180g tank crashing no apparent reason HELP!!!!!!!!!!

[Darth]

Yes Jim is awesome haven't met him personally but always heard good things about him glad you are going to keep at it, once things settle down and your up and running again LMK I may have a few frags I can help you out with to restart the tank may not be much but with some tlc it goes a long way. Keep at it!!!

[Dakotamay]

Awww Darth that is an absolutely amazing and generous offer. 
When we're safe to add in a couple months. I'll certainly be in touch. Don't ever hesitate to PM me if you ever need something. If I can help I certainly will.
Gotta love this community. 

Yes Jim is awesome haven't met him personally but always heard good things about him glad you are going to keep at it, once things settle down and your up and running again LMK I may have a few frags I can help you out with to restart the tank may not be much but with some tlc it goes a long way. Keep at it!!!

[Dakotamay]

Well, with another 30g water change done yesterday and another to go today. I have lost my last sebae clown. The remaining fish all look great and are eating well. All corals and shrimps are well too.
Here's hoping  things turn around from this point going forward.

[Dakotamay]

It's been a few days since I updated everyone. The tank seems to be settling now. We have just 5 fish left of the 20 we started with. None of our corals were affected.
We have a huge diatom outbreak right now. Which leads me to further believe that this for sure was a cycle.
It'll be a couple months now before we add anything else to the tank. With the exception in about 3 weeks of some crabs and snails. My clean up crew was almost completely wiped out too.
Thanks to all who commented, gave ideas and encouraged us. Thanks also to those that were kind of enough to make offers of any help they could and to those that have offered to give a frag to help us out when we can add.
Please anyone in this community reading this, if you need help at all don't hesitate to PM me and let me know what's up. If I can help you out. I certainly will in any way that I can.

[Bob P]

Diatoms bloom and feed off the silica in your salt mix.
Once it's used up the diatoms die off.
Big water changes cause this.

[Dakotamay]

Thanks Bobp. I hope they use them up soon lol. The tank looks horrible. I've not had a diatom outbreak like this one in my past tanks I've set up.
There's nice looking hair algae growing on top of the diatoms lol. Not pretty.

[dustin_k]

Sorry this is very
Late, but did you ever consider
None fish related poisoning. Do you
Use ferbreeze or clean the glass
With windex. Hardwood
Floor cleaner can be a nasty
One. As soon as its in the air In the room and it comes
In contact with the water your fish are in for a for sure death.

[Dakotamay]

Hi Dustin_K,

Yes we looked at all the possibilities. We figured out that the tank just crashed or cycled and that's what killed almost everything.

We've been back up and running smoothly since the first week of February or so. We're now into July and haven't had anymore losses other than normal no big deal losses that we all deal with as sw tank owners.

My corals are all thriving as are all of our fish. We're back up to 16 fish again. Most are small with only 3 large fish. The 3 large are a vampire tang, blue hippo tang and a moorish idol. Everything else in the tank are fish that grow no more than 3-4 inches at most.

Thanks for the suggestion though. I've not changed anything in the house here. So I know for sure it wasn't environmental.