sifted the sand to check for glass (never found the broken piece) & did a 2 gallon water change. I was concerned that my sea hare, turbos or conch snail would find the glass piece during their sifting of the sand for food. So that's where I'm at. I know sea hare deaths can "poison" entire tanks, so it's either that or the liquid from the thermometer itself, but in the case of the liquid, I would've thought that the water change, along with all of my filtration media & protein skimmer would help to have prevented any harmful affects.

I don't know. In any case, I'm super sad cos I'd had them for a little under 2 years & I'm frustrated because I have no clue what actually caused it & will probably never truly know.

Thank you all for your insight.
 
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Jennduhh

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I just don't see how the thermometer liquid would have done it unless that was broken during the night.
Forgot to add, I did find one of my 2 camel shrimp dead the same day the thermometer had broken.
 
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