Well I'm back again after a major disaster! I was going to throw in the towel but I decided to start over, if everyone hasn't guessed, the Anemone died!
The same night after my last post he started climbing the wall and I said to myself, 'tomorrow morning I have to get him out of the tank before something happens.'
Well that was too late! I got up 6 hours later to a milky white tank and dead fish. The tank room smelled like stagnant ocean water mixed with rotten fish. My heart was in my throat! I felt so heart broken to see all my fish (who depended on me to live) laying in the bottom of the tank dead!
As I was looking around I saw my 2 clowns still swimming around and quickly netted them and put them in the QT. (more on that later) then I turned on all my lights for a better look and found the anemone in the Tunze powerhead.
All the rest of the fish were dead, a Yellow Tang, Sunny, 6 Green Chromis, Larry and the rest Daryl, a little Fire Goby, Alfalfa, 2 Blue Devils Damsels, Bobo and Little Debbil, a Bicolor Anthias, Girlyman and a Scooter Blenny, Sgt. Bilko.
I started taking apart the tank right away and luckily I had 12 gallons of salt water ready so I took out all the live rock and snails and 1 cleaner shrimp (which didn't seem affected,) and my corals and put them in a 25 gallon Rubbermaid container. As I got to the last rock I found my Lawnmower Blenny, Mr. Chu! (which I had forgotten) He was alive so I quickly scooped him out and put him with the clowns.
Drained and vacuumed the CC of all the skanky water as far down into the crushed coral as possible and then drained the sump. From there I started refilling and heating the tank. By the evening the tank was full and 78f. did tests and it looked fine although I figured it might change. I put back the rocks and corals and let it sit until the next day, did the tests again and still good. I then restarted the sump and let it sit a few more days. All tests after 4 days were good so I put back my last 3 fish. 17 days later they are still in excellent shape, like nothing happened! I guess the fact that the anemone had died 6 or less hours before I found them may have helped somewhere along the line.
Now for the QT! I don’t know why they survived in there because in my panic, I forgot to check the QT. Those 3 poor little fish were yanked from a 78-79F. tank and just quickly dumped into 64-65F. water! The QT had been unplugged for about a week so it was cold in there, (now it’s always running!) An hour after they were put in I decided to check in on them and that’s when it dawned on me! I quickly checked everything and that’s when I noticed the temperature. Luckily the tests for the usual were ok, nitrates a bit high at 20, but better than what they were in I guess. It took a few hours to bring up the temp. and I helped it along by heating about 1 liter of water and adding it really slowly.
Since being added back to the main tank, I’ve checked them everyday and nothing has popped up so I’m hoping they’re out of the woods/kelp :P
All is well for now and I hope nobody ever has to go through something like that, ever!
Louise
