Wipeout

[Ade_S]

Hi all,

I've been a bit quiet on here recently, mainly because things were going well, until I came home from work tonight...

Devastated. All my fish are dead. It seems a sea cucumber (which I didn't realise was even still in the tank and alive) has crawled into a powerhead and poisoned the tank.

The inverts (crabs, snails, shrimp, urchin and clam) seem OK so far, though a couple of my montipora have lost a bit of colour; now looking a bit grey.

I've pulled out the following fish:

• Sailfin Tang
• Yellow Tang
• Kole Tang
• Dwarf Angel
• Clarkii Clown
• Azure Demoiselle
• Cortez Rainbow Wrasse
• Mandarin

I can't find:

• Flame Hawkfish
• Green Chromis
• Randall's Goby

I'm guessing my crabs will have to clean up the last three.

What do I do now? I presume a lot of water changes, but how do I know when the toxins are at a low enough level to reintroduce new fish? I can't drain it completely as I've got corals in there and don't think I can't lift the rocks out as most are epoxied together.

Clearly I don't want to leave it without fish for too long, or my bacteria will die off and I may suffer new tank syndrome.

Cheers,
Ade

 

[jim_fitz]

first off gutted for you
but they are known for it
no idea of how you can test for it either
yeah id go the water change route
and just buy some bacteria when ready to restock

 

[Ade_S]

Thanks Jim. My own fault for not protecting the powerhead and not doing enough research when I bought it (and trusting the LFS when they said that even if it died, it shouldn't be able to take out a 400+L tank). From reading into it further this evening , it seems my type (Sea Apple) are particularly toxic.

A bit of Googling suggests water changes, lots of carbon and skimming, so I've used up all my carbon in two net bags and suspended each in front of a power head. 70L of RO filtering tonight, ready for a water change tomorrow.

Then I'll speak to a (different) LFS tomorrow and make them happy over the next few weeks, restocking.

Trying to look on the bright side, I can now start to stock in a more planned manner, and avoid bullies like my Clarkii clown, which has victimised a number of fish over the years...

 

[jim_fitz]

yeah i had one years ago
beautiful creatures, but never again
yeah start with the softest and leave any potential risks till last

when buying fish i now watch a fish in the LFS tank
but leave it till the following week to ensure its feeding well etc

 

[Ade_S]

Good advice![emoji106]

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[Ade_S]

Just to close this thread down and hopefully help out anyone in the unfortunate position I found myself in, after 3 weeks of 15% water changes every 3 days, plus 2 bags of carbon hanging in front of my powerheads, I started restocking (with no problems - phew!). Two expensive trips to the LFS later and I'm up to 13 fish:

Potters angel
Coral beauty angel
Percular clown pair
Leopard wrasse
Purple firefish
Mandarin
Orchid Dottyback
Kole Tang
Red head fairy wrasse
Yellow tang
Stripped fang benny
Jade wrasse

Oh, and I now have a nem-protect guard on my MP40 in case any of my bubble tips try to copy the sea cucumber..

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[doug_amanda]

Lovely looking tank,

 

[hillie]

Oh no! Just read your thread. What a nightmare.... I had no idea sea cucumbers were toxic.... we've had a revamp of our RSM350 in the last couple of weeks which involved moving rocks. Found out we'd squashed what I think was a yellow knobbly cucumber against the back wall. Oh dear.

We also had a Clarkki once.... couldn't put your hand in the tank without being attacked!

Any photos?

 

[hillie]

Oops, just seen the photo doh!

 

[hillie]

P.s. don't close the thread! Will be good to see how your newbies get on!

 

[Ade_S]

This wasn't a small cucumber (I've had a couple of small knobbly yellow ones in the last, about an inch long, with no problems). This was a sea apple and about 3 inches long and about 1 inch diameter:

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[fuzzyferret83]

Didn't QT the new arrivals then?

 

[hillie]

They are amazing to look at!

Yes, our yellow knobbly one aka Mr Half Squashed was large . The remaining un-squashed half was about 3 inches long and at least an inch in diameter. Goodness knows how big he really was. Boy did we go through the guilt trip (we killed that cry cry)

 

[Ade_S]

Must admit, I don't QT as don't have space to set up a QT tank (I could pull out my old 70L in an emergency, but can't really use it regularly). I only buy from one LFS (Deep Blue in Hinkley) and never had any reason not to trust the quality of their stock or advice.

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[fuzzyferret83]

Must admit, I don't QT as don't have space to set up a QT tank (I could pull out my old 70L in an emergency, but can't really use it regularly). I only buy from one LFS (Deep Blue in Hinkley) and never had any reason not to trust the quality of their stock or advice.

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If there stock comes from tmc I guarantee they have worms as most do. If you cant at I'd always advise worming before they hit the display.

 

[Ade_S]

Interesting and yes, they do use TMC.

I've not noticed evidence of worms in any of the fish I've heard from them, but will certainly look at treating new purchases (how long does that take? Can it be done in the bag while I'm dripping them?)

Would it be sensible to treat the existing stock? I assume so, but not sure if it can be done in the tank.

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[fuzzyferret83]

Keep a look out for white poo this is a sure sign of worms. The worming treatments that are reef safe I know of people who have had problems with them. In terms of treatments look at nt labs fluke and wormer, prazipro and flukesolve I'm sure one can be done as a bath can't remember which though lol

 

[Paddy67]

I used flukesolve on my fish and it killed all the worms, so that might be an option

 

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