medicreefer
New member
Well, I somehow killed my pair of nearly 10-year-old Ocellaris clownfish doing a water change. I have no idea what happened, but I'm hoping somebody here may have some ideas. It's too late for my fish, but I need to know. The entire event was very unexpected, sudden, unexplainable (so far), and rather devastating. Not knowing is killing me. I'll try to be as detailed as possible.
A bit of background:
I've been keeping a simple reef tank for about 10 years now (just LPS and GBTA), and I'd say my husbandry skills are fairly good, keeping a very stable system. The 2 clowns were my first fish inhabitants, and for most of that time the only ones. For the past 5+ years they've been in a 50 gallon DT (though the system is much larger at ~100g, as I've been lucky enough to have space for a large sump and fuge behind the back tank wall in a storage room).
I'm in the middle of moving houses and decided to upgrade my tank and system while I'm at it, as well as take my reefing in a new SPS direction. I'm having a new tank made, and will be cannibalizing and re-using a lot of the equipment from the old system in the new one, as well as upgrading various parts. As a result, I've had to move my clowns into a smaller 10g tank temporarily until the new system is up and running. They'd been in the smaller tank for about 5 weeks now and had been doing extremely well. The tank was started with water from the original tank, as well as a few pounds of liverock and about 1/4" of sand, so it didn't cycle at all. I also put in a mini CUC as well as a small head of the frogspawn that they hosted in the 50g. All water tests have been perfect and I've been doing approx. 10-15% weekly water changes without incident. Over the past 2 weeks the tank has experienced a MAJOR dinoflagellate explosion that has covered nearly all of the sandbed and rockwork with the snotty stuff, and started to smother the frogspawn, so last night my girlfriend and I decided to do a large 35% water change, as well as go to town scraping off and sucking out the dinos as best as possible.
The incident:
Just prior to the water change the tank parameters were normal: SG 1.025, pH 8.0, temp 80F, no ammonia or nitrate. Other tests not performed prior to the WC. New salt water was mixed using my usual salt to a SG 1.026 and temp to 82F. It was actually mixed the night before, then aerated again for about 2 hours prior to the WC.
We scraped off a ton of the dinoflagellates while vacuuming up as much as we could. This did end up being a lot more work than I thought, as the water column was full of floating bits of dino as we scraped (like really full), and I couldn't keep up with sucking it all out. I stopped the water change after the tank water level was down about a third, and then topped up the tank with the new water. I then started to put the WC supplies away.
About 5 minutes later I returned to the tank to see both clowns in SERIOUS trouble. Both were breathing rapidly and laying on the bottom of the tank. ***!? They would occasionally dart or swim erratically up into the water column, but then stop and just sink to the bottom and lay there. At this point there appeared to be mucous coming from their gills and they seemed to "cough" via their gills. Now I'm thinking "holy ****" and I go into full panic mode. I have no more salt water made (not that I trusted it anyway). What do I do? I put a dose of Prime into the tank, cram the filter with carbon and purigen. Double check temp, pH salinity and ammonia. They are 81, 8.2, 1.025, and zero respectively. I run to check the RO/DI water I used to make the NSW. Its TDS is 0, and a chlorine test strip also reads 0. A total of perhaps 5-10 minutes has gone by now. Both fish are now lying listlessly on the bottom and breathing rapidly. Last ditch effort, I scoop them out of the tank and drop them into the bucket of water I had drained off for the WC. This was the same water they were perfectly fine in just prior to the water change. But it makes no difference (or its too late). They dart once or twice more, then they just lie listlessly again on the bottom, their breathing slows and then finally stops. First one, and then about 2 minutes later the other one. They were both dead by the 15 minute mark post water change. So *** happened?
I have no clue. As best as I can figure, the differential diagnoses for sudden fish deterioration after a water change are as follows: Major salinity change downward or moderate salinity change upward, major pH change, severe temperature swing, significant drop in dissolved oxygen, ammonia spike, hydrogen sulfide release, toxin in the new water. I've gone through all of them.
