Live sand may help a cycle by supplying some bacteria but it's not enough and a cycle can take up to 6 weeks. You obviously had the right bacteria in there I just don't think enough was built up to support two fish at once. Remember it's a 10 gallon tank, it's the same as adding 10 fish at once to a new 50 gallon. Seems obvious to me what the issue was. Hermit crabs will survive almost anything and they can't supply enough waist to produce the bacteria needed for fish.
Not trying to argue here, just get to the bottom of your issue. I mean what else could it be?

For the clown, I really think it was just the fact that it was crammed between the overflow teeth (I'm guessing all day as the clown was under the overflow when I left at 6am) for a very small specimen, I think it could stress out being stuck like that... The wrasse, is a mystery, I'm GUESSING it got nicked by the anemone (which I admit was an implulse buy) and being such a small fish, couldn't handle the sting...

My testing in the 3rd and 4th weeks showed the cycle, so I know it went thru it, I just never tested again before adding the fish. I realize that todays test of Nitrite read 0.00 to 0.02, but I'm not getting any reading for Nitrates even if the Trites dropped in the past 24 hours...

I saw a hawaiian strawberry crab today at the lfs. As soon as I saw it I thought of your themed tank. It would look purdy against your black sand.

I think Red Coral might be getting a Hawaiian shipment in soon. So I will have to pick thru it if it comes. :mrgreen:

Well, some not so good news tonight... Got home tonight and was looking at my tank, like usual, and glanced at my overflow randomly to see a fracture in the glass between the bulkhead and vertical edge of the tank.. It's not leaking water, but i am getting salt creep thru it..

Debating whether to leave it and hope it stands up for the remainder of the contest, or drop out and empty the tank.. :neutral:

anemone spells disaster for nano.need a well established and really stable system.

so then in other words anemone doesnt spell disaster for nano tanks, just one that arent taken care of. because you cant say because a tank is small you cant keep an anemone in the tank, just that it needs to mature, and be stable.

Not even close to being on my "concern" radar anymore...

Get some silicone... maybe some extra glass and go crazy on it... no need to drop out. It's only 6 months and it's only 10ish gallons to clean up

Yah Ive already cleaned 10+gal off the floor. Its really not that bad.:lol: