Emergency Naso Tang

[PootyTang]

Hi, I need some help as quick as possible.
I took out one of the rocks in my 125 to scrub it down with a bit of fresh water and get all the hair algae off. For the rest of the day, the naso tang ate fine and seemed ok, but for about 15-20 minutes now he's been swimming vertically at the top of the tank. There are large yellow-ish blotches on his left side (discoloration of the skin) and he's breathing very fast. He seems to have his strength and I'm doing an emergency 20 gallon water change right now (its all I had prepared). Does anybody know what's going on? I'm considering moving him to a 5 gallon bucket for a while with a fan in hopes of fixing this.

 

[PootyTang]

Anyone? I'm changing the carbon in the filter, I just finished the change (just about the fastest one I've ever done!) and now I'm just waiting.

 

[DaveK]

You are doing about what I would do.

It sounds like you either cleaned the rock, and released something from the rock, or had something on what ever you scrubbed the rock with.

However, it could be something else. In any case, you didn't panic and do all sorts of wrong stuff.

How are your other fish doing? This may also be an indication of possible problems.

 

[PootyTang]

The pyramid butterfly and the yellow tang look good, all the little fish are fine. the hepatus tang has some silver blotches on her side (you know how their "palate" turns silver when they freak out? its just below that), but she's always been a bit of a wuss, and seeing as my rocks are in quick a disarray from my quick water change (had to move rocks down to save corals), I'm not surprised that she's upset. As I write this, the Naso tang is in the middle of the tank, horizontal now, but still breathing really quick. I'm slowly beginning to be optimistic, but we'll see in the morning I suppose, nothing else I can do now.

 

[PootyTang]

Good news!
Woke up this morning and everybody was swimming and breathing normally. I was a little worried after the lights went out because the naso tang was sitting on the rock with the clowfish (he always rests on the bottom when he sleeps, but never with the clowns), but he was on the bottom this morning in his normal spot and breathing fine. He even ate a bit of nori that I threw in this morning so I'm pretty excited.

I took out the rock that I cleaned last night and put it in a bucket of old tank water. When I did this, I found one of my little yellow sea cucumbers climbing out. I suspect now that he was in the rock when it got cleaned, got stressed and released some kind of toxin (although I was always under the impression that these guys weren't toxic, just other ones) so I'm going to hook up a HOB filter on the bucket and run some carbon for a day and put it in the tank tomorrow when I can keep an eye on it all day.

I'm happiest because, seeing this, I suspect I narrowly avoided a crash last night but I ended up not losing anything

 

[PootyTang]

So this is starting to feel like deja vu.

I left the rock in question in a bucket last night and the cucumber moved out of it. I then took the cucumber and put him back in the tank then I let the rock sit out and dry for a half hour. After this, I put it back in the tank thinking it would be safe. That was at about 5:30. It's now 8 and the Naso tang is doing the same thing. I took the rock out, it won't be going back, and I took out the yellow cucumber, which will be going to the LFS tomorrow.
I also did another (even faster than last night) 20 gallon water change which brings me up to a 3rd of the water over 2 days (I'll have to deal with calcium and alkalinity later, but I treated with calcium this morning and carbonates when I was doing the water change).

Do naso tangs sometimes do this vertical swimming thing at night or when they're stressed?

 

[blueocean]

The pyramid butterflyfish is also now on its side not moving any of its fins on the bottom of the tank. The yellow tang and hepatus tang appear OK... Can anyone give us any advice?

 

[Mcvivor]

Neahhhh, Did you use fresh water as in RO or did you use water from the tap that has bad stuff in it?

That may be issue # 1.

Issue # 2, IMO do not take stuff out of the tank to clean it. To rid problems on rocks I would get things (inverts) to help clear up the problem. This way you will avoid disturbing chemicals in the tank.

I hope your Naso does fine. I remember comenting on him earlier this week or last week. He is a great looking fish.

Issue #2 - Stop taking things in and out of the tank. You are stressing the fishies out :-D. Just take that cucumber out (if you are worried it is harming your fish) I think the fish are more important than the invert.

3- Just shut the lights out and feed them garlic soaked foods tomorrow. Just let the tank go. I understand you are upset (Believe me I have been there) but the best thing to do sometimes is just let it go and see what happens. I would not recomend taking items out of the tank anymore.

Let me know the progress!!

 

[PootyTang]

Well I haven't taken anything out of the tank, just the cucumber and the rock. Also taken out of the tank was the pyramid butterfly who sadly died during all of this, I had hope as I know they can play dead quite well, but after a while the breathing stopped and so I had no choice.
All I can do now is hope that it was only stress that killed the butterfly and cross my fingers for the morning.

 

[Mcvivor]

Like I said, I really hope your Naso is fine. He is awesome looking and very photogentic!

 

[Nowellsy SNR]

Hope he pulls through

 

[leebca]

The cleaning of live rock with fresh water pretty much turns it into base rock. Not all, but many of the saltwater bacteria will have been killed too.

