Please help...fish dying!!!

[rdefino]

I have a 75gak FOLWR. I have a pourcupine puffer, large damzel, snowflake, picasso trigger, niger trigger, figi puffer, lion fish. I did a big cleaning yesterday. I changed 25gal of water, RODI. removed all the rock, but kept it wet. Did a good sand vac. Put the rock back in and water. 4hrs later the figi died, but the puffer was eating though. Woke this morning and the pourcupine was dead and so was the large damsel.

I did nothing different in the cleaning.

All the water test came back great. What do I do now. I don't want them all to die.

Thanks for an y help

 

[melissfish]

was there something wrong in the tank before you did the big clean. were the fish already showing signs of stress or is this your regular maintenance. Maybe there was a problem already and the shock was too much for them.

 

[rdefino]

Didn't see anything wrong at all. They were swiming eating, doing everything normal. I do this kind of clean once evey 3 mths. Should do more water changes? I'm lost on what to do.

 

[StripesTheEel]

Do you have any dead spots in your tank? There might have been a small area where there is no water movement and detritus builds up. When you've moved your rocks around it might of started a reaction.. thats the only i thing i can think of.. but then again i may be wrong..!

 

[rdefino]

What I did do different was put a towel over the rocks and wet it to keet them from drying out. Now I didn't think of the fabric softner that was on the towel. could that have do it?

 

[StripesTheEel]

i doubt that, that couldve been the reason, but then again i wouldnt rule it out. the only thing i can think of is when the puffer died it may have released some of its poison, which may be why some of your other fish unfortunately died..

 

[rdefino]

Which puffer? I didn't think either was had poison.

 

[StripesTheEel]

As far as im aware the puffer species, some of them secrete a poison ie; in the wild if they are attacked by another fish, the other fish kinda realises not to bother it again..

Im pretty sure the porcupine puffer is one of these fish.. (i think)

The figi puffer on the other hand, i've never heard of.. does it go by any other name or do u have a pic?

 

[rdefino]

I thought just box fish did that. Also the puffer is a spotted puffer.

 

[lando]

The first thing to do after any unexplained death is to test water parameters ASAP. Everything normal? It is likely you disturbed the biological filtration with the deep cleaning.

 

[rdefino]

Could have some of the detergent from the towel I used to cover the rocks with have done it?