Need an expert, please help????

[lwkimbley]

My fish have all died!!!! I have a 125 gallon US tank with I have a modified seaclone 150, DSB 4", 225 lbs of fiji rock, 20 gallon refuge with macro algae, second reuge 15 gallons with 20 red mangroves. I use Kalkwasser for top off and a 2 parter Alkalinity and Calcium. I have 6 mushrooms, 2 small zoos, and one medium red carpet anemone. My dead fish
1- 3" yellow tang
1-female maroon clown 4"
1- male gold stripe maroon clown 2"
1- 2" perc
2- yellow face gobys
2-orange tail damsels
4-chromis

Test
ammonia 0ppm
nitrite 0ppm
nitrate 0ppm
PH 8.4
Alk 5
calcium 400
mag 1000
The weird thing was the fish started darting through the tank very fast. Heavy breathing, No color abnormalities, allso jerking. They also would lay in the tank then slowly start darting around tank. My biggest notice was they died by bottom dwellers first and top dwellers last? Were they poisoned. I have had kids and wife clean glass with glass cleaner too.

[lwkimbley]

Then placed 4 chromis in the tank after water change. after 2 days they did the same thing the other fish same behavior? To me it sounds like a heavy metal contamination. Right now I use a PUR water filter to filter tap water, test for chlorine, none usually present. If so treat it with a chlorine remover. My city water uses chlorine not chloramines.

[Ninong]

Sorry to hear of your problems. That's truly sad.

I'm sure you have already eliminated the possibility of an electrical problem, right?

Any possibility that one of the kids dropped something in the tank? Copper coins for example? Or what about cleaning fluid of some sort?

You have to be careful with glass cleaner. You can't use Windex or anything that contains ammonia. But if you had a problem with ammonia that was bad enough to kill your fish, it would register on your test.

If it were a problem with copper pennies, you would have noticed inverts dying first long before the fish. All of the polychaete worms in your sand bed would have come up to the surface and died. You should probably test for copper just to be sure.

P.S. -- We don't have any experts here, we're all strictly amateurs but we try to be helpful anyway.

[lwkimbley]

Is this the worms you are talking about?

[Ninong]

Is this the worms you are talking about?

Yes, bristleworms are polychaete worms. Actually I meant any of your sand bed infauna, but especially any wormy critters. They are much more sensitive to copper than fish so they would expire at much lower copper concentrations. If you actually do have a problem with copper that is severe enough to cause the death of your fish, then you really have a major problem on your hands.

Purchase a copper test kit and perform a test for copper.

[lwkimbley]

I wonder if my LFS will test for copper. They are usually pretty good about this stuff! I will check? Yea my bristle worms died first, then morms that were living in the rock died, then my snails lastly my red and blue legged crabs dies. Lastly the fish!

[Ninong]

I wonder if my LFS will test for copper. They are usually pretty good about this stuff! I will check? Yea my bristle worms died first, then morms that were living in the rock died, then my snails lastly my red and blue legged crabs dies. Lastly the fish!

Have you talked to your family to see if anybody knows anything about something possibly getting dropped into the tank by accident?

[samsreef]

In the past I setup a 35 gallon tank and one of the stock came with marine velvet desease (of course i didnt know until it set in!)

In a night all my fish died apart from 1 which I freshed water bathed and moved to a different system (has been fine since).

I waited a 2 weeks with no fish (because it cant live without a host) but when I got another fish (very hardy tomato clown) it died within the week after atempting to remove it from the tank and put it in our other system (after a fresh water bath).

That could be what happened, it is known to kill fish over night and symptons are heavy breathing and darting around. No reef-safe medicine (as far as I know) is known to be completely effective. It is a nightmare for every fish only & reef keeper!

(Of course i'm not saying it was marine velvet you will need to do some more research to make sure!)

[Ninong]

That could be what happened, it is known to kill fish over night and symptons are heavy breathing and darting around. No reef-safe medicine (as far as I know) is known to be completely effective. It is a nightmare for every fish only & reef keeper!

(Of course i'm not saying it was marine velvet you will need to do some more research to make sure!)

We have already ruled out Amyloodinium ocellatum (marine velvet) and all other parasites that affect only fish because everything in his tank died, not just the fish.

[samsreef]

Good Point! Sorry about that...
(What a blonker, I said it needed a host as well!!! )

[lwkimbley]

how did you get rid of Marine Velvet disease?

[lwkimbley]

I will have the LFS test my water. I read that the disaese you are talking about is treated with copper. I suspect that I had a copper poisoning or Marine Velvet Disease. Does this disease kill leathers too?

[Ninong]

I will have the LFS test my water. I read that the disaese you are talking about is treated with copper. I suspect that I had a copper poisoning or Marine Velvet Disease. Does this disease kill leathers too?

No, we already ruled out both Marine Velvet (Amyloodinium ocellatum) and Marine Ich (Cryptocaryon irritans) because both of those are caused by parasites that infect fish only. A. ocellatum has a life cycle similar to C. irritans except that it is much faster at completing its cycle.

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/BODY_VM004

Leathers are known to be very sensitive to toxic aluminum. If anyone dropped a piece of aluminum in your aquarium, that could cause problems over time that would show up first in your leathers dying. However, copper is still a more likely candidate in your particular situation.

[samsreef]

Yes sorry about that! I also think it wouldn't be Marine Velvet now since your inverts died as well! (sorry)

But just for your information, we didn't get rid of Marine Velvet, I had to start again! We tried a reef safe medicine which worked while we used it but once we stopped it everything got 100% worse again.

(The only things that survied was the snail and hermit crab!)

[Ninong]

But just for your information, we didn't get rid of Marine Velvet, I had to start again! We tried a reef safe medicine which worked while we used it but once we stopped it everything got 100% worse again.

AFAIK there are no "medicines" that are both effective and safe for use in a reef tank. There are quite a few that claim to be both effective and safe but that's just advertising hype. Some are effective against the free-swimming stage or the stage attached to the host fish but not against the resting cyst stage. In order to get rid of either marine velvet or marine ich, you must remove ALL of the fish from the aquarium to a separate hospital tank for treatment while allowing the aquarium to go fallow (fishless) for about a month to six weeks.

Robert Fenner discusses both of these parasites here: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/parasiti.htm

Terry B. covers marine ich in a series of five articles:
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issu...2003/mini1.htm
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issu...2003/mini2.htm
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issu...2004/mini3.htm
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issu...2004/mini4.htm
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issu...2004/mini5.htm