Dead Fish, Cloudy Water, It smells like Asparagus!

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29Gsaltaquatics

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Apr 1, 2017
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All fish dead, Foggy aquarium, and it smells like asparagus!

So this morning I go over to my aquarium turn on the lights and my fish and shrimp (Snail is alive but not opening up) are dead! The water has been foggy for a few days but today was worse.
My tanks stocking list WAS 1 Ocellaris Clownfish, One Cleaner shrimp, and trochus snail.
It is a 7.5 gallon tank with 2 Aqueon quietflow 10 filters on it. 2 inch sand bed of araga-live. My tank is 3 months old.
After it was done cycling I got a small damselfish to “break in” the tank. After a month after I bought the damselfish, I got the cleaner shrimp. But the damsel was being aggressive to the shrimp. So I replaced the damsel with a clownfish. And I bought a peice of live rock, and a trochus snail to add bacteria and help with a diatom issue. This morning after I woke up and everything was dead!!
The live rock still has a lot of coralline, none died, but the tank is super foggy and it smells like asparagus.
The parameters are
pH: 8.0
Salinity: 1.024
Temp: 80 Fahrenheit
Ammonia: <0.025 ppm
Nitrite <0.025 ppm
Nitrate: 2.5 ppm
Phosphate: 0.02 ppm
Calcium 450 ppm
DKH: 11

When I bought the cleaner shrimp I told them I had a slight cloudy water issue and nitrates of 15 ppm.
So they said to add the whole bottle of seachem stability to the tank (the smallest bottle) it helped with the nitrates, but made the water more foggy.
Did I just add to much at once, this all happened over a 3 day period
But the scent is very distinct and I can smell it when I get close to the tank (open top tank)
What should I do?!?!
 
#1 rule never listen to a store clerk

pH: 8.0
Salinity: 1.024
Temp: 80 Fahrenheit
Ammonia: <0.025 ppm
Nitrite <0.025 ppm
Nitrate: 2.5 ppm
Phosphate: 0.02 ppm
Calcium 450 ppm
DKH: 11

you should have no nitrite or ammonia showing since it is the tank didn't cycle correctly
I also see no mention of circulation for water movement .

As for maintenance you said water was cloudy but you never once mentioned a water change .
than you added a whole bottle of stability and made water worse . did you read the directions on how much to add but still no mention of a water change . adding more crap that made it worse should have been a good indicator to do a large water change ,

if you would have done a few water changes from the start when you first noticed the cloudiness your fish would probably be still with us .
water changes when you are having issues with stability of water quality can be the best fix adding stuff just adds to the fire

But the scent is very distinct and I can smell it when I get close to the tank (open top tank)
What should I do?!?!
I hate to say it if you have to ask your not ready to have a tank

my best advice break everything down clean it research everything about saltwater ,
my biggest concern would be learning on doing maintenance a very vital part of having a tank so small .
once you have a better understanding of everything than maybe try again
 
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#1 rule never listen to a store clerk

pH: 8.0
Salinity: 1.024
Temp: 80 Fahrenheit
Ammonia: <0.025 ppm
Nitrite <0.025 ppm
Nitrate: 2.5 ppm
Phosphate: 0.02 ppm
Calcium 450 ppm
DKH: 11

you should have no nitrite or ammonia showing since it is the tank didn't cycle correctly

As for maintenance you said water was cloudy but you never once mentioned a water change .
than you added a whole bottle of stability and made water worse . did you read the directions on how much to add . and yes still no mention of a water change . adding more crap that made it worse should have been a good indicator to do a large water change ,

if you would have done a few water changes from the start when you first noticed the cloudiness your fish would probably be still with us .
water changes when you are having issues with stability of water quality can be the best fix adding stuff just adds to the fire



My ammonia and nitrite have never shown up before, but only this morning, and in small numbers, I do a 15-20% water change weekly. So should I wait another 2 weeks or month before I add another organism. I did a water change this morning after The fish died.
 
