Emergency! Need help!
 

So I have a thread going about treating ich:

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=81768

Looks like Herbtana (I used 75% of the recommended treatment to be safe) completely crashed my tank. Everybody looked happy yesterday, but when I came home tonight I found 1 lyretail anthia in the anemone, 2 others dead in a cave. I grab them out.. then I noticed my strongest and meanest fish that was in my sump.. dead (yellow tail damsel)

I noticed my lawnmower blenny is stressed, he later dies. My biggest anthia that was just turning into a male.. dies. My dogface puffer at one point, does into a cave puffs up to wedge himself and all of the sudden it looks like he was trying to close his eyes.. WTF!

So all in all.. very stressful night. I only had about 15gallons in water prepped, I changed the water. My skimmer is so out of wack from the meds, it just bubbles over. I took the skimmer out and put it into my fish room sink, and it runs fine on tap water (i can adjust the water level)

Oh, and my kole tang looks like his face is melting off.. I have NO idea whats going on. The UV sterilizer I bought from Golds died, there was water in the compartment where it holds the UV bulb. I rushed to Golds and they replaced the bulb. If the bulb shorted out in the tank, could that have caused all this die off? They sold me a couple of nutrifin cycle and prime, and I rush home.

I added the prime and cycle into the water I had prepped.

Sorry if this might sound bad (grammar wise) just tired, and have no idea what to do.

P.S. I don't have a QT tank. However, 2 weeks ago, I took all my old LR from my office tank and scrubbed them. The tank still has all the LR, heater and powerhead running. It only has 40% water in the tank though (lots of rocks and very little swimming room). The remaining fish seem fine but you never know.

Actually, the remaining fish are kind of begging for food.

I have another trash bin filled with a combination of RO water and tap water (combined them to get the water mixed ASAP) mixing with salt. I am hoping to do another water change in the morning.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

that sucks man......I literally just did a w/c otherwise Id offer you some saltwater.....sounds like your doing pretty much all you can do really...."the solution to pollution is dilution"

Thanks, would it be advisable to change the water out again?

I have about 190 net volume of water, and I only changed out about 15g (3/4 of a 20g brute trash bin)

Man I am so sorry to hear that. that is just awful... I still dont understand how herbtana can cause this? I double dosed my clown, and nothing bad happened.. I hope you can track down the root cause and solve the stress! I feel for you

Yeah probably, you only took out about 10% of the polluted water

If you need some water, mixed and ready to go, let me know. I have about 25 - 30 gallons ready. What part of the city do you live in?

Look at the dogface eyes

I'm in Royal Oak. Thanks so much.

I have my skimmer running in my sink right now to clean it a bit. I am just hooking it back up.

dogface is back out and about. So weird.

In the sink, I can control the level of the water. In the sump, it just keeps bubbling over, even if the valve gate is turned all the way to the left, turned to the right it shoots straight up into the collection cups and practically blows the lid off

Same thing happens when you use flatworm exit, the skimmer goes nuts unless you do a large water change and run carbon. If you have access to carbon, I would run as much as you can in a reactor or if you don't have a reactor, find a filter stock and put it near some flow. Hope everything works out...

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Thanks dc4, I turned on my phosban 550 filled with carbon and gfo yesterday. I just filled up a brand new mesh filter sock with carbon. I have a brand new BRS carbon as well. but right now there is a lot in the filter sock. Thanks for the suggestion, totally didn't even think about that

ah sorry to hear man. I wish i catch this thread earlier so i can offer you some bin and ready to go mixed water.

I hate putting medicine in the display tank, if your skimmer still go wild, i think the chemical that is killing your fish still in there. I would let it continue skimming the tank and keep making fresh water and do w/c and run/change carbon

this is awfull. I to never treat in the display tank, it's too risky as anything can die. I never had such mess using Paraguard and I am treating 3 fish right now in a 20 gallons quarantine tank with liverock with some coral (I could not remove them) that are attached to the liverock and after a week they seem to be holding. One birdnest and some clove polyps. There is one little batch of green star polyp that is closed but look alive otherwise. I would never use it in my display tank though.

I don,t suppose they put the ingredients on the bottle?

Sorry to hear. I hope you get things figured out.

IMO I don't think it's the Herbtana causing the problems. I have used it full strength in my display tank with no ill effects to the fish or corals. I also use it with the Microbe-Lift Artemiss product when introducing new fish into my display tank as a pre-treatment as per the instructions on the bottle. Maybe check to ensure you dosed the proper amount.

Sorry I can't offer any more assistance. Good luck.

I'm in royal oak as well, I can mix some water and it should be ok tonight, but I only have about 7 gallons I could give you as that's all I have for ro water right now. Let me know, i will pm you my number.

Sorry for your losses.

Forgot to mention that it also helps to keep letting the skimmer cup fill up and empty it a many times as it takes for it to calm down after the water change and carbon. The water in the skim cup will be more condensed with the chemical than just doing water changes. Of course, you may need some premixed saltwater on standby though to to off.

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What is Herbana
 

What are the ingredients listed on the package or bottle of this stuff you put in yourt DT?

Hey All,

Thanks for all the help and offers. I worked on the tank till 3am, letting the collection cup fill up and then dumped it. my sump water was starting to get low, I let the brute trash bin mix my water till this morning (pretty much 100% full of water)

I did a WC this morning, and ran the skimmer again, this time it didnt fill up as fast. Did this for about an hour, then came into work. I didnt grab the bottle with me. I did however write an email to the company, they say this stuff has a 2 year shelf life, and my lot number is within range. Then he just went on about how I didnt use the full medication dosage instructions and tried to use a doctor and medication for human metaphor (pretty much saying their product didnt mess it up). I would hate to imagine what would have happened if I used the full medication dosage into my tank. I will post the ingredients tonight, but here is a link to their product.

http://www.microbelift.com/products/...herbtana-reef/

There is a pdf file at the bottom of the page, but it says the ingredients are "proprietary".

