Stumped, ALL dead.....

[lance]

I hope someone here can help? Ive got a 50gal FOWLR tank that has been up and running without incident for nearly a year and a half. Recently my wife & I went for a short vacation and had our son simply adding fresh water & light feeding while we were away. Within two days of returning home, my fish began to die. Within approximately 9-days, all seven of the fish had died. During this time I performed a couple of partial water changes and had the water checked various times. ALL water parameters were optimum each time and I observed no spikes in heat or other obvious issues.

Last Friday at the suggestion of my LFS I added some Geo Liquid in order to remove any unknown toxins. I also added some activated charcoal bags to the sump. On Sunday I basically started over with a Firefish. Well it died this afternoon. (I should add that I still have nice coralline on the rocks & my hermits, queen conch & large black-spine sea urchin appear to be unaffected and doing fine?)

At this point Im thinking some foreign substance of some kind made it into my tank while my son was here? (he wont fess up to anything). And this brings me to a couple of questions;

Is there anywhere I can take a sample of water to run a more thorough test for non-typical chemicals?

Should I just drain the tank and if so, what (if anything) do I need to do to the substrate & live rock in order to start over?

Thanks in advance, your suggestions are appreciated,

Regards, Lance

 

[gumbii]

the only way to test for chemicals that i know of is using a poly filter... it will remove whatever you don't want in there, and change color depending on what it pulled out...


but other than that... are you sure they didn't throw like a candy, or anything like that in the tank...?

 

[xthunderx]

Can you tell us what you've tested for?

As a precaution would run carbon 24/7 replacing once a week to take out any nasties that may be in there. It also wouldn't hurt to skim wet as another method of removal.

 

[jhentr]

That sucks man. Did you check the fish to make sure no disease broke out (velvet, etc). I second the polyfilter above and keep your tank fallow for a bit to make sure if it's nasties that are only effecting fish dies, since obviously your corals/inverts are doing well.

 

[Flame_Angle]

They might added tap water into the tank without treatment, chlorine would kill fish fast.

 

[bobssecrtsn]

you should use a poly filter it takes any chemical outs

 

[gumbii]

you should use a poly filter it takes any chemical outs

orly...???

the only way to test for chemicals that i know of is using a poly filter... it will remove whatever you don't want in there, and change color depending on what it pulled out...


but other than that... are you sure they didn't throw like a candy, or anything like that in the tank...?

don't just answer random threads without reading them to get your post count up so you can make another for sale thread... man, the rules aren't strict enough on this forum sometimes...