I also have a 90 GPH power head, it is a really good pump, it gets detritus moving so I doesn’t get stuck a lot. My tank has done great until just this morning.
 
I put in an airstone because I heard that it helps clear bacteria blooms, it has helped quite a bit and the scent died down, the snail has been moving around a lot more now! I think it will be alright! Thank you for your help, I am just going to let the tank cycle it out for a while
 
Are you using ro/di water? It sounds like a bacterial bloom that is going on in the water column, but there has been a good amount of adding this and that going on in a still young and unstable system. This tank size is way too small to be housing most damsels, to include clownfish.
Though you cycled the tank, I'm not sure why you then added a damsel to break in the tank as that is what cycling is for.
How often are you doing water changes in the system? Having readings of any ammonia or nitrite is concerning as this is toxic to livestock. I'd assume that when you cycled the tank, you either didn't have any or enough rock in the system. The addition of the rock later on then led to die off of whatever was on the rock itself. Die off plus the normal daily goings on with a tank put you into a mini cycle and killed off your livestock.
At the end of the day, you need to have 1 lbs per gallon of rock and sand in the system. Before jumping back into things, you will need to do large water changes to get the parameters back in line. Additional research into the appropriate types of fish for such a small system won't be as difficult to keep things in line. When it comes to small 'nano' systems you are usually left with only inverts or gobies.
 
Yeah that was the first thing I thought about when I was wondering what could have been the cause, I forgot to cure or atleast brush off the die of on the live rock, it didn’t seemlike there was much on the outside, but there could have been stuff on the inside. I just did a %30 water change an hour ago, thank you so much for your help
 
I put in an airstone because I heard that it helps clear bacteria blooms, it has helped quite a bit and the scent died down, the snail has been moving around a lot more now! I think it will be alright! Thank you for your help, I am just going to let the tank cycle it out for a while

Airstones are a no no for saltwater. It will cause salt creep and in smaller systems will lower salinity. If it is being helped by the airstone, then you need additional powerheads in the system to help water moving around.
 
At minimum, you want to aim for 10x turnover of your water column. So, you want at least 290 gallons per hour flowing through the system. Try to have one pointed upwards so you get good surface adjitation for CO2 exchange.
 
Ok, my 2 aqueon quietflow filters together make 100-110 GPH each according to aqueon, so thats 200- 220 GPH
Then the pump I have makes 90 GPH
So around
290- 310 GPH.
 
Ok
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The arrows show were my pumps/aqueon quietflow 10 filter are located and were the water is output.
 
I just wanted to say I gave my tank time and I wanted to show you what my tank looks like now because I just waited and didn’t shut down my tankIMG_1514758909.043410.jpg
And yes I LOVE the look of hair algae, there are copepods all over the glass and sand, I have 1 dart fish and a scarlet red hermit crab. My water is crystal clear, and the big piece of live rock I put in is actually growing more Coraline algae. My water smells like the ocean again. Everything is going great!
Just don’t give up on your tank, just give it time, thats all my advice.
IMG_1514759126.479400.jpgIMG_1514759143.590366.jpg
pH: 8.1
Salinity: 1.025 (New Refractometer)
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 2.5
Phosphates: 0.05
Temperature: 78
dKH: 11
Calcium: 430
Magnesium: 1325
7.5 Gallons
 
IMG_1638.jpgIMG_1709.jpgIMG_1711.jpg
I cleaned up my tank and there is almost no hair algae, and I have and urchin, acan coral, blue legged hermit crab, and lots of coralline algae. My fire dart fish jumped so I’m going to get another fish soon, a CB shrimp, a feather duster worm, and many more corals eventually. I bought better reef lights and I bought a full test kit system with proper dosing systems, and a refractometer. Things are getting way better. My lights are on a timer now to. I have a lot of micro fauna too its awesome.
 
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