Accidentally poisoned inverts- Bayer

[starypotter]

Hi everyone,

-I did a coral dip.
-The water used to rinse accidentally went back in the tank. I thought it was the cup I was using to mix Reef Flux, yes I know better now and will never do multiple things at once now.
-My 2 cleaner shrimp and one pistol shrimp were on their sides.
-We immediately removed them from the tank and I took water from my other fish QT and put them in that.
-All three shrimps are twitching a little.
-After I realized it was bayer that did it and not the reef flux I got water from my DT (it has reef flux so I avoided it at first) and put it in a bucket.
-Moved the one fish and 3 shrimp to the bucket. (Other water was from fish only QT nitrates are bound to be way too high for recovery)

-I have a bubbler in there, and am swishing it somewhat to hopefully get water movement around the shrimp, it's as fresh as the water can get, tested earlier DT has 0 nitrates. I added prime. What more can I do? I used my other freshly mixed water to do a water change before I realized shrimp were dying.

 

[starypotter]

So now the 100% full story now that the basics are met.
-Earlier this evening I did a bayer dip on my new corals, a Furan 2 dip on my zoas which have pox, and I moved my new corals to DT and returned my zoas to DT.
-Since Coral QT has bryopsis I added Reef Flux.
- A while after I started noticing that my algae blenny who lives in the coral QT on account of bullying was swimming around. I thought it was weird but brushed it off.
-A bit later I noticed he was still moving about, extremely odd behavior you usually never even know he exists.
-I decided to do a water change thinking the reef flux I had added was too much. I took out a bunch of water, and replaced it with freshly mixed and water from my DT.
-After I poured it in I looked to see my shrimp on it's side. I thought the force of not so gently dumping in several gallons of water had knocked him out.
-He wasn't moving, we (my mom has been helping) decided they had to be poisoned.
-I got water from my thankfully non medicated fish QT and a pot (out of buckets). Put the water in the there and added the shrimps and algae blenny. Added the bubbler and watched. Pistol shrimp's legs seemed to wiggle, cleaner shrimp's front legs twitched a bit.
-I finally realized that I had rinsed my corals from the bayer in the water I'd mixed the reef flux in and had dumped that into the tank. (20 gallon)
-Realized that my shrimp in my DT were just fine with reef flux so I took water from DT and one freshly mixed gallon of water. I figured it would have to be better than the fish QT water which has to have nitrates off the wall in invert terms.
-Added prime, it's got 3 air stones.

I'm trying not to get my hopes up but it's hard when you see them twitching after you've assumed them to just be dead.
What else can I do?
Is anybody on #reefsquad awake? @Big G

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Sorry to hear.

The shrimp most likely won’t pull through sadly. But see how it goes.
Sounds like you’ve done basically a full wc for them.

The blenny may well pull through.
I’d get him into the qt or the DT. The Ammonia will likely build up in that container. If the shrimp pass it may get worse.

A fwiw, I’ve never heard of nitrates being an issue for inverts or fish so it should be fine.

The Bayer I do belive for removal is mostly by oxidation to make it Inert. Carbon may help, but I’m not sure.

 

[leahfiish]

Add some carbon in a media bag.

 

[starypotter]

Sorry to hear.

The shrimp most likely won’t pull through sadly. But see how it goes.
Sounds like you’ve done basically a full wc for them.

The blenny may well pull through.
I’d get him into the qt or the DT. The Ammonia will likely build up in that container. If the shrimp pass it may get worse.

A fwiw, I’ve never heard of nitrates being an issue for inverts or fish so it should be fine.

The Bayer I do belive for removal is mostly by oxidation to make it Inert. Carbon may help, but I’m not sure.

Thanks, I've added a good deal of prime, I've got a bunch of air stones in there and they're in all new and bayer free water. Do you think I should still find a way to get carbon going through there? It's just in a bucket not ideal but it's something.
Bayer removal from the coral qt was going to be my thread for the morning, I shut it down for now, there's nothing in there but some LR and GSP.
I think the pistol has already died, but one of the cleaner shrimp is moving all of it's little legs... Do you think that the blenny still needs to be stuck elsewhere even with 100% new water and prime? I don't know how fast a dead shrimp would change ammonia levels in about 3 gallons of water but I've got plans to reassess in the morning and all that as needed. He was in coral QT because he was being a terrible bully in the fish QT.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Thanks, I've added a good deal of prime, I've got a bunch of air stones in there and they're in all new and bayer free water. Do you think I should still find a way to get carbon going through there? It's just in a bucket not ideal but it's something.
Bayer removal from the coral qt was going to be my thread for the morning, I shut it down for now, there's nothing in there but some LR and GSP.
I think the pistol has already died, but one of the cleaner shrimp is moving all of it's little legs... Do you think that the blenny still needs to be stuck elsewhere even with 100% new water and prime? I don't know how fast a dead shrimp would change ammonia levels in about 3 gallons of water but I've got plans to reassess in the morning and all that as needed. He was in coral QT because he was being a terrible bully in the fish QT.

