Oh man... What a mess dead fish mucked up my reef..

[cwegescheide]

Well it all started when I added another dwarf angel to my reef. You guessed it. My CB angel killed it. It was in the tank a few days dead. Not good! That was stupid on my part. Live and learn. Well now my Nitrites are pretty high according to Sailfert I'd say 3ppm. Close to the highest on the kit.

I'm making up a 15% water change right now. The Euro reef is working overtime and I think I will change my carbon even though its only a week or so old and probably add more than I normally do.

So my question is there anything else I could do to get my tank back to normal quicker? And the bigger thing, are my acro's and monti's going to be ok? I think I've seen on here that the corals should be ok but want to make sure.

Thanks in advance,
Chris

 

[Sk8r]

I imagine you're ok. The tank should be able to digest the angel, if there are enough worms and inverts. Do you have a skimmer? Throw it into high gear, skim wet, and just keep emptying.

 

[cwegescheide]

Thats one problem. I don't have any crabs since I treated with interceptor. I did pull out the dead fish though. I just don't want my other fish to kick the bucket as well. So far i lost two. My purple tang (died today) and the angel died a few days ago. I thought I got him out soon enough but evidently not. I'm hoping that the 15 gallon wc in the 100 gallon total volume - 80 lbs LR (so probably 70 gallons total volume I'd imagine) will help alot towards getting things back to normal. One good thing I guess is that i think I can now add two tangs, I've been thinking about adding a chevron and of course replace my purple tang with less fear they will fight to the death.

 

[organism]

that's weird that two other fish died too, have you checked for ammonia or nitrites?

 

[Sk8r]

Not a happy situation. I'm very sorry. I don't know the effects of interceptor---I've never used it. I think at this point abundant water changes and running as much carbon and polyfilter as possible are the best thing to do.

 

[Confooseld]

3ppm is it and fish are dying? sure you didn't mean 30? (even that would have next to no effect on fish...) Sounds like you have high ammonia/nitrites.

 

[Sk8r]

Maybe asking in "Reef Chemistry" might help.

 

[marine_freak]

Dang! I had a large powder blue die in my 75 gallon reef and a red choris both good size and it did not even budge my parameters........ how good is your filtration????

 

[cwegescheide]

Well now my Nitrites are pretty high according to Sailfert I'd say 3ppm. Close to the highest on the kit.

Well I was trying to say that a few weeks ago I treated with interceptor and killed all my crabs so I didn't have anything to eat that dead rotting fish in my tank. I work away from home m-f so that thing probably was just laying there dead for possibly 3 or 4 days. I don't have an amonia test kit but my nitrites are almost off the Sailferts charts! So I'm thinking I do/did have a pretty good ammonia spike obviously. I have a 90 gallon tank and I only had 3 small fish this whole time. Now, I've just started feeding more and added 4 chromis and the angel. So I'd imagine that everything together got me a nice spike. I'm going to get an ammonia test kit tomorrow and hope that I get everything under control soon.

I guess the main thing is I wanted to know what the impact would be to my corals.. Now the funny thing is, now check this out... I've noticed are nice improvement recently in several of my corals!!! My orange digi is VERY orange, my plana is getting deeper coloration, monti danae is deeper, etc!!!

So I think what you all should do to improve you SPS coloration is SACRIFICE YOUR FISH to the reef gods!!!

Just kiddin. I do feel bad about causing the demise of any of the inhabitants of my reef.

 

[DarkXerox]

Thats weird, I can throw in a full shrimp and it gets eaten in about 10 min or so. I'm surprised you dont have a bunch of bristleworms or snails that take care of it. Oh well.

 

[mile sq. reefer]

You didn't mention anything about your corals. They would sure show signs of stress if your water chemistry was out of whack.

 

[fishdoc11]

Sorry to hear

I would go with several water changes...

The levels should drop fairly fast since you have removed what was decomposing.

good luck with it, Chris

 

[Sk8r]

I'm really suspicious that Interceptor did some sort of damage to the sandbed. Anybody? Can it?

 

[marine_freak]

Yeah I would follow fishdocs recommendation..... fyi both my fish died up under the rocks, there was no way to get to them..I allowed them to rot and be eaten by the scavengers but I have many scarlets and blue legs in my tank... that could be the difference hope it all works out for you.....

 

[twon8]

i believe interceptor kills bristleworms, and pods, so the microfauna would not have been up to par.

 

[fishdoc11]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7318556#post7318556 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by twon8
i believe interceptor kills bristleworms, and pods, so the microfauna would not have been up to par.

Shouldn't kill bristleworms with a normal or slightly elevated dosage(Interceptor only kills arthropods and nematodes when used properly). From what I have seen/read from people with DSB's that treat is that you can expect a small nutrient increase(still not measurable but recognizable by a small temporary increase in cyano/algae). The pod population will return fairly quickly. I personally know two people with mandarins that didn't skip a beat
An Interceptor treatment should not have caused what is being experienced here IMO.
hth, Chris