Temperature swing - help

Hi Everyone

So I woke up this morning with the temperature of my tank down to 73 from 81 during the day. The thermostat on my heater must be off because I can't get it to reflect the actual temperature in the tank (it's on when the tank is at 80 degrees and the temperature is set to 76). So I set it back up and got the tank back to the normal temperature the next day. My question is, could this have killed one of my fish? My purple firefish wouldn't eat this morning than I found the cleaner shrimp had taken his home and next thing I knew he was dead . He was doing so good yesterday. My two clowns are fine and my cleaner shrimp/emerald crab are both still doing fine as well.

Are there any tips in keeping the temperature at a steady level? Getting a chiller is not in the budget. I was thinking a clip on fan from Walmart or Target and getting a new heater to hopefully keep a steady temperature. This is my first marine fish loss and now I can't help but think something else is going to go wrong.

 

I would definitely suggest that you get a heater that will keep a constant temp. I'm not sure that a drop in temperature would have killed your fish but it's possible. I've never kept firefish so I can't say what they are sensitive to. I'm thinking it was more of a gradual change though and the temp it got down to is not too cold. A fan can help with temp a little bit.

 

That's a pretty big swing to have on a tank. Most of us keep it around 77-78 degrees. It's also less of a swing when it jumps to the low 80s in the summer.

 

I just tested ammonia and its at 2 ppms..my hermits and snails might have died off as well..what to do when I only have enough RO/DI water for a 16% water change?

 

do whatever you can until you get more water to mix. How old is your tank by the way? You could be in the cycling stage still.

 

It's about 3 months old but was cycled within the first month using the fish-less cycle with dr tims nitrifying bacteria. I was able to do one 15% water change and am mixing another bucket right now for another 15% i tested ammonia again after the first water change and it was drastically lower. Hopefully after this water change it'll be sustainable for the bacteria to take over. ​

 

Ohh that day you showed up late to work because you were too busy conducting emergency water changes on your fish tank the night before

 

weird you had that big of a spike in ammonia then. I'm guessing you removed whatever died in the tank.

 

Oh, yeah, definitely. There were some snails too that had died too. I got the Ammonia down to 1ppm, does the cycle have to start over or should the nitifrying bacteria be able to handle it pretty quickly?

 

So I think I found out what the issue was. I ordered a CUC online and received about 100 snails in the mail. The bag smelt awful but I didn't realize it was the smell of dead snails. I'm pretty sure I mistakenly put a bunch of dead snails in the fish tank and eventually that caused an ammonia spike, in turn killing my purple firefish. After smelling one of the dead snails when I took it out of my tank, I'm pretty sure that is exactly what it was. Looks like it might not of been the temperature swing.