Any ideas?

[mkunk1]

Tonight I came home to my favorite fish dead being eaten by my hermits (firefish). Everything was normal - he's always eaten great since I got him roughly 3 weeks ago. I did notice this afternoon my yellow watchman was oddly out and away from his hole on the other side of the tank and would occasionally swim up and perch in the corner of the glass like he did when I first added him to the tank. I also noticed when I got home that my royal gramma was out from his hole and sitting next to the overflow (watchman is still out too).

Any ideas why everyone's acting weird and may (or may not have) caused this random death or is it just a coincidence? Cleaner shrimp and all snails/hermit crabs seem normal.

The only thing I did differently today was use a new pair of those yellow rubber gloves to scrub some algae off a rock. Could a chemical or something have leached off of that?

Tank: 40 breeder
Salinity 33-34
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0.05
Nitrite between 5-10

 

[Humblefish]

Did you rinse off the rubber gloves before using them? It's always possible that a residue or chemical (like bug spray or household cleaner) could have been on them from the store.

 

[Humblefish]

Maybe run carbon just in case.

 

[melypr1985]

Or electrical current in the tank maybe? Some other chemical in the water like air freshener, bug spray, candles ect. Carbon is a really good idea until you know what it might have been.

 

[Reefahholic]

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say ICH.

Always the silent random killer....

 

[CarrieB]

No QT? So could be velvet or flukes, too.

 

[mkunk1]

I will have to inspect the fish closely when I get home and take pictures - but they all looked fine with no spots or anything on them. The only thing different with the fire fish was that I did notice his tail had what looked like a few little nips but I haven't noticed any aggression. Tank mates are watchman goby, royal gramma and bangaii cardinal.

I am running carbon - would it be a good idea to put a fresh bag in?

 

[mkunk1]

Did you rinse off the rubber gloves before using them? It's always possible that a residue or chemical (like bug spray or household cleaner) could have been on them from the store.

I did rinse them - thinking about it I could have rinsed more thoroughly but didn't think there could've been anything on them as it was a completely sealed, air tight package.

 

[Humblefish]

I did rinse them - thinking about it I could have rinsed more thoroughly but didn't think there could've been anything on them as it was a completely sealed, air tight package.

Could have happened when they were being made. I wiped out a QT one time because I think I used a powerhead straight out the box without cleaning it beforehand.