Lost all fish

[pmanzi]

I thought I was battling ick as my raccoon butterfly had very small white dots on it. I treated with Chem-Martin but lost the fish on Thursday. The rest of the fish (yellow tang, 2 yellow tailed damsels, hermit crab, coral banded shrimp) seemed healthy, no white dots at all. Last night all the fish died, the tang was almost completely white, and the damsels where getting that way as well. When cleaning everything out I found a white 'sack' attached to the green algae I had attached to a clip. When I took the sack out it smelled rancid.
All that is left in the tank is the crab, shrimp and live sand. I just received all the pieces for a wet-dry and planned to switch my canisters for the wet-dry today. Anyone have any idea as to what the sack could have been and what I should do next. I am almost thinking I need to remove the sand and start fresh.

Thanks
Phil

[inwall75]

I don't have a clue what the sack was. I just wanted to say that I'm sorry for your loss.

[Matt Rogers]

Ugh. Sorry Phil. I am not familiar with that chemical, does it say it is safe to use with biological filters?

[pmanzi]

Matt, the treatment says it is reef safe, no copper, and will not harm inverts. The instructions do tell you to remove all carbon and foam from your filters which I did.
At this point I have put the shrimp and crab in a separate tank and removed all but enough water to cover the sand. I have hooked up the new wet-dry but have not filled the tank up as I ran out of time last night. I am hoping that the sand will be OK and that once I refill the tank restart a cycle I will be able to rebuild the tank.

[rayjay]

Sorry for your loss.
I also have no idea what the white is. However you are learning like most of us did, and that's the "hard" way.
The first lesson is not to treat a tank, but to have a quarantine/treatment tank on hand for first of all, quarantining the fish before placing them into the show tank, and the second for treatment of the fish if they develop problems after being in the show tank.
Effective treatments for fish disease are not safe for invertebrates. Ones considerd "safe" usually are not strong enough to solve the problem. While some appear to occasionally have success with "in tank" meds, most do not work.
In fact, they probably have the same success rate as those who do not treat at all, but leave the fish to develop it's own resistance to whatever parasite is bugging it.

[fletch]

It wasn't the Desiccant packet that is in with the dried algae was it??

[pmanzi]

Don't believe so, I rolled up the algae, I would have seen it then.

[Matt Rogers]

Yeah quarantine tanks are the way to go if you can, I am not comfortable removing all the biological filtration from the main tank myself. But, honestly, I've never set a q tank up. I've been kinda lucky so far in that regard. Your plan going forward should help you rebound. Is this a fish tank, not a coral tank?

[pmanzi]

Yes it is fish only, I had just bought some live rock to add in luckily it is still curing in a separate tank.

[micko]

Sorry for your loss how long was your tank setup?