I lost most of my fish, most of my inverts, and the tank just about wiped itself out!
Water levels tested just pefect, other than SLIGHTLY high (not above 20) nitrates, and the symptoms of death included:
Acting normally, suddenly turning pale to the point of white, thrashing a few times, then falling dead. It all happened within about 15 seconds. The two tangs went first. They were out front and eating some dulse in a clip, and the powder brown went first. It just abruptly stopped mid bite, thrashed around a couple times and fell dead.
Less than 30 seconds later, while I was still staring in "What the HELL?!" shock, the scopas literally turned WHITE, thrashed, and fell on its side dead as well.
Then it started hitting the damsels...by that point I'd snapped out of it and had a net in hand, trying to catch as many fish with it as I could at once. None of them even tried to avoid being netted.
The best I can figure is that the small sponge on one of the bits of LR died and poisoned the whole lot.
As soon as I noticed fish starting to drop like flies sprayed with raid, I had the net out and was moving EVERYONE into the 10 gallon tank. Within 5 minutes of being put in the other tank, they were perked up and fine, but I lost quite a bit.
My tangs are both dead, all of the anemones save the
green hairy mushroom died, 5 of the hermit crabs didn't make it, the coral beauty dwarf angel died, all of the zoos and mushrooms died, a handful of the damsels didn't make it (though I don't mind that terribly as they were blue devils and I'd been plotting ways to get rid of them anyway), and for awhile I thought the
maroon clown pair, starfish and urchin were going to die as well. I got the clowns out just as their gasping started; they were both limp in the net and limp in the nano for a few minutes before perking up.
The starfish had started to curl in on itself and the urchin, for lack of a better word, looked like it was 'wilting' (in addition to dropping three spines).
So, right now my 10 gallon tank is a very overstocked refugee tank.
The urchin lost a few spines due to stress, but is otherwise fine; moving around and eating and all of that.
The starfish is eating and moving, so I'm not too worried there.
MOST of the snails made it; they were trying to climb out of the water and over the lid so after the fish and other inverts were out, I was just picking them up by the handful.
Three blue devils are left, one yellow tail, two of those striped damsels, and two maroon clowns made it fish-wise.
The green hairy mushroom made it, but he's still rather stressed. Good color and everything, he just doesn't like to open fully right now. Can't say I blame the poor little guy.
The fish, despite being crowded, seem to be making the best of it as fish go. There hasn't been much fin nipping from the devils; they seem to only chase each other and let the clowns alone.
Everyone is eating, and I've added a bit of extra filtration (along with twice daily water testing to make sure I don't have any spikes due to the overcrowding), and everyone is nice and active.
On the plus side, it killed off the parasitic anemones and fire worms.
I sent a long, rambling email to wetwebmedia about it and the reply back was that it was likely the sponge death that caused it and that I should drain and refill the tank, run a few pounds of activated carbon through it all for about a week, do a partial change, change out the carbon, start the cycle from scratch (I swear to god I'm using the blue devils to cycle it.
), and once it's good again I can move the inverts, clowns, and damsels (if I want to) back in.
What a nightmare though; I hate to think of what would have happened had I not been at home when it all started.
... L
