No total fish wipe. Only inverts made it.
210 gallon Dream tank
- Thread starter MichaelB
- Start date
Ayman
Supporting Member
High phosphate and I battled it for almost two years once I took that rock out everything stabled. IMO if the rock once was in a running system and dried up. “cure” with bleach soaking rock in a diluted bleach solution to remove organic matter and sterilize it. “cure” should be done after bleach in this situation. Which you are correct soaking it in saltwater, providing circulation and water changes, and monitoring water parameters to allow the rock to become stable before introducing it to the main tank in which you can mix with other live rock .
Sorry to hear that. The sad part is it happens to all of us. When it happens to me. I’m like rookie mistakes. I should have known better. Then for a long while. I’m like don’t be sloppy. Don’t be sloppy.
requiem
Supporting Member
I was under the impression inverts are much more sensitive than fish, sucks to hear all of that happened to you.
I see the vision with the all while stands and walls, hope to see this fish room thrive in the future.
Kensington Reefer
Supporting Member
I’m not a fan of any rock that did not come from the ocean
This includes any put there by humans
I do my best to only use natural reef rock
These are rock structures from @Coral reefer ?
Unless this “dry” rock was so totally encrusted and caked in dead shit there’s NO way adding a couple structures caused ammonia to spike so high it killed every fish in the tank. That’s not what happened here, unless this rock was completely covered in stuff.
This is something that can happen with a ton of die-off from live rock but not dry - I don’t buy that.
Unless this “dry” rock was so totally encrusted and caked in dead shit there’s NO way adding a couple structures caused ammonia to spike so high it killed every fish in the tank. That’s not what happened here, unless this rock was completely covered in stuff.
This is something that can happen with a ton of die-off from live rock but not dry - I don’t buy that.
MarcosD
Supporting Member
I have bought previously live dry rock before that looks fairly clean but still got an ammonia spike and tons of phosphate leaching when curing it. I personally would always cure rock before adding it to a tank with fish. Or at least add it to a separate container and let it cook for a couple of weeks just to see what comes out of it before adding it to a setup with fish.
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I agree with Derek. I don’t like to take rock out of water. Not even for a second. Die-Off occurs right away. Mini cycle to full cycle naturally happens. I just don’t think we notice it.
Could you have went sand bed to no sand bed. Or removed crushed coral substrate ?
Oh also. Bio is on all hard surfaces. When you transfer to the tub. All that bio was gone. Only bio was as on the rock. Percentage wise. Might have been low in bio.
And it produced SO much ammonia that a tank full of live rock couldn’t process it?
Just doesn’t make sense. Even if there was ammonia being produced, an established tank would easily nitrify it. I have a million huge fat tangs in my tank and feed an obscene amount. I could probably pour a liter of ammonia into my tank and it would be gone before it hit the sand.
MarcosD
Supporting Member
I don’t know what live rock he already had in the stock tank, I feel like he mentioned it somewhere in the thread, but if it was the rock he had in his 65 it seems like it was dense fake rock and never really established. I think you’re right in the sense something else happened- I think his bio load was already pushing it and then adding that dry rock didn’t help. He already had the stock tank running fine and then he added a rock and fish died. Unless a fish died from other causes and Michael didn’t catch it and it started decomposing leading to an ammonia spike
This is what I am mainly thinking too. The ammonia that killed the fish came mostly from the fish themselves - the tank just didn’t have the bio filter to handle it. I guess the dry rock didn’t help any but my guess is the fish were doomed already.
Yea no argument from me either way, just the only thing I could think of. Fish were great before adding that rock.
For all I know there could have been a sick fish. That was added. I know where the last few added came from and he had them for years. Half were fish i have for several months. Again only a possibility not anything I'm attempting to claim verse my thoughts with adding rock.
@MichaelB, this is really sad and I'm sure frustrating/demoralizing. My sympathies.
Adding a bit to @derek_SR's points, something here seems really weird. I think the questions aren't trying to disprove the original theory just in general, but if something weird happened it might be a sign the tank wouldn't be safe to add more fish to.
It sounds like what you're saying is (= meaning stayed consistent, - meaning removed, + meaning added):
The ammonia reading is hard to interpret, because depending on timing it could be:
Random thoughts:
I wouldn't focus on all that to fixate on what happened, but I would be careful to think it was just an ammonia spike without some other mitigations being done. If you assume it was just an ammonia spike and it was something else, you could be in a bigger world of hurt.
If it were me, and really the only thing that changed was I added the rock, I would:
Again, sympathies; that really sucks. The good part about having multiple tanks is at least you can continue success in the other tanks when one goes sideways. However, it is also true that given how complicated the reefing work is, it's very difficult to do all the detailed steps for safety when managing multiple tanks.
