MY FISHES DIED EXCEPT CLOWNFISHES!!! HELP!

jigenovana · Apr 28, 2019

Recently, all of my fishes (brown tang, eel, 4 domino damsels, 4 blue damsel) and most turbo snails died at the same time, except my clownfishes and my coral banded shrimp. I have 12 occelaris and 2 saddleback clowns. I suspect (I never actually saw it) my magnificent anemone got caught in the wavemaker and released toxins of some sort, coz when I checked, the anemone lost few tentacles and like swollen, and the water became a bit cloudy.

As of now, about 3 days after, the magnificent anemone is attached in the rock, with swollen body and fat tentacles, still hosting clowns. I can't see any cuts though, just lost tentacles, but I can see small ones about to grow back I guess. All my corals (hammer, torch, elegance, tree, finger leather, brain) are fine. All my 14 clownfishes seems happy. My other anemones (sebae, corkscrew and carpet) looks okay. My shrimp is alive and kickin.

Ammonia - 0
Nitrates - 10

So like just wanna ask if THAT caused mass fish kill?
Should I do water changes before I add new fishes other than clowns? Or like the toxins (if there is) will subside by itself?
How long does anemones heal itself?

Thanks!

Oldreefer44 · Apr 28, 2019

Could have been the cause but at this point a water change and then waiting would be my advice. Also tests for Alk, Calcium and phosphate are in order. Running some carbon temporarily might help but most importantly patience.

Tuan’s Reef · Apr 29, 2019

That’s a heavy bio-load with at least 20 fish on the tank ? What size tank ? Other water params ? There would of been an ammonia spike with that many deaths. What test kit you using? What’s your tank history? Age of tank ?

jigenovana · Apr 29, 2019

Tuan’s Reef said:
That’s a heavy bio-load with at least 20 fish on the tank ? What size tank ? Other water params ? There would of been an ammonia spike with that many deaths. What test kit you using? What’s your tank history? Age of tank ?

Hi. All my fishes are juveniles, not really adult sizes. The tank is 90g. I'm using API test kit. My tank is like 18 months now.

Drizzieee · Apr 30, 2019

+1 on a water change ASAP, usually with anemones they have the potential to release certain toxins but not to an event to destroy vertebrates in a domino-type fashion unless this was the course over a longer period of time. However doesn’t seem to far fetched either. Try to do that water change if you can try to go to your lfs and see if they have better testing equipment to test your water as an API test kit is no where near accurate and definitely hard to attest when trying to find the root cause.

vetteguy53081 · Apr 30, 2019

Something likely leached into tank changing entire chemistry and yes a dead anemone would do it.
Im going to assume also tank is fairly new?

Willu · Apr 30, 2019

vetteguy53081 said:
Something likely leached into tank changing entire chemistry and yes a dead anemone would do it.
Im going to assume also tank is fairly new?

OP said their tank is 18 months old

jigenovana · May 22, 2019

Drizzieee said:
+1 on a water change ASAP, usually with anemones they have the potential to release certain toxins but not to an event to destroy vertebrates in a domino-type fashion unless this was the course over a longer period of time. However doesn’t seem to far fetched either. Try to do that water change if you can try to go to your lfs and see if they have better testing equipment to test your water as an API test kit is no where near accurate and definitely hard to attest when trying to find the root cause.

Did two 20% waterchanges in a span of a week. I added new fishes and they seem to be happy. Theyve been there for 2-3 weeks now