A very sad day in the reef hobby.......

[turfster26]

I am sad to report that I have lost all my fish literally overnight. I have been in the hobby for close to 10 years and never experienced this before. I've had my fair share of loses, both corals and fish, but never a complete loss. I had all awesome fish: a nice variety of tangs, an awesome shoal of dispar anithias, mystery wrasse, leopard wrasse.....I think you get the picture. And all have been with my for several years without a hiccup.

Unfortuantley, I was away for a couple of days visit family out of state and had my long time trust tank sitter. He called this morning and broke the news. I have not even seen it in person yet. I think what happened was I've had a Ritteri Anemone for over a year and a half start walking on me in the tank. He was planted on a nice rock for the entire time and then out of nowhere he started traveling. I am thinking that he must have died and released a huge spike in ammonia???

Can someone possible let me know if that could be possible? Do anemone release toxins when they die? Like I said, I am still out of town and have not seen it myself.

BTW: CalRx, kalk, skimmer, chiller/temp and all other equipment seems to be ok. My tank sitter is awesome and he knows my system just about as good as me, so I am pretty confident that he looked everything over for possible causes.

I am soooooo depressed right now words can not explain. I have done some pretty stupid stuff in this hobby that was self-inflected, but never out of the clear blue like this. We are talking well over 2k of fish, not to mention the fact that they were my babies for so long.

Any insight would be great appreciate. And charitable donation are welcomed too.

The other bummer is, I am in the middle of an awesome custom 60gl Cube build and due to finances to restock my 180gl sps tank, it will have to take a back seat for awhile.

Completely bummed............

 

[_Alex_]

doh that sucks man!! hope you find out what caused it and make a strong recovery!!

 

[FishLipz]

Wow, that does suck. I can't imagine how you feel. Given an experienced caretaker and the fact that everything else checked out, I think you could be right about what caused the losses. Did he tell you how your SPS made out?

 

[RonMidtownStomp]

Sad to hear, but I think that it was probably the anemone. I lost all of my fish to a "cuke nuke" about a year ago, so I know how that feels. If you had a cucumber, they have a neural toxin in them at paralyzes the fish and then they can't breathe.

 

[SDguy]

Back in the '90's I lost all my fish in my reef in 1 hour. A sea apple got stuck to a canister filter intake, and released its toxins.

 

[turfster26]

Yea....the irony is he said the sps's look fine with PE, etc. So they checked out fine. I consider myself a pretty advanced reefkeeping and it is not my first rodeo. As mentioned, I have done some pretty stupid stuff before and was very obvious if something went crazy, but this one has got me. My tank sitter has looked over my tanks for over 6 years now and he has helped me do all my upgrades and basement maintenance room build, etc so I can really trust him. He said he feed the fish yesterday afternoon at 4pm and everything look normal, with one exception that the Ritteri was on the back wall of the tank instead of perched on his rock. I know he was wondering lately as mentioned in my original post, but he still looked healthy and been in my tank since July 2010.

I have to believe it was the Ritteri. I have not even seen the catastrophe yet. I know in the grand scheme of life they are replaceable, but I am still in a state of shock. I really has some beautiful collection of fish and all were so very healthy. Tomorrow (Sunday) I will start the rebuild process and cleanup all the dead fish in the tank and do many many water changes, clean filter socks, change carbon & GFO and all the other stuff prior to even thinking about adding any new arrivals.

BTW: any advice as to how soon I can add new fish would be greatly appreciate. I have never experienced this before in over 10-years in the hobby so I do not know what protocol is. I would assume you treat it as a new tank cycle with ammonia and nitrates???

 

[Surf&turf]

So Sorry for your loss!!

 

[Saltgator]

Sorry for your losses.

 

[LittleDabOSalt]

So sorry to hear this.

 

[sweetride]

sorry to hear about your losses.

am sure that you are a more seasoned reefer than me, but base on my own experiences sometimes SPS doesn't show that they are affected right way. just keep an eye on them, because the only thing worst that loosing all those fish is loosing your SPS as well...