This means the biological filter of your rock has been compromised. This can and does quite often lead to ammonia and/or nitrite spikes. Both are poisons and of course kill fish.

Your best and immediate action should be to do a huge water change daily. By huge, I mean over 80%. Since this will be a large water change you need to follow these guidelines: http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums...7-how-make-safe-water-change-marine-fish.html

You should be making these water changes every day for the next 5 consecutive days. Test the water for ammonia and nitrites three or four times a day (with a test kit, not test strips). Do the water changes even if you don't find ammonia and/or nitrites.

I've only read your fish post, so I don't know what other information you've provided.

 

[PootyTang]

Well the tank crashed last night.

I woke up this morning to a dead Naso tang, hippo tang, flame angel, foxface, yellow tang, fairy wrasse and trigger fish.

The LFS was nice enough to hold on to the smaller fish who are all still doing well and all the corals have been temporarily moved to my 30g (which now looks quite nice).

The plan is to let the tank run fishless for a while (the LFS will hold on to them for at least 2 weeks for me), load up the tank with snails and crabs, do a whole bunch of water changes and test regularly before putting anything back.

The good news, both clams and both RBTAs seem to have made it through, and one fire goby who hid in the rocks throughout the whole ordeal is swimming around and enjoying the space to himself.

I'll keep you updated.

 

[Mcvivor]

Oh know.... not the Naso *cry*...... I hope all turns out well. I know the feeling of a crashed tank, mine did that once, I lost lots of expensive fish

Hope all turns out well for you!

 

[PootyTang]

Thanks alot for your support.
I'll keep posting on here so that maybe I can get some help with the detoxifying/restarting procedure.
I'm beginning to wonder if the daisy polyps on the rock that was scrubbed were the source of toxin.

 

[DaveK]

...

The plan is to let the tank run fishless for a while (the LFS will hold on to them for at least 2 weeks for me), load up the tank with snails and crabs, do a whole bunch of water changes and test regularly before putting anything back.

....

Having had similar things happen to me, I feel your pain. I'm truly sorry. Sometime, no matter what we do, it's almost a total loss.

What you plan to do is ok, but I think if it were me, I'd tear the entire tank down, placing the LR and LS in other containers, like rubbermaid trash cans.

Then I would drain all the water, clean all the equipment, and use this opportunity to repair, upgrade, or correct all the little things that I swore I would do differently if I had the chance. You might even want to move the tank a little to get more space in the front or back.

I would let all the rock "cook" or cure for as long as it takes. Yes, this could tahe a long time. Obviously there will be some die off.

Then I'd set up the tank as it it were new, and start over.

This is a lot more work, but it does let you start over from scratch, rather than from trying to correct a major problem.

 

[Dweezil]

I'm sorry for your loss, thanks for sharing your experience though. Maybe it will help someone else.

 

[PootyTang]

Thanks,
I had considered taking everything out and starting from scratch, but I'm pretty sure the problem was unique to that one rock and the few around it, all of which I've removed and am not putting back in, and, on top of that, I will be moving everything this summer anyway, to a 180 once I have some time to set it up.
Right now I'm just trying to get my pH up, it's on its way to the LFS to be tested right now, but I can tell its low just by the cloudiness of the tank.
The 2 RBTAs that I couldn't get out still look good, although a few of the corals that were stuck to the rocks are gone, just little frags but it was to be expected from all the commotion yesterday.
My plan is to try and give the tank at least 2 weeks to settle before anything goes back in there and I will be doing at least 3 water changes in this time (I'm trying to spread them out a little bit so as to not destroy water chemistry).
I'll keep you posted.

 

[PootyTang]

Still working on the pH.
Got it tested and it was at 7.5 (pretty bad, I know), but alkalinity was at 3.2 and Calcium was at 350 so I have a little bit of wiggle room with regards to additives.
Because of this, I've been adding Reef Buffer everyday to bring the pH back up before I go back to normal routine, I'm also adding some new sand to help with the process.
The fire goby who got left behind in the tank is still alive and doing well (he's eating like a pig), which makes me hopeful that the tank is recovering.
The LFS was also nice enough to give me (free of charge) an active carbon filter that uses loose carbon to detoxify. This is working alongside my existing carbon filter to help take any toxins out of the tank and I'm changing it every 3 days.
Because the effect of the toxin seems to be minimal at this point, I'm refraining from doing any water changes for about a week as the pH seems to be the most pressing issue.
When I do water changes, I will be doing a series of 3 20% changes over the course of 6 days, using culligan water (whose pH is much higher than the pH 6 purified lake water I normally use).
I only plan on doing this once the pH is up and the owner of the LFS comes back from vacation to help me through the process.

 

[PootyTang]

I forgot to mention, the pH: 7.5 reading was yesterday (17th). It was up to about 7.7-7.8 today (18th). I've lost a couple starfish, probably due to a combination of the low pH and the rapid pH change, but 2 serpant stars seems a small price to pay in comparison to the many corals that I wasn't able to remove from the tank who will surely die if I don't get things up to snuff.