STarting oveR?

[loonz]

Hi, I came home to a tank of death today...all 6 of my fishes died in one day. My sailfin tang was with me the longest of about 4 years, 2 false perculas- one 4 the other 3 years. Also a couple of dwarf angels each kept for about 2 years. The last fish was a flame hawk that I added a few months ago. I wondered if it was the black cuke that I added into the tank a few days back, cos I wanted it to clean the substrate. Could it have died and released toxins into the tank?Anyhow I couldnt find the sea cucumber.

All the snails are still alive however, but none of the corals were opening. I didnt have a reliable ammonium test kit available, and could only test for nitrite, which showed undetectable amounts - maybe this test kit was faulty too??

What should I do now??I thought I'd bring some water sample to the LFS to test the parameters. And also to test the LFS's water samples with my test kits to see if my kit is working.

Do i have to drain all the water and recycle the tank?Oh dear... a part of me feels like giving up...another part of feels like starting over...sighhh..

[hiddendragonet]

I'd get some carbon running on there ASAP, and do successive hefty water changes every day for four or five days. If you know some friends that could babysit your corals, try that.

I feel for your losses! Hope things work out for you. I wouldn't give up, try to save what you can.

[alligator]

I almost had the same problem when the power went out the other night for 12+ hours. I thought I'd lose quite a bit (turns out I didn't) but it made me feel like quitting.

The best thing is to get right back in there and keep going. Do NOT quit, you may be instantly better off (less $) but you will one day look back and wonder why you ever gave up.

You can do it! I'm sorry to hear about your loss, but look on the bright side - you have almost unlimitless options. Want a cold water tank? Try it! Want a species specific tank? Try it! Ever want something VERY agressive? Go for it!

Good luck in whatever you decide.

[loonz]

Thanks for the support. I guess I'll make a huge water change - is it ok to change 100% of the water?I'm thinking that since my LR is already cured, there should not be a problem there. Also, wouldn't a 100% change get rid of all the ammonium, nitrite and the rest of the toxins all at once?

Presently, there's about 2.5" to 3" of sandbed in there, would it be advisable to add another inch right now?

Thanks again for any advice given...

[naserneil]

i have heard of some cukes when dieing will kill off any fish within the system..

[hiddendragonet]

I think you could get away with a 100% water change if you're VERY CAREFUL to make sure that the pH is the same, temperature is the same, salinity is the same. You don't want to further shell-shock anything in your tank. I think there are osmotic shock issues if you're not careful, can anyone back that up?

[Court_Jester]

If it were me, I'd do a 50% water change and run a lot of activated carbon. Then wait things out and see what happens with 25% water changes as needed.

You might want to look for that cuke while you're doing the water change.

Sorry to hear about your loss.
:(

[loonz]

Well I went to the LFS intending to buy some ammonia test kit - then the LFS decided that I should bring the entire test kit home to test, at the same time he asked me to test out another test kit for him, which I think he just started stocking in his shop.

Anyway I was pretty surprised that both the test kits showed that ammonia was not present, and neither was nitrite. I tested nitrate using the Marine Lab test kit by Red Sea and it was not traceable either....Stranger still, when I was at the LFS, I used one of those test strips on the water sample I brought and it was showing maximum amount of nitrate...(BTW, the 2 test kits the LFS let me bring home were Red SEa's Marine LAb and Marine ENterprises's Marine master Test Center,anyone used any of these before,how reliable are they?)...I was beginning to wonder what could have possibly killed my fishes if it werent water poisoning..I couldn't find the cuke either, I saw bits of white flesh floating around the tank on the fateful day though, and maybe the fishes had ate something they shouldnt have - could it be the cuke??

I decided to change 80% of the water and replaced the carbon, phosguard and polyfilter. The DI unit was painfully slow, and I only managed to get things done at 6am, I started at 12am. !@$!@#, let's hope this is worth my losing sleep...Cheers

[shalori]

I feel for ya. Last year at this time I bought a 'medusa worm' which I was later told was a cuke. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. Mother's Day I woke up and turned on the lights, and things looked...not quite right, :hmm2: but we were late for brunch, so I reluctantly left, after making my husband promise to come straight back to the house after we ate. We weren't gone long, but I, too came back to a tank of dead/dying things. :eek2: One of the worst days of my entire life. :sad1: Saw little bits of flesh, but never the worm/cuke, and I did 2 100% water changes, and had everything out of the tank, in buckets of clean water. So for what it's worth, I'd suspect that little bugger. Like I said, I did major water changes, and then I ran carbon, changing it out every couple hours for fresh carbon for a couple days. I'm in no way an expert, but thought you might like to hear from someone with a similar experience. I refer to the incident as "the mother's day massacre." It's awful, but don't give up, you can recover!