Salinity? Nope. Not measurably different.
pH? It did oddly go up by .2 as measured by my meter, which is weird given that my NSW usually measures similar to the tank in the 8.0 to. 8.1 range, so this could be a measuring error with the probe. Also pH is a funny thing and can change in unexpected ways when two solutions are mixed. Either way, this .2 change could be enough to stress fish, but a rapid death in a few minutes seems far fetched. Besides, I'm quite certain that I've had similar shifts over the course of a day many times in the past.
Temperature? Nope, no real change.
Oxygen? I suppose the new water may have been depleted of O2 despite me aerating it for two hours, and I did do a fairly larger water change, but it was still only 1/3. This means the most the drop in dissolved O2 could have been was 1/3. That could stress fish and have them show signs of hypoxia, like swimming at the surface, etc. but it shouldn't cause massive respiratory disfunction with gill mucous and rapid death.
Ammonia? Nope, zero on testing.
Hydrogen sulfide release? Nope, this was a very shallow sand bed in a tank that's just 6 weeks old. There was also no odour of H2S either.
Toxin? Sure, maybe I suppose, but what? The small head of frogspawn in the tank didn't enjoy the water change either. It has since contracted and appears stressed, but this isn't hugely abnormal for it after I do water changes. Perhaps it's a bit more shrunken than usual but it isn't actively dying. I also have a few blue legged hermits and snails in the tank and they are all active and eating. Even all the small hitchhiker fanworms under my live rock appear fine (though they did disappear for several hours after the water change).
So what am I missing? I'm stumped. Is it possible that the dinos I have in the tank are toxic. That by disturbing a rather massive amount of the snotty substance into the water column (and the clowns subsequently breathing large amounts of the gunk through their gills) it poisoned the fish and damaged their gills? There's an old article by Randy Holmes-Farley in which he mentions that some dinos can be toxic if eaten by fish and inverts, but I don't believe he provides a reference or describes any toxicity from inspiring them.
I'm left with only that dino theory and/or possibly toxic contamination of the new water (with a mystery substance that really only kills fish and not inverts) as my only two viable theories. Not knowing sucks.
Any thoughts? :headwalls: :sad2:
A bit of background:
I've been keeping a simple reef tank for about 10 years now (just LPS and GBTA), and I'd say my husbandry skills are fairly good, keeping a very stable system. The 2 clowns were my first fish inhabitants, and for most of that time the only ones. For the past 5+ years they've been in a 50 gallon DT (though the system is much larger at ~100g, as I've been lucky enough to have space for a large sump and fuge behind the back tank wall in a storage room).
I'm in the middle of moving houses and decided to upgrade my tank and system while I'm at it, as well as take my reefing in a new SPS direction. I'm having a new tank made, and will be cannibalizing and re-using a lot of the equipment from the old system in the new one, as well as upgrading various parts. As a result, I've had to move my clowns into a smaller 10g tank temporarily until the new system is up and running. They'd been in the smaller tank for about 5 weeks now and had been doing extremely well. The tank was started with water from the original tank, as well as a few pounds of liverock and about 1/4" of sand, so it didn't cycle at all. I also put in a mini CUC as well as a small head of the frogspawn that they hosted in the 50g. All water tests have been perfect and I've been doing approx. 10-15% weekly water changes without incident. Over the past 2 weeks the tank has experienced a MAJOR dinoflagellate explosion that has covered nearly all of the sandbed and rockwork with the snotty stuff, and started to smother the frogspawn, so last night my girlfriend and I decided to do a large 35% water change, as well as go to town scraping off and sucking out the dinos as best as possible.
The incident:
Just prior to the water change the tank parameters were normal: SG 1.025, pH 8.0, temp 80F, no ammonia or nitrate. Other tests not performed prior to the WC. New salt water was mixed using my usual salt to a SG 1.026 and temp to 82F. It was actually mixed the night before, then aerated again for about 2 hours prior to the WC.
