Help I'm scared

Todd Barket · May 27, 2017

Have a 60 gallon reef newish 2 perc clowns, three cromies, 1 yellow jaw fish, 1 blue spot watchman goby, 1 yellow tang and a kole tang. Plus the usual suspects in the cleaning crew.

Had a sea cucumber die, don't know for how long. Now the cromies are acting nuts, they swim in starts and stops, hide against rocks ( never have done this) breaking the water surface. the yellow tang is flying around the tank. I think the cucumber nuked the tank. I'm changing 18 gallons tomorrow. Have a sun sun canister with 265 gah flow and a big honking bag of activated charcoal. How screwed am I? I have zero idea how long the cucumber has been dead but it was about a quarter of its living length and white when I took it out. Dead at least 2 days. How much water should I change out? Should I migrate my fish temporarily to a little 5 gallon current led tank I have 2 other clowns in or should I just fill a bucket and put them in there with a penguin filter for some time? No ideas? Sorry for rambling its 2 am and I'm worried about a couple hundred dollars of fish.

gandalf208 · May 27, 2017

Todd Barket said:
Have a 60 gallon reef newish 2 perc clowns, three cromies, 1 yellow jaw fish, 1 blue spot watchman goby, 1 yellow tang and a kole tang. Plus the usual suspects in the cleaning crew.

Had a sea cucumber die, don't know for how long. Now the cromies are acting nuts, they swim in starts and stops, hide against rocks ( never have done this) breaking the water surface. the yellow tang is flying around the tank. I think the cucumber nuked the tank. I'm changing 18 gallons tomorrow. Have a sun sun canister with 265 gah flow and a big honking bag of activated charcoal. How screwed am I? I have zero idea how long the cucumber has been dead but it was about a quarter of its living length and white when I took it out. Dead at least 2 days. How much water should I change out? Should I migrate my fish temporarily to a little 5 gallon current led tank I have 2 other clowns in or should I just fill a bucket and put them in there with a penguin filter for some time? No ideas? Sorry for rambling its 2 am and I'm worried about a couple hundred dollars of fish.

Do that water change asap and make sure u switch that carbon out. I'd say only time can tell how screwed u are. If possible I'd even get water ready for a second change. Have you done tests since the cucumber died ?

leahfiish · May 27, 2017

Do a water change ASAP. Maybe move one or two fish into a bucket with clean water (matching salinity, pH, temp of tank), an airstone, and some pvc and see if they improve. If so move the rest of the fish. How long have you had the tank set up and how long have the fish been in there?

+1 on running as much fresh carbon as possible. Make sure you get all the cucumber pieces out, and do a water change tonight if you can.

You'll also want to test for ammonia, at the very least.

If you can't move the fish, try to increase aeration in your tank (airstone, extra powerheads, etc)

Susan Edwards · May 27, 2017

@Todd Barket I just went through this with a tiger tail sea cuc and actually am still paying for putting that critter in my tank. I put it in my tank and it crawled under a rock and that's the last I saw of it. All of a sudden I had ammonia spiking and cloudy water. I never found the cuc. And because my rocks are cemented, I could not remove to look for it and didn't really even know where to look.

Here's what I did:

Water changes every day/other day
Used Prime or an ammonia detoxifier, sometimes every day depending on my numbers. The tests will still show ammonia but it won't be toxic. Then came the nitrites...
I also seeded tank with more bio spira and other nitrate helpers to build up
This went on for weeks, maybe even a couple months now. Basically my tank went through another cycle. Eventually the ammonia went away and the nitrites and now I'm dealing with high nitrates so I'm still dealing with that stupid sea cuc. It's only been the last few weeks that I've been able to go back to once a week water changes. And I'm also dealing again with cyano, even though I have lots of flow. about ready to use chemiclean again

I didn't move any fish, didn't lose a single one nor did I lose any corals. I tried to stay on top of it and was probably lucky as well.

Do your water changes and if ammonia is high, you m ight have to do daily and also try prime or one of those just to detox it until you get it under control. Hopefully it won't last so long for you as you were able to remove the dead animal unlike myself.

jsker · May 27, 2017

You have some good advice in the above posts

Todd Barket · May 27, 2017

gandalf208 said:
Do that water change asap and make sure u switch that carbon out. I'd say only time can tell how screwed u are. If possible I'd even get water ready for a second change. Have you done tests since the cucumber died ?

My wife and I are doing a test this morning. I only had basic strips for testing (out of chemicals). I did put new carbon in after pulling the cuke last night. I got all of him. Weirdly the scallop and clam show no signs of stress. The inverts are doing their thing snails ok. This morning all the fish are still kicking.

Planning on at least 24 gallons today and I'll see about other treatments once we have a full test run. I'm a bit short on cash right now I have a 29 gallon 37 tall and a 45 hex waiting on water and set up so I have places to put them.

Thank you all for your help!!! I'll update parameters once we have them.

Todd Barket · May 27, 2017

leahfiish said:
Do a water change ASAP. Maybe move one or two fish into a bucket with clean water (matching salinity, pH, temp of tank), an airstone, and some pvc and see if they improve. If so move the rest of the fish. How long have you had the tank set up and how long have the fish been in there?

+1 on running as much fresh carbon as possible. Make sure you get all the cucumber pieces out, and do a water change tonight if you can.

You'll also want to test for ammonia, at the very least.

If you can't move the fish, try to increase aeration in your tank (airstone, extra powerheads, etc)

Only had fish in for about a month month and a half. It's a young tank. Lost a trumpet, and one head on a torch. Just when white over night and disappeared. Also had a sponge that was on its way out I removed last night don't know if that was also contributing to the issues.

Todd Barket · May 27, 2017

On our way to get the water tested. Will update specs in about an hour. Thanks again for all the advise.

leahfiish · May 27, 2017

If everything is still okay at this point you're probably mostly in the clear. Just keep running carbon, maybe do another water change, watch for any signs of distress from anything

Jimmyneptune · May 27, 2017

leahfiish said:
If everything is still okay at this point you're probably mostly in the clear. Just keep running carbon, maybe do another water change, watch for any signs of distress from anything

+1 water change is more important than even testing the water testing.

Todd Barket · May 27, 2017

Shockingly the ammonia level is virtually nil. Nitrates are at 40 so we are changing out 20 gallons. I'm concerned now the cucumber let out toxins as it died. No way to test but hopefully the new carbon and water change will help that.

leahfiish · May 27, 2017

Todd Barket said:
Shockingly the ammonia level is virtually nil. Nitrates are at 40 so we are changing out 20 gallons. I'm concerned now the cucumber let out toxins as it died. No way to test but hopefully the new carbon and water change will help that.

Yeah the toxin is what I mostly was concerned about, not the ammonia