Ernst Haeckel
New Member
So, I'm relatively new to the hobby, I have 32 biocube that's about 2 years old. My livestock includes 2 ocellaris clowns, a spotted mandarin, 2 damsels, Mexican turbo, bunch of blue hermits, a coral banded shrimp, and a lot of corals.
I didn't know anything about aquascaping when I first got it, so I was just stacking rocks. One day last month my rock structure tumbled and my torch skull got shattered (he's doing great now, super glued him back together and within 2 weeks he was back to normal). But I decided to try D-D epoxy to stick some of the rocks together yesterday. I read the instructions, but didn't pay much attention to the very end where it warns about oxygen depletion. I used about half the box to stick some rocks together and the tank got a little cloudy so I stopped. Then I noticed my damsels were acting weird, but I never thought it was cuz of the epoxy, I was thinking my clowns were bullying them again. Then everyone starting swimming strange, and it clicked. I immediately put an airstone in the tank, but it was too late. Both my damsels died fast. I watched the other 3 fish get worse, my mandarin started floating upside down with no movement.
I never set my QT tank back up after I moved since I haven't gotten new livestock in a while, but I suddenly remembered I always have a spare bucket of premixed salt on hand! I put everyone except the corals and shrimp in there. Somehow my mandarin didn't die and is now doing way better, clowns and snail are back to normal now. Coral banded never seemed phased by the incident, most corals seem to be fine now, but anemones and euphyllia still look ticked.
I have no idea how my mandarin survived. She seemed dead except for occasional twitching for hours, but now she is swimming around and I think she'll pull through!! I've never seen a fish come back from the brink like that in my 12 years of keeping FW, but for reference these were the first SW fish I've had die.
Let this be a warning to anyone using epoxy in a smaller tank, be very careful with the stuff as it can be very deadly. If you're using it in a small tank, I recommend moving all your fish and maybe corals to a secondary tank BEFORE putting epoxy in the main tank. There should be a much more prominent warning on the package. I would never do this again, if I had know it could be so toxic I would have drilled into the rock and put in some rods instead.
Has anyone here had a similar experience, if so do you know how long it will take for my tank's oxygen levels to return to normal? I think I'm going to keep my fish QT until they're 100% back to normal, assuming that's not too long. Thanks for reading my rant
I didn't know anything about aquascaping when I first got it, so I was just stacking rocks. One day last month my rock structure tumbled and my torch skull got shattered (he's doing great now, super glued him back together and within 2 weeks he was back to normal). But I decided to try D-D epoxy to stick some of the rocks together yesterday. I read the instructions, but didn't pay much attention to the very end where it warns about oxygen depletion. I used about half the box to stick some rocks together and the tank got a little cloudy so I stopped. Then I noticed my damsels were acting weird, but I never thought it was cuz of the epoxy, I was thinking my clowns were bullying them again. Then everyone starting swimming strange, and it clicked. I immediately put an airstone in the tank, but it was too late. Both my damsels died fast. I watched the other 3 fish get worse, my mandarin started floating upside down with no movement.
I never set my QT tank back up after I moved since I haven't gotten new livestock in a while, but I suddenly remembered I always have a spare bucket of premixed salt on hand! I put everyone except the corals and shrimp in there. Somehow my mandarin didn't die and is now doing way better, clowns and snail are back to normal now. Coral banded never seemed phased by the incident, most corals seem to be fine now, but anemones and euphyllia still look ticked.
I have no idea how my mandarin survived. She seemed dead except for occasional twitching for hours, but now she is swimming around and I think she'll pull through!! I've never seen a fish come back from the brink like that in my 12 years of keeping FW, but for reference these were the first SW fish I've had die.
Let this be a warning to anyone using epoxy in a smaller tank, be very careful with the stuff as it can be very deadly. If you're using it in a small tank, I recommend moving all your fish and maybe corals to a secondary tank BEFORE putting epoxy in the main tank. There should be a much more prominent warning on the package. I would never do this again, if I had know it could be so toxic I would have drilled into the rock and put in some rods instead.
Has anyone here had a similar experience, if so do you know how long it will take for my tank's oxygen levels to return to normal? I think I'm going to keep my fish QT until they're 100% back to normal, assuming that's not too long. Thanks for reading my rant