Adding a bit to @derek_SR's points, something here seems really weird. I think the questions aren't trying to disprove the original theory just in general, but if something weird happened it might be a sign the tank wouldn't be safe to add more fish to.
It sounds like what you're saying is (= meaning stayed consistent, - meaning removed, + meaning added):
- = fish/coral/inverts were all the same throughout this
- = sand bed kept throughout this
- = filtration kept the same
- =/- you removed somelive rock, but kept some
- How much did you keep?
- + you added new rock
- How much total?
- massive fish die off in a short time period
- inverts still alive
- corals?
The ammonia reading is hard to interpret, because depending on timing it could be:
- ammonia spike -> fish issues -> some die off -> vicious cycle of mass die off -> high ammonia
- something else happened -> die off of fish & some inverts & ... -> high ammonia
Random thoughts:
- Did you rinse the rock ahead of time? Including did you by any chance rinse teh rock right before adding? If rinsed, was it RO or fresh or salt?
- How much rock did you remove? Enough to majorly change the overall surface area?
- Did you stir up the sand bed while doing these changes? If so, how deep is the sand bed and how old? Sand bed stir up + reduction in bacteria population + high bio load could cause weirdness.
- Are you sure inverts weren't affected?
- No previous fish issues?
- You'd mentioned a lot of work you're doing to your place, including with all the tanks going on and painting and possibly floor rip ups.
- How were you storing this rock? Was it in a location that would've been near the other work you were doing, such that other stuff could've gotten on it and unfortunately made it into the tank?
- How closely to the time of the die off was the work you're doing in the house/area to the tank? If you pretend for a minute that it was for sure not the rock change, what else could've occurred?
- Are you sure there's no other weird things going on in the tank, eg while doing the rock change did you while-you're-at-it change anything else like filters or clean something or maybe a heater got bumped and a current is making it into the tank and ...?
I wouldn't focus on all that to fixate on what happened, but I would be careful to think it was just an ammonia spike without some other mitigations being done. If you assume it was just an ammonia spike and it was something else, you could be in a bigger world of hurt.
If it were me, and really the only thing that changed was I added the rock, I would:
- immediately rip that rock out and likely dispose of it OR plan to soak it for a very very long time and only incrementally add it to a tank with tester fish
- send out an ICP test
- [assuming no other coral or fish in the tank] do a 100% water change, vacuuming the sand bed while at it
- add the orignal rock back in after rinsing with clean saltwater. Even if just adding it to the sump
Again, sympathies; that really sucks. The good part about having multiple tanks is at least you can continue success in the other tanks when one goes sideways. However, it is also true that given how complicated the reefing work is, it's very difficult to do all the detailed steps for safety when managing multiple tanks.
Also in case it's useful, my intuition would be unless that rock really really really smelled and visually you could see a bunch of dead stuff on it OR unless you removed a ton of rock and added a ton of rock, a 200 gallon tank having ammonia spike that high from just adding some rock seems really surprising. Especially if you'd done some sort of soaking of it beforehand.
It feels to me more like something bad leached out or somehow a bacteria bloom happened. Bacteria bloom though you should see the water being really cloudy. Also that can be confusing to diagnose because a giant die-off will also later cause a bacteria bloom.
Edit: from re-reading, I see they weren't in the tank but this happened in a stock tank. That does make me think it's more likely it could've been not from adding the new rock, but from removing a ton of rock at once. My assumption is a stock tank means you don't have a sand bed or a ton of other filtration. Do you have a protein skimmer on it for extra aeration?
If all that's the case, then I do think removing a large amount of rock could cause issues. That'd mean it's not about adding the new rock, but about removing the old rock.
My logic being imagine your tank has enough bacteria across all the rock to handle all the bioload. Everything is stable. If everything is stable, then across all of the surfaces in total you have enough bacteria to handle that bioload. There's probably some extra bacteria too, but I wouldn't think there's say twice as much bacteria as is needed for the bioload. Bacteria I would think would grow to the total amount that can be fed from the bio-load.
Then let's say 50% of the rock is removed. If there's not sand or bioblocks or ... that effectively removes 50% of the bacteria from the tank. So half as much bacteria need to handle the same amount of fish, which is equivalent to having doubled the fish population in the tank all at once.
I'm not sure all that logic is accurate, and I'm not sure how much you removed, but maybe that's all plausible.
I'd still pull all the new rock out though and do the big water changes personally.
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@PizzaOven
It's a very beige color that strongly leans towards the grey spectrum. Doubtful the photos will pick it up well.
It's a very beige color that strongly leans towards the grey spectrum. Doubtful the photos will pick it up well.
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PizzaOven
Supporting Member
Looks great. I want to replace the flooring in my fish room, but I’m dreading moving all of my tanks. Hope the installation goes smoothly!
Yea never done it but saw many vidoes. So 2% less clueless.