Moo

[EmilyB]

I had an incident with a pink Hawaiian cuke before, and lost my anthias, the other fish were unaffected. I guess I went on the fact that the turd cukes aren't that toxic and kept them. Maybe they are to play in this, maybe not. They could very well turn up as they have before, inside holes in the rock.

I moved Butters (the Red Sea Butterfly) to the reef tank tonite. Did another large water change as well.

[Willito]

Here's a stab at it. I think it's a combination of things changing all around the same time.
Eliminating the sand - releasing toxic nitrate and loosing buffering abilities
Blasting rocks (with freshwater I assume) - killing off vast amount of denitrifying bacteria causing a biological imbalance. Also killing whatever'ss living in/on the rocks causing more decay.
Missing cucumbers - dead, possibly releasing toxin
Large water changes - perhaps too large volume, too frequent

If you combine all these changes together, and assuming that's what took place, it becomes a very different environment for these delicate species to cope with. I don't believe changes to the aqauscape or the lack of corals contribute to their rapid decend. Lets hope whatever still swimming can cope in the new setup.

[Delphinus]

Best of luck Deb. I know what you're feeling. I hope that things pull though.

[AndyL]

Probably not ready yet - but Golds had some nice looking Moorish Idols in...

[EmilyB]

I wouldn't do that anyway.

I was just thinking tonite tho, that if it was a water quality issue, wouldn't the starfish and snails be sensitive to that?

[EmilyB]

Just another stupid thing on my part.

The day Moo died I had brought home a new eel that I purchased from another reefer. It ate shrimp apparently. I couldn't find anything online and in the end after getting him, got Doug to search RC, since it's unavailable to me. It is a fish eater, a major fish eater.

Well, I guess I'll feed him some silversides and try and find him a new home.

[EmilyB]

To wrap up, a few more large water changes seem to have things under control. I would never believe this to have been a problem, as was suggested. However, I should say the water changes are 40-50g on a 230g tank. Not that major.

I believe it was a toxin. There was no ammonia or nitrite present in the tank.