 

[turfster26]

Well, I finally got home today and saw the carnage for myself. My scarlet hermits took care of most of the smaller fish, but some of the tangs and larger fish had to be netted out. I was very depressing to see and I am starting to dust myself off and get back up.

I am happy to report that all my sps's are doing great. I did a 45gl wc on a roughly 220 total gl system and cleaned my skimmer and changed my carbon. Tank seems to be doing remarkably well giving that I had 100% fish kill just over 24hrs ago. I still don't know what happened and I am still thinking it was some sort fo toxin release from my Ritteri anemone or a spike of ammonia because of its death. Either way, I never had anything remotely happen like this before.

With that said, does anyone know where to get fairly affordable fish? I have been out of the loop on buying online because my tank had been doing so well for so long that I have not ordered fish in quite some time. I saw that Pacific Island Aquatics has some nice stuff and very affordable, but the selection is somewhat limited.

Anyway, thanks for all the support and allowing me to vent....I am still bummed but after working the tank for a few hours this afternoon I am a bit better now..........

 

[soccerbag]

I don't know if there is any steadfast rule as to how long you should wait to add new fish. But, personally, I would do exactly what you stated. I would run heavy carbon (as much as your reactor will hold) and I would change it every 4-5 days for 2-3 weeks. That, coupled with a good bleaching of any filter socks and a small water change or two should have your water back to acceptable levels.

Very sorry to hear of the loss. Losing one fish is never easy. Losing all at one time is just awful. Maybe do without an anemone this time around....

P.I.A. does have nice fish and the prices and selection are good. Just depends on what you're looking for though.

 

[Alistar]

Is the anemone still in the tank?

 

[iprayforwaves]

what a shame, my condolences.

 

[marinworld]

Not to sound cold, but, why would your experienced friend leave dead specimens in your tank? Wouldn't you want to remove them immediately? Why create further pollution!

Could your fish sitter run a few simple tests on the water chemistry when he confronted the problem, rather than waiting until you returned???????

 

[turfster26]

Not to sound cold, but, why would your experienced friend leave dead specimens in your tank? Wouldn't you want to remove them immediately? Why create further pollution! Could your fish sitter run a few simple tests on the water chemistry when he confronted the problem, rather than waiting until you returned???????

To be fair, my tank sitter did net as much as he could and I was coming home within 24hrs so he did the best he could. Truth be told, I have such a good cleanup crew they did a nice job too. My tank sitter has worked countless hours helping maintaining my tank for years, so he does a great job in caring for it while I am away.

Everyone can play armchair quarterback (including myself) but at the end of the day I had a Ritteri anemone that was successful kept in captivity for 1.5 years prior to me purchasing it and I had it for 1.5 years, so it was a healthy anemone. Why it started to walk is still surprising? I have kept anemones successfully for the entire 10 years I've been in the hobby and yes I will think twice before keeping one in the future. I am still puzzled that it would release a toxin that quickly. And no, the anemone is not in the tank. He died abruptly and netted the what remained of him yesterday.

To that end, I've check all parameters this morning and everything is spot on. I will check phosphates and nitrates levels tonight. I can not check for ammonia because I do not a test kit, so I may bring a water sample to a local LFS. I guess I have to chalk this up to s**t happens when keeping live fish and coral in captivity. It happens to the best of reefkeepers and unfortunately it happened on my watch this weekend.....what a bummer.

Many thanks for everyone's suport.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Sorry to hear about your loss!

Did all the fish die? If so I might suspect some kind of disease.

 

[revsgirl]

So sorry!

 

[Salty Dog]

wow, very scary to hear, I too have a large Ritteri for 3 yrs now, although it hasnt moved it makes me nervous to think the nem could be there reason. Sorry for you devastating loss. RIP fish

 

[mrdrew66]

Yea that happened to my tank as well. over night lost power after lightning storm and power was off most of the night and heater malfunctioned water temp was 88 degreees and water stood still for 6 hours. Lost 2k of livestock. after a year, Re started hobby with a larger tank and try not to spend much on corals, find small frags on craigs list, tempted to buy on line again, but im more cautious with what i buy, so far its going great the second time around. After such a loss i share in your sadness, but its like falling off your bike just have to get back on and start riding again. goodluck keep on reefing.