3 deaths in 3 hours

[chrisrench]

I had a bit of an algae bloom in my 115 gallon tank, so saturday I go to the LFS and buy some saltwater, then go hom and start scrubbing the live rock to get off the algae. Then I use that siphon thingamajig to vacuum the sand and get some water out. I then replace only 7 gallons of water with the water I bought. I leave the tank and let everything settle. I come back about an hour later and see that my powder brown tang in dead. I take him out. Then I notice my Regal Blue tang and my purple tang are extremely discolored. I have had the regal blue for about 5 years and is very hardy. He has been with me for several moves. the purple tang I've had for about 2 years and again is very hardy. About 30 minutes later the Regal blue died. I took him out. Then I notice my yellow tang is not acting ok. He starts swimming at the top corner of the tank. I've had him for over 4 years too. Again, very hardy. 20 minutes later he dies. The purple tang is still alive and looks great. But losing all those fish, especially fish that I have had for several years was very disturbing.
I called the LFS where I bought the water and they said "our water is fine, not our fault". (What else would they say???) Anyway, I tested their water for ammonia and it checked out fine. I don't think it was thier water anyway because like I said I only changed out 7 gallons.
Any ideas?????? Could it have been somthing to do with the algae I scraped off? I find that hard to believe, but I'm stumped.

 

[razoreqx]

Sounds like "SOMETHING" toxic went into the water. Either some residual material on the sponge you scrubbed the LR with ..... or the water from the LFS.
Sorry for your loss.. Those were some great fish!

 

[chrisrench]

I thought about that, but I used the same toothbrush I always use to scrub the rock. For the life of me I just can't figure out what happened.

 

[razoreqx]

Originally posted by chrisrench
I thought about that, but I used the same toothbrush I always use to scrub the rock. For the life of me I just can't figure out what happened.
My sister learned the hard way on this exact issue.. She has two kids.. Turned out one of the kids had used a brush she used to clean the tank with for scrubing the counter sink in the kitchen with "Scrubby Bubbles"... Needless to say my sisters fish also started deing right away.....
She later found out what the girls had done..
The only other thing I can think of is you said you suctioned your substrate... How long had it been since you did this? You might have released some serious gas buildup which got your water levels out of wack.. Did you check your own levels after this happen?

 

[schneidts]

I'm so sorry to hear about your fish. You said you tested their water and it tested fine, but how does your water test? It does kind of sound like maybe something toxic went into the tank. I was thinking maybe all that scrubbing and moving released some trapped "badness" and caused a spike.

 

[a9chooch]

what do you mean u bought saltwater

 

[chrisrench]

I had about 50 pounds of live sand in the tank originally, we moved into a new home 7 weeks ago so I moved the tank then. When I moved the tank, I added another 50lbs of live sand so really it had only been about 8 weeks since all the sand had been moved. I checked the pH level it was fine. I checked amonia and salinity and it was fine.