Everything Died!!!

[theak_kid]

This message is for anyone who can shed any light on why everything in my tank died in the last 24 hrs.
First of all I am completely bummed out! I had received and order yesterday consisting of a bunch of cleaners for a 70-100gal tank- including emerald crabs, red and blue hermits, snails, cleaner clams, banded coral shrimp, and for free I received a pink tip haitian anemone. These were added to an 80 gal tank with tons of flourishing live rock, green button polyps and mushroom corals. I only had a few starter fish including maroon clowns and some others I can't remember the names of. Everything was doing great!
I received the order and everything was fine- looked great- as it usually is from these guys. I acclimated everything the way it is described on the info page for each species- and everything seemed to adapt well for the first 12 hours. I went to bed at Midnight after admiring me new sea creatures and things looked perfect. I was psyched!
I went down this morning to check on everything, and I noticed the water in the tank was cloudy. Then as I got closer I noticed that everything in the tank was dead- EVERYTHING! I don't know why and I would love some help! I am going to check the water conditions but everything was perfect yesterday. What could have caused this!?

 

[earlybird]

Need a few things from you first. All parameters of your tank and any other info from livestock to age of tank.

 

[perfectdark]

Ditto... without this information there is no way to tell what happened. Need specifics too, to often people report with tank water is good. That is much to vague of an answer to accept and omit as a possible suspect to what happened. Get specific readings on Amonia, nitrate, nitrite, pH, alkalinity, Salinity, and temp. Along with size of tank # of live rock, substrate type, set up time and duration, filtration, and any live stock past or present. Also how did you cycle the tank...

 

[theak_kid]

I understand your points and I will work on getting all that info today. My point, however, is that I had a flourishing tank prior to adding the new order, and some 8 hours after adding the new species- everything died- everything I had in there before and all the new species. This is what is unexplainable. I could understand if my levels where way off to begin with but like I said, everything in my tank prior to the new order was fine. Tank is 1 year old. 80 Gal half round tank. VHO lighting, 60+ lbs. of fiji live rock Water temp 80-82. I'll post more info on water conditions later as I get them.

 

[perfectdark]

I am extremly interested in your anemone and how it looked prior to adding it to your tank.
If you had fish that were alive prior to adding these items to your tank... then IMO your anemone was close if not already dead when you added it.. This would be where your issue started, if not found anemones decay extremly fast and seeing as though no fish eat them, they release a lot of amonia. Of course the % of amonia to water can only be gauged at how big the anem was compared to your tank. But IMO if it was big enough then it could of indeed poisioned your whole tank.
Just a guess but I missed it the first time around and after re-reading I believe your anemone is to blame for your misfortune...

 

[teen]

my bet is the anemone got sucked into a powerhead or something. those anemones are nothing but trouble IMO. especially in a new tank.

 

[t316]

What was the "quantity" of this cleaning crew (snails, crabs, etc) and did they do a lot of stirring up the sand the first 12 hrs?

 

[hocky]

Originally Posted by teen
my bet is the anemone got sucked into a powerhead or something. those anemones are nothing but trouble IMO. especially in a new tank.
That was my first thought.

 

[saltn00b]

agreed with the other posts, you need to post up these other details to really understand the whole story.
did you acclimate these animals? how?
what did you have in the tank before hand? just inverts? for how long? when did you cycle the tank?
+1 on the anenome. i hate the SWF even offers them {hatian pink tips} as free give aways as so many people choose them and they are just not good animals for aquaria.

 

[teen]

Originally Posted by T316
What was the "quantity" of this cleaning crew (snails, crabs, etc) and did they do a lot of stirring up the sand the first 12 hrs?
theres no way a clean up crew could stir up a sand bed enough to cause a tank crash. ive had powerheads fall over and devestate my sand bed and not a thing happened.

 

[t316]

You are right. I was trying to figure out the "cloudy water". The anemone is definately able to do this, but if it got sucked thru a powerhead or something, then THEAK_KID should be able to tell, even if it is dead.

 

[theak_kid]

Hey guys I want to thank you all for your interest in my post. The anemone did not get sucked up. It was about 2 inches round when I received it and after a half hour of temperature acclimation I placed it on a section of live rock. It then blossomed and expanded to about 5 inches. There are a few crusteaceans alive- mostly blue legged hermits. All others died including the turbo snails. It looks like the anemone might still be alive but the pink body underwhich the tenticles come from has enlarged and no tenticles are visible... defense mechanism? Needless to say- I am sure that the amonia levels at this point are through the roof- but I can't check until I get home. Understand I am baffled. As for the cloudy water- everything in the tank is status quo in terms of the powerhead, filter and protein skimmer- no changes there. I don't know what caused the cloudy water, but it was crystal last night. Please refer to my earlier posts for other aquaria I had in the tank.

 

[theak_kid]

tank was cycled about a year ago. I had only maroon clowns and damsels for fish. Green button polyps, mushroom coral, and the live rock was flourishing with life! The only thing I added yesterday was zooaplex coral food but only a couple caps in 75 gals.

 

[theak_kid]

The anemone did not get sucked up. It was about 2 inches round when I received it and after a half hour of temperature acclimation I placed it on a section of live rock. It then blossomed and expanded to about 5 inches.

 

[dborne3]

Well I don't know too much in this hobby yet but i do know a little - I don't think that temp. acclimating an anemone for a half hour is good. I would think that drip acclimating instead of just temp. acclimating them for a few hours would be the correct method.
But Im not sure of this - just saying

 

[ophiura]

in particular, when you do params, what is your ph, alk, calcium and specific gravity.

 

[saltwaterfish.com]

Any chance that some toxicity could have entered the tank? Any puffers? Could any of the existing fish died and been decomposing under the rocks?

 

[ophiura]

Did you turn on/off any powerheads/filters or knock heater during your intro process? Was the tank running properly when you looked this morning?

 

[ophiura]

How often do you test water and do water changes?
There are points to some of these questions, BTW. In particular, I am interested in your pH and alk.
If your alk was low, and you dramatically increased bioload, you can tank your pH...and that can result in death and cloudy water.
So can not having circulation all back on, or temperature spike and such.
Did you wash your hands before putting them in the tank? Have lotion or soap on? Do any cleaning near the tank? Use a bucket that may have been used for something else?

 

[perfectdark]

It looks like the anemone might still be alive but the pink body underwhich the tenticles come from has enlarged and no tenticles are visible...
defense mechanism? NO

I am still thinking this is your anemone and it is dead... could be due to not acclimating properly or water chemistry is off.
Yours sounds like it is looking like its inside out, not a good sign. Pics are definatly going to help here and so are all your water perameters.