Truly bizzare, disaster helps clowns. Why?

[Converted to Saltwater]

had a disaster last night with the QT tank my two clowns were in. I had the small tank set on top of my desk. My desk has a sheet of glass on top of the wood. When I was siphoning the water out of the ten getting ready to clean it, I heard a crack.
I have no clue how but about a 7 by 18 inch piece broke off of this huge sheet of glass. It broke underneath the 5 gallon. Now ever thing was still level but the glass had slid about two inches out. I didn't think much of it other than that's seriously odd. Then I heard water hitting the floor.
The 5 was leaking from the bottom back right corner. This is where it got me anxious.
I saw water running down the drip loops so I kicked the strip plug out of the wall while trying to stop the leak. It was fast and 5 gallons wouldn't have lasted long. The FW is siphoning into the bucket I could have put them in. Tried to carry the tank to the kitchen but moving made it worse. I'm stuck.
My son sees his mom one day every week he had just left. Only me.
Siphon bucket fills up and I'm tied can't move to stop it so I just let it spill over I cant at all move because I was stopping the leak with my thumbs.
I had no choice but to dump them in the FW tank with about an inch and a half of water left because I was loosing SW too fast.
Forgot about the mess rushed and made fresh SW put as many HOBs with foam as would fit and hoped for the best.
Stayed up till 4 did a 50 percent water change got an hour sleep and woke up to two very healthy fish which have been expelling white, ( cytsys? IDK )from their gills.
Can anyone explain this? Also I don't know why but it was a silicone leak, that I just fixed. Really really odd.

 

[EmdeReef]

Sorry about your troubles! Can’t help with anything leaks related - it’s my biggest nightmare too.

Fish can survive in hyposalinity for a while. Sounds like your clowns may have had flukes if you saw small white specks?

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/flukes-–-general-guidelines.224423/

 

[Big G]

So you did a quickly put together freshwater dip for your clowns. Usually we do that for about 5 minutes as it causes flukes to die off the fish, especially in the gills. If you see the small white sesame seed sized things dropping off of your fish, that's a good thing. But now you need to finish the treatment with either General Cure or Prazipro + Metro, to finish ridding your fish of both flukes and internal parasites (worms). Glad it worked out OK for you. Sometimes FW dips really stress out some fish. ;)

 

[Converted to Saltwater]

So you did a quickly put together freshwater dip for your clowns. Usually we do that for about 5 minutes as it causes flukes to die off the fish, especially in the gills. If you see the small white sesame seed sized things dropping off of your fish, that's a good thing. But now you need to finish the treatment with either General Cure or Prazipro + Metro, to finish ridding your fish of both flukes and internal parasites (worms). Glad it worked out OK for you. Sometimes FW dips really stress out some fish. ;)

Quickly put together is a very polite way of putting it. More like the coach getting the cooler dumped on his back.
But I will continue treating. What I'm now wondering is should I remove as much FW detritus as possible as they are now in a FW algae covered tank with FW substrate and shells I collected for my cichlids to crush and move around which I got from the beach. And one of the HOBs I left in has FW bacteria all in it. However, they are better.

 

[Converted to Saltwater]

So after reading that link thanks EmdeReef, pretty sure it was the brook.
I am curious if the FW dump was so extreme it was really effective of if there was something in the FW that also helped.

 

[Big G]

Some have noted that successive freshwater dips can completely cure Brook. Much like doing TTM to cure Ich.

 

[Converted to Saltwater]

Some have noted that successive freshwater dips can completely cure Brook. Much like doing TTM to cure Ich.

Well I guess it really helped in my case. Everuday they seemed to get better somewhat even almost healthy. Then in the at some time throughout the day they would turn pale in the face and really struggle to get air.
I'm definitely pleasantly surprised by the outcome.
I really don't know how the shock of it alone didn't kill both of them. It was brackish so I bet that helped a lot.
I was going back through my notes,( I keep a record of anything added or changed, paramaters) and a few weeks ago I had some live plant issues so I added some liquid fertilizer.
It had copper in it. Didn't run carbon or change the water. IDK lots of variables.