Help?!?!?!

[whaler1582]

hey guys, i really need some help here. well, i left for a few days to go on vacation, everything was ok in my tank. i came home yesterday to find my orange shoulder tang missing and my flasher wrasse breathing kinda heavy and now i can't find him. everytime i leave home and go on vacation, something like this always happens. i have lost 6 anthias, a magnificant foxface, a foxface lo, etc all at different times. i am really starting to get mad here cause i havn't changed anthing in my daily schedule for the tank. everyone got along well, they all ate like there was no tomorrow and they never had any problems. also, now i noticed that my clam is not looking too good. his mantle is kinda closed up and not out like it normally is.

ok, tank is a 100 inwall mixed reef with a large fuge, protein skimmer, 2x150 watt HQI halides, 15-20 times turnover rate, phosban reactor

right now livestock wise, i have a flamefin tang, a sailfintang, two clowns, a mandarin, an orange serpant star, various brittle stars, hermits, snails, etc for cleanup crew. also, your various mixed species of coral from softies to sps.

params of the tank are as follows.
ph-8.0(i know it is alittle low, but it has been like that for a week now)
nitrate-10
nitrite-0
ammonia-0
phosphates-0
calcium-450-500
temp 78 degrees

please help me out as i am really desperate to find out what is going on here. i really don't want to loose anything else.
thanks,
Josh

 

[Rogger Castells]

Josh, the very first thing you must do is a water change, maybe 25 gal if you can.

Usually IME when fishes are breathing fast like that is usually high ammonia and/or low oxigen levels. Strong air bubbler will help you with the oxigen part at least temporarely as a first aid treatment.
also if you have any chemical filter (like carbon), this will be a good time to change the media this will also help in case of any accumulation of organics.
Let me know how it goes I will try to help you more as you report your progress

 

[whaler1582]

ok, i did a 35gallon water change about a week and a half ago. the only fish that was breathing hard was the wrasse. everyone else it doing fine. no carbon, just a filterpad, it is kinda dirty but was changed the same time as the water change. i did have to turn my skimmer off for a few days because i had to use prazipro for some flukes on another fish that is doing fine now, but i don't know if that is the problem
Josh

 

[Rogger Castells]

Prazi who? ok, I think you may need to tell me the whole enchillada if you expect to get any kind of meaningful help, details like "I had to use some medicine because of a fluke" and "I turn my skimmer off for a few days" are "kind" of important to know.

 

[whaler1582]

ya, sorry about that, i forgot that i had done that until after i wrote my first post. prazi pro is a reefsafe fluke and internal parisite medicine that can make your skimmer go wild if not turned off. i havn't done anything else to the tank other than that.
Josh

 

[Rogger Castells]

It will be a good idea to change the water after any medicine treatment, did the water change you did a week ago was after or before the medicine?
assuming it was before I think you should do one now.
How long was the Skimmer off? this could have potentially be the cause or part of your problem.

 

[jeffbrig]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8689940#post8689940 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by whaler1582
ya, sorry about that, i forgot that i had done that until after i wrote my first post. prazi pro is a reefsafe fluke and internal parisite medicine that can make your skimmer go wild if not turned off. i havn't done anything else to the tank other than that.
Josh

I think you have to look at this as a possible cause. There is no way to know that prazi pro is 100% reef safe, and I would never use it in my reef system (and I keep prazipro in my medicine drawer).

Anything killed by the treatment (flukes, and who knows what other microfauna may have been affected) releases whatever toxins and metabolites it contains into the water column. Since you've turned off your skimmer, and you're not running carbon, there's no way to remove this stuff quickly. While the skimmer is off, your system sees a big spike in organics that need to be processed. You probably had a small ammonia spike, followed by an accompanying nitrite spike while bacteria populations grew to handle them. Then you turned your skimmer back on. The food source for the bacteria was removed, causing the excess populations to die off, again releasing more toxins and metabolites back into the water.

Bottom line is, you've had changing conditions, less than perfect water quality, and imposed some stress on your tank's inhabitants. I'd be concerned about the possibility of an ammonia spike, since gill tissue is particularly susceptible to ammonia burns.

Were feeding schedules or amounts affected by your vacation? Any changes in opening or polyp extension with the corals?

 

[gasman059]

hey whaler sorry about your stress/IMO there's not such as thing as a reef safe med, period many claim they are but none are, unfortunately there's no way of telling wat this product has done to your once stable system/ water change/media/filter change,new carbon , and wait b/c all the parameters that i saw look good.

 

[Rogger Castells]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8690387#post8690387 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jeffbrig
(and I keep prazipro in my medicine drawer).

For real? are you sure is not Lexapro that you keep...

 

[gasman059]

LOL lexapro most likely

 

[jeffbrig]

No, I actually have prazipro. It's praziquantel, good for flukes, worms, and other internal parasites.

FWIW, I just read the bottle, and while it claims there to be safe for marine systems, there are no statements that it is reef safe.

 

[Rogger Castells]

Well, the explanation Jeff gave sounds reasonable and likely to be the way it went, I still think that series of water changes should be performed and continue to observe the fishes how and invertebrates alike. Hopefully there is no long term damage and your tank will come back to normal.
Hopefully there is a lesson learned for all of us from you unfurtunate mistake.

 

[whaler1582]

ok, here is an update. i have found the flasher wrasse, he is doing ok and breathing normal. i turned the skimmer back on a day or two ago and it is making nice skimmate. the little clam is now dead, and i noticed a worm looking thing by it this morning, it kinda looked like a bristle worm, but it was different looking. it was stretched out and then when i turned the lights on, it shot back into its hole faster than you can snap your fingers. not sure if it is a bad type of bristle worm or if it is something else. now that i think about it, a friend of mine that i worked with turned his skimmer off during a waterchange on his 300 reef and then forgot about it being off and he lost a bunch of fish probably due to the same thing, lack of a high oxygen level in the water. he stil has a bunch of fish in there that are ok, but he lost some of the nice larger fish that he had. from now on, that skimmer is going to stay on 24/7, and i am setting up a quarentine tank for meds. thanks and ill give you guys an update in a day or two.
Josh

 

[Rogger Castells]

Josh I don't se worms as bad things on the contrary they are an important part of the ecosystem, the worm you saw is common and he was just helping cleanup the clam

 

[whaler1582]

there are those rare and rarely seen coral eating bristle worms. i didn't know if that was it or if there was something that could have killed the clam. i like pretty much anything that grows and lives in my tank, but there are those few unwanted pests that can become a problem. i am not going to worry about the worm.
Josh