Fish dying; not sure why!!

how long where the rocks out of the water? if theyy were out for too long then they could have some mild die off, which would cause a mini cycle.

did you scrub them with regular tap water? and are you using RO/DI water?

that seems like a lot of fish in one tank, when the others died, did you remove the immediatly? if not those could have caused an ammonia spike.

I know that you dont want to hear this, and that it isnt going to help solve any of the issues your currently having, but just be warned, the tang police are going to rip you a new one for having a naso in a 55 gallon.

oh and welcome to 3reef

 

None of that really matters. You don't scrub all your rocks at once. That removes all the algae that's feeding on the nitrates, and the bio-film--- you're beneficial bacteria that handles ammonia and nitrite.

 

well if he is not using 0 TDS water to soak/scrub his rocks, then they are gettin contaminated, and if they are out of the water too long then they are going to make a mini cycle.

dry live rock = cycle

 

As far as your bloom problem, you may want to cut back your light cycle a bit and dial back the temp a little as well

 

^^^ +k

 

And "0 TDS", meaning purified FRESHwater, isn't going to kill everything on SW rocks and start a cycle?

I wasn't saying you're wrong, but by scrubbing ALL your rocks at once, you're removing everything that feeds on ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate, which will also cause a cycle.

 

I think this is going to be a main concern. You are overstocked IMO for that size tank. In addition your temp being so high is going to reduce available O for the fish. Those two combined and your fish may be suffocating. See any weird behavior with the clowns?

the chromis probably died bc that's what they do :-/ especially when kept in even numbers for some reason.

if you severely distrubed your substrate when removing your rock, you may have released something nasty too.

It was mentioned attacking the source of your problem vs. the symptom. I agree. I think it likely your algae problem is coming from being overstocked.

 

If he isn't using SW to scrub the rock, he's killing stuff he doesn't want to be killing on the rock.

Whenever I have to clean rock, I do a water change first, keep the "old" SW and use that to clean the rock.

 

yeah tanks a bit small for a naso tang, expecially once it really starts growing. full grown naso tangs should be in probably no less than 180 gallons of water. they are large fish and swim a ton. so he may just be stressed.

 

OK. I'm in depressed mode now.

I got home and the clowns were completely covered in the white spots I noticed yesterday and the Tang looked bad too. His spots were spreading. I feared ich. So in panic mode I bought CopperSafe and treated the display tank. I continued doing research afterwards and I fear I may have just f'd my complete setup in one quick move. This morning I woke up fearing everything to be dead.

Snails still alive, Chocolate Chip Starfish still alive. One more chromi missing, both clowns missing. Tang looks great with the spots going away. One blue chromi looks fine too. Both tang and chromi swimming fine and ate their food as normal.

My question is. Where to from here? Wait for the copper treatment to finish and then scrap the tank? Move the fish? Get rid of the live rock (now presumed dead) and sand? I'm lost and feeling really crappy about myself.