Tank crashed, everything's dead

[amyfisher]

I don't know what went wrong. I was out of town last week, came back on Friday... everything looked fine. When I fed the fish yesterday, they were swimming around happily eating. Then this morning my husband calls me to say everything's dead. He wasn't kidding. I sped home & broke into tears. All that work!!
My 90 gal tank has been up for about 2.5 years, 2 damsels, 1 maroon clown, 1 ocellaris & just added a yellow tang about 3-4 wks ago. The maroon clown is still klinging to life (looks like he's suffocating), so we moved him into another tank. All the other fish died, plus about a zillion worms & coepods, 5 shrimp, starfish & 2 emerald crabs. There's a few corals: 2 were added with the yellow tang - brown polyps & some sort of pink polyp-y thing with white fingers. The pink thing started "shedding" before we left a week ago & when we came back, it was dead. There's still some hermits & snails slowly moving around. The ricordia, purple gorgonian, toadstool & 2 rock anemone seem to be okay (for now).
There's some sorta brown stuff floating on top of the water too (?).. just a little bit.
I don't know what went wrong & I don't know what to do now. We removed all the dead guys but there's still one damsel that's yet to be found. Does anyone have any idea what could've happened? What should I do?

 

[ereefic1]

Sorry to hear about your tank. Ours has never crashed, so I'm not sure what I would do. There are some signs of life which is a good thing. I'd start with some water changes right away, and run some fresh carbon, changing it probably ever day for a few days, try and pull all the bad stuff out. I guess after that, monitor water conditions and try to get them stable again. Is there anything you can think of that may have cause this? Bad pump shocking the water? Chemicals in the air that could have gotten in there? Something dying, polluting the tank? I hope some more people chime in here with better knowledge of this. Good luck and keep us posted

 

[steve F]

Hi,

Sorry to here about you losses.

What were the levels at the time of the crash?

Ammonia?
Nitrates?
Ph?
Salinity?
Temp?

Also what do you dose(if anything)

Steve
_________________
meaning of recession

 

[hfmann]

Ouch!

Amy, I can't help explain what happened, only sympathize with you. Mine crashed last year when I was out of town but I know why.

What ereef says makes a lot of sense. Get everything out that's dead. Do a big water change. You'll be surpised how much survives. I thought my sand bed was really big time dead, but when I got it all back together, there were still some bristleworms and copepods. Even today, I'm seeing new life on the rocks that I hadn't seen for years.

Best of luck and keep your chin up. I'll be anxious to find out what caused it. I've been so grateful to get alot of expert help here in this forum.

Take care,
Hal
_________________
full melt hash

 

[amyfisher]

Thanks to all who symathize with me. I can only come up with 2 reasons why this happened. 1: the coral dying 2: we spray painted primer in our basement (about 4.5 cans). My tank is on the main floor, but maybe it went through the vents? That's my husband's answer anyway. He ran all tests this morning & said everything was good, the ammonia was the only thing a little off at 0.25. I've started the horrible task of syphoning the copepods out & water changes. I'll keep you posted. Thanks for the responses... keep 'em coming!

 

[ereefic1]

Paint primer sounds like the culprit. Hope all turns out well.

 

[Reefguide]

That's horrible, I'm sorry. The sparay paint IMO may have done it, although I stained (partialy, not done) my stand recently against the advice of my LFS and a few other people. I vented the room rather well with a few fans, and all went well.

Are there any children in the house or a maid maybe that may not realize how fragil aquariums are? Wouldn't be the first time that something like that happens. I caught my cleaning lady once using a windex like product on the aquarium glass after I had told her on several occations to never go near the tank. I had a heart attack.

Hope your tank reovers, Good lock and keep us posted.

 

[GSchiemer]

Thanks to all who symathize with me. I can only come up with 2 reasons why this happened. 1: the coral dying 2: we spray painted primer in our basement (about 4.5 cans). My tank is on the main floor, but maybe it went through the vents? That's my husband's answer anyway. He ran all tests this morning & said everything was good, the ammonia was the only thing a little off at 0.25. I've started the horrible task of syphoning the copepods out & water changes. I'll keep you posted. Thanks for the responses... keep 'em coming!

I was going to ask you if anyone painted in the house before you volunteered this information. My bet is on the paint fumes. Skimmers are excellent devices for mixing air (in this case polluted air) with water. A tough lesson learned unfortunately.

Now to save what's alive. Run a LOT of ACTIVATED carbon through a canister filter and do as large a water change as possible, and do this all QUICKLY. Also, remove anything that is dead or dying. You don't want to perpetuate this downward spiral. Make sure the skimmer is operational! Good luck.

Greg Schiemer

 

[hfmann]

Skimmers are excellent devices for mixing air (in this case polluted air) with water.

Wow, never thought about how efficient the skimmer would be in polluting. I'm sure going to keep that in mind next time we paint. So how does one go about protecting the tank? Turn off the skimmer and drape it?

Amy, FWIW, my crash enabled me to rethink how I had my reef setup and is enabling me to do it much better this time. I don't believe I would have gone through the work to "upgrade" had it not been for a catastrophe. Good to know what the cause was.

Take care
_________________
Mercedes W154

 

[amyfisher]

What can be done in the future to prevent such a thing from happening again? I've heard to wrap saran wrap around the tank?? Should I shut the protein skimmer off? And how long do I "protect" the tank after painting?

 

[reefNewbie]

im planning on latex painting my aquafuge. I want to take it off, leave all the water and sand in it, brush paint it real quickly, let it dry for an hour or so and hang back on tank. would this be dangerous?

 

[Anonymous]

Sorry for you loss!

When I painted my basement (where my tank was located) I just shut down the main pump, shut off the skimmer put a fan in one window and opened the other three. After the paint dried I turned the main pump back on and left the skimmer off until the next day when I could not smell the paint anymore. I did this procedure for both the primer (Kilz) and the latex paint. None of my corals or fish showed any signs of stress.

 

[wally311]

The "some sort of pink polyp-y thing with white fingers" wasn't, by any chance, some kind of sea cucumber, was it? IMO, it was the fumes, but if you threw in a cuke that was "shedding", that could also be disasterous. It sounds like you're much more aware of things than that, just thought I would ask.
Anyway, I am REALLY sorry for your (and the critters) loss. I had a tank split down the front pane of glass once while at work. Came home to find a "beached reef"!
Glad to hear that you are finding a positive from all of this, with the upgrading of the reef tank. Best of luck!