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Tom, I feel your pain. I lost five fish and several corals after treating my 120 gallon with flatworm exit. At the time I thought I did a good job of getting every last visible flatworm out of the tank before beginning treatment (including blowing them out of rocks). I had the instructions memorized, carbon, enough prep water to replace the entire tank (and then some), buckets everywhere, food, drink ... I was ready for anything.
I was in hour 7 of my tankside vigil when my four year old yellow tang nose-dived into the sand bed. All of a sudden the rest of my fish started doing the toxic waltz. While working furiously through another water change, four other fish followed the tang's lead and were dead within minutes. Snails fell off the glass, polyps started closing, and pods started floating into the water column. With the exception of one clown, two hermits, and a few corals, everything was dead within 15 minutes.
In retrospect, I would have taken all of the live rock out of the tank and treated the tank and rock separately. I am guessing that there were more worms hiding somewhere and their die off caught up with me at the end of the day. Or maybe it was a reef karma backlash for that little song and dance I was doing while I watched the flatworms writhe in agony.
To be clear, I am not blasting flatworm exit. It did its job and seems to have helped more far people than it has hurt. If I add another coral or rock to this tank again, I will be dousing it with the stuff before it goes within 20' of my house!
Here's to a quick recovery to your reef!
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