[Reinhold]

I don't know what happened, but after a year of stability (no lost corals or fish) I've had a wipe-out in my tank.

It seems to have started after my Blue Linkia died. I soon lost my Torch and Pagoda corals. My Purple Tang and large Brittle Star died, and I got a huge outbreak of hair algae. My parameters did not change at all.

My Yellow Damsel looks sick, and my Orange Sponge has started to die.

Can a starfish poison a tank like a cucumber can when it dies?

I have been doing water changes every day for the past 5 days. Any suggestions or ideas?

[Northman_with_reef]

Filter trough active carbon and tweak your skimmer.

That should help

I think the organic poulution produced in your tank are killing of the sensitive corals, wich makes you redox go low, and kills of even more corals.

Kinda sucks....

Keep om doing the water changes and your tank will probably go back to normal.

Thomas

[eses]

If anything large dies it can putrify the tank if allowed to decay unnoticed. Which is kind of easy with a star fish as it might have taken you a couple days to realize it was dead.

Keep doing water changes. Are you sure your parameters are correct? Have you checked your nitrates/ammonia?

Also make sure nothing has died underneath your rocks or where you can't see it, you'll want to get anything dead out of the water and keep doing your water changes. You also might want to run some carbon in the system in case something toxic was released into the water.

When you say it started when your Linkia died, did you notice it was dead and very soon after other things started to die? Did it get a chance to decompose, or did you catch it soon after it died? You could have something else going on. If you noticed the star fish was fine one day, and dead the next morning I doubt it would have cause the crash.. It would be more like the first symptom as star fish tend to be more sensitive than everything else to water changes.

Anything change outside the tank? Like, did you just spray for fleas or anything toxic near the tank?

Sorry and good luck.

[organicreefer]

is all youre equipment functioning properly?
ime,you dont get a total wipeout of corals and fish with no changes in parameters,maybe one or the other due to some disease or something, but not both.
i think youre tank is somehow "polluted",or the parameters are way out of range in some way.jmo

[David]

I have to agree with OR and eses, both fish and corals in a sudden and massive whipeout and water parameters are normal? Too weird. Did someone clean around tank (floor?) with ammonia based product? Do you have grounding probe? Maybe a piece of equipment has gone bad and transient voltage is leaking into tank. I'm thinking this may be environmental rather than chemical, check everything.

[Reinhold]

Thanks for all of the suggestions. I now have a growth of Red Slime algae too. I keep pulling dead snails out of the tank daily. My parameters remain normal, except Nitrates are now 20.

I've been doing daily water changes. My Remora Pro skimmer is pulling out the usual amount of dark, smelly skimmate. I'm running a full canister of Reef Carbon in a Magnum 350 filter 24/7.

The blue Linkia was dead perhaps two days before I noticed it. It smelled pretty bad when I took it out.

My Leathers, Mushrooms, Open Brains, Anchor and Crocea clam are all doing well. The battle continues.

[eses]

I hate making guesses and assumptions, but I would assume your star died causing an ammonia spike which turned and killed the snails, which took everything on a downward spiral.

Stars are pretty big, so I could see them producing alot of ammonia in a short period of time. I had a scooter blennie die off in my tank, *somewhere* but I never found it...but I had lingering ammonia (.25ppm before calculation) for weeks afterward.

Sounds like your getting results with doing the water changes then, I would keep that up as long as it is working.

[FishDaddy]

Reinhold,
Man, I'm sorry that happened!!
Had that happen to me about 2-1/2 yrs. ago, caused by a large Turbo dying and putrefying in the rocks where it went unnoticed til things started going south. When something like that dies, it seems to set of a domino effect as the most sensitive inverts or fish go next, further adding to the Ammonia in the tank.
The others have pretty well covered the course of treatment with major water changes; increased surface agitation for oxygen exchange; cut back on lights and feeding; and carbon.

Hope everything stabilizes and gets back to normal soon.
Dick

[scubadude]

I hate hearing that word CRASH! I feel for ya bro! I think everyone has all basics covered here on advice...skimmer kept clean and goin full throttle and multiple small (10%-20%) w/c's often, I think carbon is a good idea too I hope it gets better!

[Reinhold]

I think you got it FishDaddy. I am having a hard time keeping up with the removal of dead snails. I'm sure some have died in places I can't reach or see.

It seems that things have stabilized somewhat. I am treating the tank now for Red Slime algae.