Need help...

[Swiftler]

So I just came home to work on the placement of my new power heads and found all my fish dead. The corals seem to be okay but one of my striped damsels was laying dead in the bottom corner and my clown was in the top back corner wedged between the glass and the skimmer pump and I can't find the other damsel.

I check my pH, salinity, trates, trites, and ammonia and everything shows up at 0, 8.1, and 1.026. I even tested for copper and it's at 0/0.1. Kh was at 10 drops 179 ppm. temp is steady at 79.

The things that have changed recently was adding new rock on Saturday and installing the new pumps on Wednesday. I also changed food to new life spectrum. I was dosing the tank since sunday with 2 tsp of Kent marine purple tech to try to speed up growth on the new rock. My wife and I are very upset and frustrated. You guys have any ideas? Could this have been the new flow, is it too much? The tank is 55 gallons, it has a remora pro skimmer, a hang on back mechanical filter and 2 Hydor 1050s, 70 lbs of sand and about 55 lbs of rock.

 

[carey]

Sorry about your fish. :-(

Too much flow won't kill fish though. The only thing I can think of is the new rock. Was it base rock or live rock? Where did it come from and did it cause an ammonia spike after it went in?

 

[Swiftler]

The rock came from a guy who tore down his tank a week prior. The rocks were sitting in buckets of water from his tank for about a week with no flow. I brought them home put them in new salt water to let them soak for a day. If there was a spike could it have come and gone since adding the rocks on Saturday because according to my test there is no ammonia or nitrate

 

[carey]

I would have thought you'd get some die off from the rock then. What type of test are you using? The api liquid one?

 

[Swiftler]

Yeah it's the API liquid test with the ph nitrate nitrite and ammonia

 

[Swiftler]

Is there a better test kit I should get? I'm gonna take a water sample to my LFS to have them check my water. If everything shows up at 0 like it did last night, do you think its okay for me to add maybe 5 chromis

 

[Rutrag]

My first vote is on the new rock as well. I'd also wonder if there was anything sprayed around the tank that might cause an issue. Has your skimmer spiked in producing skimate?

 

[Swiftler]

Actually the skimmer has been producing less. I had to lower the skim cup about an inch last night for the tray to get hit by the bubbles

 

[EriksFish315]

Most likely could be the rock. A ammonia spike can come and go fairly quick. My freshwater had a ammonia spike one day and later that night it was gone.

 

[melosu58]

Moved to sick fish forum.

 

[Swiftler]

Since its been moved, any of you fish Doc's have any input. I more or less want to know...

if it could have just been a random ammonia spike that has come and gone caused by the introduction of the rock.

Since everything shows normal if that means I can get some more fish or should I wait awhile to make sure it stabilizes?

 

[melosu58]

IMO that`s what it was. If the rock was exposed to air for several minutes or longer then you would have had some die off causing an ammonia spike. You also would have lost a bunch of you nitrifying bacteria. Hopefully the worst is over and like you said just let it stabilize.