How did I kill my fish?
 

I've lost a few fish recently and I wanted to see if anyone else had an opinion on what might have caused it. Here's the story:

I moved my BTA from my 12g to my other system and took some of the zoas from the other tank that weren't liking the MH very much back to the 12. I moved around a bunch of the rock but left the fish, two ocelaris clowns and a dime sized blue tang to move later. The next day the smaller clown and the tang were nowhere to be found and I had a nasty rash on my arm. I thought maybe I had kicked up a bunch of stuff from the sand (> 1 inch layer) so I tested the water but it was fine. Then it occurred to me that it may have been aggression that was the problem as it was the dominant clown that was left and she seemed a little upset that the BTA was gone. I didn't think much of the rash.

Yesterday I pulled the clown out and moved her to the other tank and put my dwarf lion in the 12. Today the lion is dead, my rash is back and I can't find my sea hare. I don't remember seeing the sea hare out at all after moving the rock around either. I think I either mashed the sea hare or annoyed it enough that it dumped a toxin on me, I've only had it a couple weeks so god only knows what it had in it's system still. My corals and snails are fine and there is nothing obvious I can see on the lion fish so I think that's what has probably happened. It would maybe explain the rash as well.

Anyone have some thoughts?

How big was the colony of Zoos? I remember a while back that Murminator was giving away big chunks of it and one of the people that grabbed a piece had the misfortune of livestock dying off on him as well.

The speculation was that perhaps the piece of Zoanthid was too big (in your case, a 12g) and caused chemical warfare within the tank. He tested his water as well and everything read okay, but I'm assuming that since it's coral secretions, that's why your water tests didn't read any of it.

Hopefully that helps.

12g tank, disturbed, plus lion = death.

Could be but they are just largish frags of stuff I've had around for a while and nothing like that has happened before. If this is the case I would expect to see some impact on the other corals but even the ricordia right next to them looks fine.


Care to elaborate? This is a mature tank and a very small lion. Even with him dead in there for a while I detected no ammonia or nitrite and the corals are fine.

Sometimes when you move anemones, they **** out toxins, or so I've heard.

Just the shedding of stinging cells or a actual toxin? Interesting but when I moved the BTA I just pulled out the rock it was on and put it in the other tank so I doubt that was it either. Thanks though.

Shedding of nematocysts, or maybe just slime that coats gills and causes suffocation. I've never had it from a BTA but everytime I've moved my ritteri I've had fish losses, even when there was no visible release of slime ... it just releases invisible fish death. :( I don't ever want fish in with that thing again.

BTA's... pretty small though .. although I wouldn't rule it out completely, I'd be somewhat skeptical. Hard to say.

Anytime you change things there's always the risk of something ... it just seems to work out that way. Sorry to hear about your lion. :(

I've thought about this some more I think you guys may be right. The issue with the sea hare toxin theory was that nothing was happening with the corals, BTA slime could account for that. It is also a really big BTA (~8 inch disc when it's fully inflated) and a little tank. This could also explain my rash, I have been stung by a BTA before, I seem especially sensitive to it but stangely immune to things like torch and frogspawn that get everyone else.

Thanks.