Came Home and Everything is Dead!!!

[rickzter]

Nobody said trash the rock. You need to reseed it. You will have to add a healthy rock in there to help seed the now base rock. We are not all gloom and doom, it's a reality and you must accept it. Dont trash the rock but you do have to re-cycle. Everything seems fine and dandy, but you will have another pest algae outbreak. Keep on the water changes, that's good, you might just prevent it from losing it's cycle. But, I do encourage you to clean the rock and sand. Just my opinion, it's your tank.

[reiple]

Yes it does matter something survived.

I had a 90 gallon tank crash in the same manner. All corals were dead and so were most of the fish except for one damsel.

I didnt "do it over again" as many would suggest. While many of the rock inhabitants died, many residing within the anearobic innards of the rock will survive and will aid rebuilding. With live rock the superficial inhabitants will be killed but those (worms, crabs, etc) living in the inner rock will survive, unless it was weeks before you try recovery.

This also means you will have to test until things normalize. Waiting until things are normal is naturally a move any aquarist would do, hence i don't think it necessary to state it.

[lmajor32]

I am not pointing the finger at anyone, in fact, I appreciate the input from everyone. However, some of the suggestins seem a bit extreme in this instance. I assume the rock must be doing fine if it was able to drop all the reading (along with water changes) down to normal levels, from extremely high, in just a couple days.

I am getting a brown algae bloom similar to what I had before, but it seems to already be cycling itself out. I helped it by brushing it off the rocks and sand. I got some crabs and a few snails to help clean the tank and they seem fine.

I think I dodged the proverbial bullet.

[Monacle]

Hello. I am new to this site, but I have a little insight to your situation. The brown algae bloom will go away, you can try and help, or you can let it do its thing. I suggest the latter since its going to do its thing anyway. After the brown algae goes away the tank will appear clear and you will probably think all is well. Then a green algae bloom will probably happen. Let this stuff do it's thing as well. It will go away too. When it is gone your tank will be back to full readiness and you can go back to purchasing things for it. I would not scrap your liverock or your live sand. I would not purchase new live rock or new live sand. With good lighting and good water quality, I would guess that your liverock will bounce back quite well. Make no mistake, it will probably take a while. But time is free, no? Hope all goes well and good luck to you.

[Blade_Runner]

Unfortunately, I went through something similar a while back in my office tank. It was a FOWLER at the time and I lost everything.

I simply removed all the deal material/fish that was obvious. Pulled the rock and lightly scrubbed it in Salt water buckets. As long as I had the rock out, I stirred up the sand real good and did a 50% water change. I let the tank run empty for 6 weeks with another big water change at 4 weeks with more stirring of the sand and started over. Aside from the loss, no big deal.

Every thing has been OK since. At least as far as the rock and sand go...

[tropicaladdiction]

toss sand, bleach & cure recure rock, sanatize tank .. fastest and safest approach .. gL

[lmajor32]

thanks for the reply. No offense, really, but I got the same response from some others and I have to say that it is about the worst advice one could get. The only reason I make this reply is that it might happen to someone else out there and if they take this advice they will ruin and kill hundreds or more worth of rock, sand etc. Just do a huge water change and get all teh dead stuff you can out. Then let it run, and do a couple more regular water changes. My tank was back to normal (readings) within days. I even put my first coral in it a couple weeks later that are still doing well in my tank a year later.

[Jason McKenzie]

Originally Posted by tropicaladdiction

toss sand, bleach & cure recure rock, sanatize tank .. fastest and safest approach .. gL

In my mind this is not necessary. There has been no evidence of any outside chemical or organism that caused the deaths. I agree with other that say lack of O2 was the cause and then a build up of Nitrite and ammonia that caused the rest. That would mean the rock is fine and not polluted.

All you need to do it take your time and recycle the tank.

J

[Purple Tang 511]

So sorry to hear bout that :-( It's happened to me only for a day or so but, it sucks. My whole tank is torn apart right now due to hair algae... What a headache!!!

[Blade_Runner]

Ummm, doesn't this thread go back to July? Hasn't everything been resolved months ago?