Quick update, the kole tang passed sometime during the night. The total is 8 fish so far. The puffers still seem stressed.

Sorry to hear about your losses, just do large waterchanges for now until the tank is stable again. In future may I suggest getting a smaller tank and dosing meds in there instead of the display tank, that way if something goes south you can quickly replace the water rather than larger system.

As well I doubt it was the Herbtana, yes your skimmer overflows with it, hence the back of it saying to turn off your skimmer, my best bet is you didn't do that and you had skimmate in your cup... it overflowed back into the tank, thus stressing everything in the tank, as mentioned do a good size water change to try and get everything settled again....

Ive used this product for a long time and have never had a single problem with it, I recommend it to alot of people and never had they had ill effects....

Good luck from here on!

Steve

Just a note... You can't set a skimmer using tap water. It reacts differently than salt.

Sorry about your issues.

Good luck.

Hey Steve, I stopped treatment and turned the skimmer on a day after I dosed. I didn't have the skimmer running during treatment. I followed the instructions, turned slimmer off and removed carbon. I also only used 75% of the recommended dosage to "play it safe"

Hey paddy, I wasn't using the tap water to dial in the skimmer. I used it to help clean it out, I took the skimmer apart to rinse everything out, and left it running to just kick out anything that was inside the skimmer

hmm i dunno then, but I highly doubt it was the herbtana....

Steve

herbtana
 

I've used herbtana ramped up to 150% dosage with no problems and that was with epaulette sharks as well.

Good product, slow to work, but good product

The only thing that has changed in my tank was herbtana, I didnt add anything else.

Is the office tank the one that you are having problems with or your tank at home? Or did you merge the two into one tank. if you did the later, since you scrubbed the live rock (under tap water?), and then introduced it to the main DT, wouldn't there be a huge ammonia build up from the LR die off?

Sorry to hear about your losses.

I started the new DT from scratch, 90% marco rocks and a couple LR from the LFS.

During the shutdown of the office tank, I scrubbed it in tank water.

Sorry my misunderstanding. I thought you were testing it with tap water... as in trying to dial it.

Sorry sorry sorry! :surprise:

that could be your problem right there......if you started your tank with 90% dead rock and 10% live then you probably shouldnt have had more than 8 fish in the tank.....dead rock is DEAD rock and can not be counted as filtration........it may take 2 monthes, it may take a year for that dead rock to become "live"..we are seeing more and more people having problems, the more popular dead rock gets......if you for instance have 90lbs of dead and 10lbs of live then you need to stock the tank asd though you hav 10lbs of rock, not 100lbs.....I wish more LFSs would explain this to people....I know I make sure to tell folks this when they are buying dead rock...... again sorry for your losses

Your tank is going to go through another cycle now. If you can find someone to take your remaining livestock temporarily, and let the tank cycle would be ideal. I had a major tank crash like yours due to different reasons and I lost a lot of coral and some fish. I managed to get the remaining fish housed at Riverfront for a month, but that was quite pricey. I would offer to hold on to your puffer, but unfortunately he wouldn't be compatible in with my inhabitants. Hopefully you can find someone to house hiom for some time, just until your tank stabilizes. Good luck and sorry for your losses.

Thats what I am thinking, I think me adding the meds caused a cycle for some reason.. I am getting diatoms. The puffers are not looking good right now, their eyes started to turn white. The remaining tang, foxface, solar fairy wrasse and 3 chromis seem fine.

If someone would like to foster the fish.. it would be awesome. I am hoping to get my office tank up and running tomorrow.

man this is so terrible, I feel for ya, I sure hope some one can babysit them for you for a while!

I have a running RSM 34 gallon, you can throw any fishes in there if you like but I won't able to do cuppermine because it has coralsin it.

Or, it could be marine velvet and not ich to begin with for wich no snake oil will work. That is a real possibility.

if you tested for ammonia and there was none, then it is something else, something nasty.

Thanks tai. I will get back to you later tomorrow. This is such terrible timing. The office tank was not cloudy from me moving LR out of the tank, so I took the chance to move the puffers into the tank. Since its only half full of water and I didn't have any prepped, I put 2 power heads into the tank, and added an air bubbler. Once the water is ready, I can add it and te my old skimmer to run. My old cannister hasn't been turned on since the shutdown so I'll leave it off and start up the aquaclear 110.
What made matters worse is that I woke up my wife at 1am and it's her bday today. Needless to say, I am now sleeping in the guest bedroom :(

Thanks all for your help. I hope they make it through the day tomorrow, I won't be able to check on them until after dinner unfortunately.

Ok.. so I thought I would give an update. Whatever was in my tank wiped it out completely. After the puffers died, I only had a foxface, flame hawkfish (in the sump) and 3 chromis. I moved the foxface and hawkfish to my LFS. He has them QT'd and treating them for me while I figure out what crashed my tank.

The hermits, corals, starfish and snails are all fine. However I am having a brown algae bloom that wont go away. So I think somehow the meds caused my tank to cycle again.

NTS? I dont know, my system has been running for 3 or 4 months now.

2 chromis ended up dying as well, and the hermits and snails feasted on the body. There is only 1 chromis left, he looks healthy and greets me everyday when I get home to get some food. Hes a little weird though, anything I put into the tank: my hand, the prongs or net.. it looks like he swims by it and wacks it. Maybe this little guy is the culprit and stressing everybody out :twised: jk