Prime doesn’t work quite like that. It’s not a bacteria or miracle do all.

If you have a pice of live rock or cycled media say from the fish qt or display and a small powerhead for flow it’ll work better. The bubbler May work.
Basically your “skip cycling” a qt or hospital.

The carbons not going to do much really for the fish in the bucket.

 

[starypotter]

Prime doesn’t work quite like that. It’s not a bacteria or miracle do all.

If you have a pice of live rock or cycled media say from the fish qt or display and a small powerhead for flow it’ll work better. The bubbler May work.
Basically your “skip cycling” a qt or hospital.

The carbons not going to do much really for the fish in the bucket.

I was under the impression that if I put prime in now any ammonia that would enter the system by shrimp or fish waste would be de-whatever the word is and it wouldn't be poisonous. I'm not trying to use it to cycle the bucket, just preemptively combat any ammonia being released. I'm sure i've got a rock I could stick in there I'll dig through my sump.
The pistol shrimp is now doing loop de loops aimlessly but he's swimming on his own at least so that's something right?

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

A good trick to keep in mind that you’ve actually stumbled across, tank water is cycled, add live rock and the bacteria there continue the job.
“Skip cycle” is the term.

I haven’t bought prime in 5+ years.
No need. I have tanks and Rock. And what most folks will tell you about the cycle seems to cost money.

I also keep a small bag with a half dozen bio balls in the sump of one of my tanks.

I hope it’s good news on the shrimp.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

A fwiw. Not a lecture.
With new coral, I have 3 2ltr containers from Costco. With big red Xs on them. And a dish.
The first I acclimate the coral if needed and add Bayer , the second is tank water as rinse and has a small amount of peroxide , the third is tanks water as a rinse.
The dish I inspect and scrub algae. Put back in peroxide if needed

It does two or three things. Kills bugs n alge yea but, It makes sure no Bayer gets to the system. I lt also makes it a hard habit so I don’t impulse buy and get comfortable with dixi cups of poison and do “quick dips”.

 

[vetteguy53081]

This is why I do not do Bayer. I use aquatic manufactured dips such as seachem and CoralRX. I have premeasured CoralRX packets which does not allow me to overdose. Rinsing prior to tank return is important especially if any foreigh matter through mucus, etc is still attached to specimen

 

[starypotter]

A good trick to keep in mind that you’ve actually stumbled across, tank water is cycled, add live rock and the bacteria there continue the job.
“Skip cycle” is the term.

I haven’t bought prime in 5+ years.
No need. I have tanks and Rock. And what most folks will tell you about the cycle seems to cost money.

I also keep a small bag with a half dozen bio balls in the sump of one of my tanks.

I hope it’s good news on the shrimp.

So the blenny, pistol shrimp, and one of the cleaner shrimps made it. I did lose one cleaner shrimp which is very upsetting. I now know better than to be anything less than pristine with my practices. Now I'm at a point where I'm trying to decide what to do with them. I want to add the shrimps to DT, but the pistol shrimp is very small, it's less than an inch and I worry about him being in there without a goby. I don't even have a goby for him yet, LFS didn't have the kind I wanted when they had the sale on pistol shrimp.
I want to add the other shrimp there so he had a nice safe new place to go while I handle detoxing the coral QT however that may be done, but my DT already has 1 skunk cleaner shrimp, and 1 fire shrimp and 1 peppermint shrimp. I had originally wanted to have shrimps everywhere, meaning some in DT some in QT to whatever number is allowed but seeing as I don't have a coral QT to put him back in I figured he deserves to live a nice life after my mistake. I just want to make sure it actually will be a nice life with so many shrimp in DT. DT is 75 gallons. The current cleaner shrimp in there is somewhat large, similar in size to the fire shrimp. They seem to get along fine. They have their own little ledges that they hang out by and will occasionally trade places in a way, sometimes if they go near each other they'll give a little chase, the other backs up and all is well again. The cleaner shrimp that I have is much smaller than the two cleaner shrimps in DT. I know research has been done saying that only two skunk cleaner shrimps will ever live in one tank, but I don't know how that stacks up when there's other shrimps involved.

 

[starypotter]

Little pistol shrimp is hiding under the blenny's head.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Glad that the casualties were low.

As @saltyfilmfolks said, not trying to lecture here, just putting this out there for everyone else reading: Bayer is not a coral dip, it's an insecticide. It's a nerve agent, not unlike the type that Kim Jong Un (allegedly) used to kill his brother. It will attack anything with a nervous system, meaning fish, corals, crabs, pods, or even you and your family. This stuff is no joke. You should not be putting your hands in it without gloves. You should consider wearing eye protection when using it (might be overkill, but I do it anyway). You should be extremely careful to not let this stuff in contact with anything alive that you don't want to see dead.

I use Bayer for my coral dip. By no means am I trying to dissuade people from using it just because it can be dangerous. Having said that, we really need to be careful with this stuff if we do use it.

 

[starypotter]

Glad that the casualties were low.

