Need help found all my fish dead!!!!

Oh and spend the time you will now have not buying things for your tank to research what you want to put in and what it needs and also to research what you need equipment wise and how to take care of a reef tank.

I'm not picking on you here. This is a very complex hobby.i've been keeping tanks for over ten years and still am amazed at how little I really know.

 

slow down get A good skimmer, and set up a sump. one tang alone is too much for a 55. Your temp is also a little high, I keep mine around 77-78. The higher the temp the lower the disolved oxygen level will be.

 

+1 to everything...clear the tank out, let it cycle and do it all over again. ask for numbers on tests in the future. lots of places tell people "fine" and it is anything but because they have strange ideas of what "fine" means. Take it slow next time, and check out the fish requirements. If things are dying left and right, don't replace them, wait it out..etc...

 

I'm thinking O2 depletion also. Especially since the fish are drunkenly swimming around near the surface before they died. At that temperature it will go faster than you realize. Make sure that your powerheads and return pumps are creating decent surface agitation. Get yourself some test kits. For whatever reason, I've noticed that a lot of LFS use strips. Those are questionable. Three weeks is really short for a cycling period, so it is possible that you are still cycling and experienced quick parameters changes.

Definitely get a skimmer. This is in my experience absolutely necessary if you chose to use a canister filter. You can be successful with a canister filter on saltwater tank, but they require your attention. I use one with minimum issues. You should be cleaning them at least once per month, but you should shoot for bi-weekly if your time allows. Cleaning is simply opening, rinsing off the chemical, mechanical and biological medias and the canister container itself. The whole process should only take you around 30-40 minutes per filter. Running carbon and GFO is a must, especially carbon if you're going to have animals that secret toxins such as sea hares. Take the advice of others here and don't add anything for a while and when you go back to adding animals, go small and spread out the amount of time between additions. The other tip about the canister should help with your algae issues.

 

First of all, please try not to feel too frustrated - both with what happened in your tank, and also with what people here are telling you. We don't mean to be judgemental, only to help out.

Just to add/clarify what was already said above:

1) It takes a tank somewhere between 6-8 weeks to properly cycle before adding one or two small fish. I know some fish store employees will tell you 3 weeks is enough - it isn't. Then what happens after 6-8 weeks is that you introduce 1-2 fish, which add more bioload to the tank, and it needs to cycle again. That's why we all recommend waiting at least 2-4 weeks between the addition of each new fish.

2) When planning which fish to get, we all sometimes make the mistake of just choosing the pretty fish we love the look of, without researching the needs of that fish. For example, tangs are gorgeous....but will grow to anywhere from 8"-12", depending on the species. In a 55g tank, one small tang is the absolute upper limit. Similarly, extremely difficult-to-keep species such as mandarins and anemones should not be attempted before your tank is TOTALLY mature (ie. 9-12 months old). The reason is that they will die, and take the rest of the tank along with them.

3) You need to get some test kits. You don't necessarily need very expensive ones - API makes a very good kit for testing ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate and pH. Start with that kit - it will suffice for now. As your tank cycles, test every few days to see what is happening.

4) You don't necessarily need a sump (although it will make it easier for you to keep more fish), but you will really benefit from a protein skimmer to help with filtration for a saltwater tank.

I hope this helps. What you will need to do is remove all the dead livestock and really allow you tank to cycle now. Again 6-8 weeks. Get test kits and a protein skimmer. And then add fish, one at a time, over many weeks, with proper planning of the fish.

Best of luck, and please keep us posted on what is happening in your tank.

-Jeremy

 

I'd like to add something on the cycle, when you setup the tank as soon as the water clears and the dust settles add a single piece of frozen krill, leave it until it's gone that will tell you that there is now bacteria present, at that point you can add a single damsel or chromis that will assist in the cycling process, they will produce poo that the bacteria will feed on not to mention whatever left over food they leave behind, I agree with the others on here your tank is far to young to have the bacteria present to support the load you had on it, even if the tangs were very small they are still very active fish and an anemone of any type should not be in a tank younger than 6-12 months old, also what type of spectrum are you running on your MH setup

 

+1 to everything that JJK said. Wonderful reply and a great help! Very sound advice for any newcomer. Sometimes it is hard to hear that you need to take things slower, but it will be more beneficial in the long.

Also, remember that your local fish store (LFS) WANTS to SELL you more things, so they will tell you that things are fine even when they might not be so good. Nobody here wants to sell you anything and will only tell you things that are for your benefit.

 

Surface agitation is a must! I killed off my first batch when I started out . . . They all sufficated

 

same thing i was thinking

 

Everyone thank you so much for the advice and input, I do want to say that O2 wasn't somthing that I had thought of as being an issue because I have an one year old established 24 gallon Nano tank (has every thing that is needed included in the back of the tank or other wise internally) which is where all the fish were before and that is why I had gotten the 55, to give them more room temporairly.

But reading what everyone has said again I didn't think of O2 and that sounds like what the problem really was in the long run. But one thing that dosent make much since is if there was a possiable bio-overload why didn't it show up in the water tests that were run? Because I had the water tested 5 times from the day the first fish died to when everything died.

But when I get home from work today I do plan on re-testing the water and will post the results.

If it is an O2 issues how do I correct it? I plan on adding another power head to the water to help with aggitation on top, but in the mean time what would be the best thing for me ot do with the Naso Tang?

At the moment he is in my 24 gallon tank. He isn't huge but I know that they need space and am worried that he will get stressed because there isn't alot of space for him to roam.