I have had my tank for about ayear everything was going great and all of a sudden all my fish died ( looks like there fins were eaten off) also all corals shriveled up and are not doing well at all. I have placed corals in another tank and no improvement. I did a 50% water change and then a 35% water chage then put 2 damsels in the tank they also died after 3 days ( looks like fins were eaten off) the only thing that was not effected as 2 shrimp and a crab??? Does anyone have any idea???
Wow, sorry to hear. It is very hard to tell from what you have said above. Ever had any picture of your tank or animals even before issues showed up? Tell us about the chemistry of your tank and what you used to measure.(Start with salinity, temp, and pH, nitrogen cycle would be helpfull as well)
What type of corals do you have? How long has the tank been set up? How often do you typically do water changes?
Need a lot more information to help.
Where do you live? If you aren’t too far perhaps I could come over and take a look. Send me a private message with your phone number and I’ll try to give you a call tomorrow.
Again, very sorry to hear about your rough luck. Hopefully we can help out.
If the corals are not doing well at all and they were massive in number or size they could be releasing toxins that could kill the fish, however the tank would probably smell very bad and not a typical ammonia smell.
What type of shrimp are they? Locally collected shore shrimp are fairly hardy animals while many of your reef cleaner shrimp can extremely sensitive animals. Chemistry that would out right kill all of your fish and leave the shrimp and crab ok would be a bit odd, but completely possible. Also what type of crab?(little hermit crab? green emerald crab? arrow crab?)
Another possibility is that what killed the fish and upset the corals is two different issues. Many corals are really fussy and can be upset about little things. Much of what kills fish in the hobby are external parasites that likely wouldn’t bother your corals or higher invertebrate life(such as shrimp and crabs).
At this point no matter what you do I would take things very slowly. Take baby steps, but try to find the main issue first.
Are you dosing anything into your tank?(“Reef boosters”, “Calcium”, “Iron”) If so I would say for time being stop no matter what you’ve heard about how they help.
Do you use RODI water or distilled water?
Damsels do die. (Though not when we want them to, more experienced reefers will know what I mean.) They are very hardy fish, but often times when a local fish store(LFS) receives a shipment at times 2-3 a day will die for the first week. If the store you purchased them has major issues with disease or parasites you could get a fish that has been in the store for months and still have issues with it.(don’t blame any store just yet for your troubles though, especially if you have no idea at this point exactly what the issue is)
Can provide more info specific to your situation once we know more about your tank. At this point it would be better to refer you to a good book vs. typing any possible issue you might be having.(the book would actually be a shorter read them me blabbing on and on, lol.
Where are you located?
pics would help. how did the coral look? oozing, melting heads falling off? maybe a list of what you had and what died. but water chemistry numbers are really a necessity.
I’m curious as to what happened first? Did the fish die and then the corals start looking bad? Did the corals start to melt and then the fish die?
Rarely does only 1 thing go wrong in our tanks. It’s usually multiple events that seem to be simultaneous. If a large coral dies (say a large mushroom colony) that can release a significant amount of toxins in to the water which can/will kill fish. A fish or 2 die, releasing more toxins in to the water, spiking ammonia etc. which kills more fish, which makes the water unbearable for other coral thus killing more coral…
Every tank crash that has ever happened has started with just 1 death.
How large is the tank? What’s in it? Sump/fuge? Salinity? Dosing? How often do you test? How often how much for water changes?
Don’t bother with ammonian, Nitrite, Nitrate at this point they will all suck.
Change anything else? Roll call and find all missing fish. Take a water sample to LFS that you buy from, and they’ll check water for amonia if you want to double check your results.
Improper use of silicon will leach ammonia and one other thing. Fish die, corals die… not good.