As @saltyfilmfolks said, not trying to lecture here, just putting this out there for everyone else reading: Bayer is not a coral dip, it's an insecticide. It's a nerve agent, not unlike the type that Kim Jong Un (allegedly) used to kill his brother. It will attack anything with a nervous system, meaning fish, corals, crabs, pods, or even you and your family. This stuff is no joke. You should not be putting your hands in it without gloves. You should consider wearing eye protection when using it (might be overkill, but I do it anyway). You should be extremely careful to not let this stuff in contact with anything alive that you don't want to see dead.

I use Bayer for my coral dip. By no means am I trying to dissuade people from using it just because it can be dangerous. Having said that, we really need to be careful with this stuff if we do use it.

I know, and I appreciate the warning for myself and anyone else who may be dipping and hope that at least my misfortune might mean someone else is able to know better in order to avoid disaster. I wish I had a picture of my setup that I was doing for dipping as 'proof' that I wasn't doing /too/ terrible of a job, several different containers that corals made their way through and all that jazz. All it takes is one little slip up. I certainly won't be dosing anything or dipping anything else whenever I do a bayer dip, and I'm going to be doing it all in a different room so I really have to think twice about anything going back into a tank. The kicker is that nothing even came off the corals. Not a single thing.
When my mom and I pulled the shrimp and fish out we even managed to grab a couple of pods without even noticing, I didn't dump the first 'fresh' water I'd put all of the critters in just in case I needed it, I already needed to shut down the DT return pumps for the night and just have my powerheads hit the surface so I couldn't afford more water at 2am. Then this morning there's a handful of amphipods swimming around in the bucket which I find impressive since I didn't even know my coral QT had anything other than a splattering of copepods on the glass.

 

[starypotter]

I need help with advice to detox my tank now. It has sand and rocks and filter media. How can I do this? I see no way of knowing if there's still any bayer in there so even if I run carbon, do water changes, and all that, I don't see any way to know when I've got it all out. Do I need to completely tear it apart and bleach everything and start again? I just find it a bit hard to believe that adding a bag of carbon and doing water changes would be enough to remove it. This was only the water used to RINSE the corals after a bayer dip and it nearly wiped out the tank so it's pretty clear this stuff is potent and I'm not about to subject any life to it until I can guarantee it is safe.

 

[MnFish1]

I need help with advice to detox my tank now. It has sand and rocks and filter media. How can I do this? I see no way of knowing if there's still any bayer in there so even if I run carbon, do water changes, and all that, I don't see any way to know when I've got it all out. Do I need to completely tear it apart and bleach everything and start again? I just find it a bit hard to believe that adding a bag of carbon and doing water changes would be enough to remove it. This was only the water used to RINSE the corals after a bayer dip and it nearly wiped out the tank so it's pretty clear this stuff is potent and I'm not about to subject any life to it until I can guarantee it is safe.

So - which bayer product did you use - what is the ingredient on the bottle (and the percent) - that is step one. Can you post that? Thanks

 

[MnFish1]

Secondly - maybe I missed it - how much 'Bayer' got into your tank? and How big is your tank?...?

 

[starypotter]

So - which bayer product did you use - what is the ingredient on the bottle (and the percent) - that is step one. Can you post that? Thanks

I put about 8ml of this in 2 cups of water. Dipped my frags and then I placed them into a container with about 10 cups of water give or take. After I moved my frags to DT I used that same 10 cups of rinse water to mix my ReefFlux and dumped that into the tank.
It is a 20 long DIY AIO, I do not remember how many actual gallons are in there. There’s 10 pounds of sand and this is the rock.
Tank is a bit pulled apart and ugly in the pic from last nights removal but that’s what’s in there.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I need help with advice to detox my tank now. It has sand and rocks and filter media. How can I do this? I see no way of knowing if there's still any bayer in there so even if I run carbon, do water changes, and all that, I don't see any way to know when I've got it all out. Do I need to completely tear it apart and bleach everything and start again? I just find it a bit hard to believe that adding a bag of carbon and doing water changes would be enough to remove it. This was only the water used to RINSE the corals after a bayer dip and it nearly wiped out the tank so it's pretty clear this stuff is potent and I'm not about to subject any life to it until I can guarantee it is safe.

@redfishbluefish @Randy Holmes-Farley
Accidental Bayer bug dip in small tank.

How to remove.

I belive quite some time ago I had done the research and basically it oxidizes and becomes inert over time.
I do not know the effectiveness of carbon on the active compounds of The Bayer dip.

 

[starypotter]

@redfishbluefish @Randy Holmes-Farley
Accidental Bayer bug dip in small tank.

How to remove.

I belive quite some time ago I had done the research and basically it oxidizes and becomes inert over time.
I do not know the effectiveness of carbon on the active compounds of The Bayer dip.

Thank you, I remember you saying that earlier and I've got the filter running again making some terrible splashes for now but it's just frightening to think of putting anything else back in there with only time and air to 'fix' it, it's not something you can see or feel you know?