Fish dying/dead - Heavy Breathing - Need Help

[apex82]

What a f'n day.... Just set up brand new aquarium controller and new wavemaker pumps YESTERDAY to prevent a tank crash!! Woke up this morning to 9 out of 10 fish lying on sides, breathing heavy and on their death bed.

Specs- 75g w 30gsump, refugium,euroreef skimmer

First checked temp, 78, then parameters, everything fine, no ammonia or nitrates, good alk,calc, phosp and ph. No power outage during the night and 2500 gph flow agitating surface so no issues there...

All sps doing fine, as well as hammer good, frogspawn good but pulsing xenia and kenya tree of all corals are dark grey, withered and basically dead. All inverts are fine as well, as far as I can tell. Cleaner shrimps still cruising around acting normal as all the snails and crabs.

At this point I see my coral beauty(fav. fish) go upside down and drift across the tank... bad f'n morning to say the least. I did an immediate 30 gallon water change( All I had mixed up) and got another 30 gallons mixing. During this time I ended up flooding the laundry room with about 10gallons of water from a hose missing bucket (FML).

As I write this... I moved my blue throat trigger and 1 chromis to a 10 gallon tank with fresh mixed saltwater with air pump and heater. They were dying anyways might as well try something. The rest are in main display still breathing heavy... however the clowns and lawnmower blenny seem to be doing a little better.

I need some help in diagnosing the main issue at hand...

What could affect every fish in less than 10 hours causing them to breath heavy and die with no physical damage or marks. I think this weeds out almost all parasites and bacterial infections? There is no evidence of any velvet, bubbles in gills, inflamed gills etc.


The only thing was changed the day prior was two new powerheads(very similar to the ones being replaced),reefkeeper lite with the temp probe in the tank and a top off of freshwater with a little dechlorinator added before I hit the sack.

The only scenario I can think of is some type of contamination of the water via extra chlorine in water system due to excessive rain when I did the top off or my wife was cleaning bathrooms with Tilex a few rooms away and it drifted into tank via air...? I am lost...

At this point coral beauty and 1 chromis are dead. Ones that are breathing heavy and most likely wont make it:
Flame Hawk
Blue throat trigger
Butterflyfish(forgot name)
Ignitus Anthias
2 x chromis
Spotted dragonette

Sorry for the rant it has just been one of those days... What should I do...? Just do another 30g change in the morning and hope for the best?

[christyf5]

Dechlorinator?? how much did you put in? That stuff is terrible. You can't just let your water sit for 24 hours prior to a waterchange?

edit: I bet its the Tilex. That is some noxious ****. You shouldn't have that anywhere in the house let alone close to the tank. I sprayed febreze in my hubbys hockey gear then zipped up the bag and it was in the same room as the tank. I lost a bunch of stuff the next day. Never again. No chemicals near the tank!! God, Tilex is enough to knock a human out let alone a fish tank!

[PoonTang]

Only think I can think of is keep up with the waterchange and as much flow as possible. Sounds like an oxygen problem more than a poisioning if the inverts are still good.

[PoonTang]

...or what she said

[apex82]

Ya I always let the saltwater sit for 24 hours before a change... however I just needed to add a little freshwater top off and did not let that sit for longer than a minute with some dechlorinator added.

[christyf5]

1. no dechlorinator for sw tanks. period.
2. no tilex in the house. get something more environmentally friendly or close the door and run the bathroom exhaust fan for at least an hour. that stuff is nasty

[Aquattro]

With that kind of flow, it's not going to be a O2 issue. I'll vote for the tilex as well. Carbon won't hurt either.

[mws]

I didn't have to read the entire post, I know what is the problem
The only thing was changed the day prior was two new powerheads

Lost an coral beauty angel overnight and both tangs was hiding and gasping for air in a morning. All I did is added a new powerhead and I washed it under warm water. After searching the net and coming across reefers with same problem, this is got to be the coating on them.
Now I run all the pumps and powerheads in a bucket of warm water and vinegar for a few days, before they go in a tank. Keep changing the water in a bucket, the first change will have a oily film on top.

As for now do a water change in a tank, rest of my fish was back to normal with in two days.

[apex82]

Wow... thanks for that. I didn't even wash them with water before putting them in. I checked manual and nothing was mentioned, so I went for it. I guess at this point I am wondering if I should remove them and replace with the koralia 3's? Or the damage has been done and just let it work itself out and do another big wc tomorrow morning?

So no more Tilex(wife actually went to bed at 7pm with migraine after using it), no dechlorinator and wash anything plastic with water and vinegar before placing in your tank.

[es355lucille]

The lady that cleans our home office used tilex all the time, and the floor cleaner stuff was just as bad! Never had anything happen with the tank though....good thing......but we have since changed the cleaning products to vinegar and water.....that other crap was killing me!!! (asthmatic) so it can't be good for a any tank.

Thats sure a nice to know about the pumps....I have brought pumps home and stuck them in the tank without thinking there might be an oil product or whatever on them!

Originally Posted by apex82

So no more Tilex(wife actually went to bed at 7pm with migraine after using it), no dechlorinator and wash anything plastic with water and vinegar before placing in your tank.