We scraped off a ton of the dinoflagellates while vacuuming up as much as we could. This did end up being a lot more work than I thought, as the water column was full of floating bits of dino as we scraped (like really full), and I couldn't keep up with sucking it all out. I stopped the water change after the tank water level was down about a third, and then topped up the tank with the new water. I then started to put the WC supplies away.
About 5 minutes later I returned to the tank to see both clowns in SERIOUS trouble. Both were breathing rapidly and laying on the bottom of the tank. ***!? They would occasionally dart or swim erratically up into the water column, but then stop and just sink to the bottom and lay there. At this point there appeared to be mucous coming from their gills and they seemed to "cough" via their gills. Now I'm thinking "holy ****" and I go into full panic mode. I have no more salt water made (not that I trusted it anyway). What do I do? I put a dose of Prime into the tank, cram the filter with carbon and purigen. Double check temp, pH salinity and ammonia. They are 81, 8.2, 1.025, and zero respectively. I run to check the RO/DI water I used to make the NSW. Its TDS is 0, and a chlorine test strip also reads 0. A total of perhaps 5-10 minutes has gone by now. Both fish are now lying listlessly on the bottom and breathing rapidly. Last ditch effort, I scoop them out of the tank and drop them into the bucket of water I had drained off for the WC. This was the same water they were perfectly fine in just prior to the water change. But it makes no difference (or its too late). They dart once or twice more, then they just lie listlessly again on the bottom, their breathing slows and then finally stops. First one, and then about 2 minutes later the other one. They were both dead by the 15 minute mark post water change. So *** happened?
I have no clue. As best as I can figure, the differential diagnoses for sudden fish deterioration after a water change are as follows: Major salinity change downward or moderate salinity change upward, major pH change, severe temperature swing, significant drop in dissolved oxygen, ammonia spike, hydrogen sulfide release, toxin in the new water. I've gone through all of them.
Salinity? Nope. Not measurably different.
pH? It did oddly go up by .2 as measured by my meter, which is weird given that my NSW usually measures similar to the tank in the 8.0 to. 8.1 range, so this could be a measuring error with the probe. Also pH is a funny thing and can change in unexpected ways when two solutions are mixed. Either way, this .2 change could be enough to stress fish, but a rapid death in a few minutes seems far fetched. Besides, I'm quite certain that I've had similar shifts over the course of a day many times in the past.
Temperature? Nope, no real change.
Oxygen? I suppose the new water may have been depleted of O2 despite me aerating it for two hours, and I did do a fairly larger water change, but it was still only 1/3. This means the most the drop in dissolved O2 could have been was 1/3. That could stress fish and have them show signs of hypoxia, like swimming at the surface, etc. but it shouldn't cause massive respiratory disfunction with gill mucous and rapid death.
Ammonia? Nope, zero on testing.
Hydrogen sulfide release? Nope, this was a very shallow sand bed in a tank that's just 6 weeks old. There was also no odour of H2S either.
Toxin? Sure, maybe I suppose, but what? The small head of frogspawn in the tank didn't enjoy the water change either. It has since contracted and appears stressed, but this isn't hugely abnormal for it after I do water changes. Perhaps it's a bit more shrunken than usual but it isn't actively dying. I also have a few blue legged hermits and snails in the tank and they are all active and eating. Even all the small hitchhiker fanworms under my live rock appear fine (though they did disappear for several hours after the water change).
So what am I missing? I'm stumped. Is it possible that the dinos I have in the tank are toxic. That by disturbing a rather massive amount of the snotty substance into the water column (and the clowns subsequently breathing large amounts of the gunk through their gills) it poisoned the fish and damaged their gills? There's an old article by Randy Holmes-Farley in which he mentions that some dinos can be toxic if eaten by fish and inverts, but I don't believe he provides a reference or describes any toxicity from inspiring them.
I'm left with only that dino theory and/or possibly toxic contamination of the new water (with a mystery substance that really only kills fish and not inverts) as my only two viable theories. Not knowing sucks.
Any thoughts? :headwalls: :sad2:
