HELP!! What Did I Do?!??!

[Beverly]

Had a build up of cyano on the back of my 120g for some time now, so I thought I would scrape it off this morning at about 10:00. Tank got cloudy, but I baste my LR weekly the day before every water change with no ill results from the cloudy water then.

At noon, when I fed the fish, tank was still a bit cloudy, but the fish were all eager to eat.

At 2:30, looked at the tank to find my chevron butterfly dead and removed it immediately Couldn't find the blue sided wrasse and thought it was hiding. Flame back dwarf angel was swimming around the tank, but not with its usual gusto. Green chromis popped its head out of its sleeping place from time to time, seemed to be breathing heavy

Called husband at work and told him the bad news. He came right home and we did a 40% water change, siphoning out the crud from the bottom of the tank. Water was extra dirty compared to a regular water change.

Also took the Hagen 802s out and threw away the foam filter media which was black with crud. Have NEVER seen black crud when doing this task weekly. Broke down and cleaned the 802s as usual. Filled them up with carbon and put them back in the tank. Will remove the carbon tomorrow and replace with new foams.

While doing the water change, found the wrasse dead, removed it immediately Two down, two still alive.

Xenia is doing well as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening, but various mushrooms, button polyps and GSP all closed up.

Just tested ammonia - .5 ppm. Added some Prime to neutralize it.

Will keep an eye on the closed up mushrooms. If they do not improve by tonight or early tomorrow, will discard them.

Sh*t!!!!!!! What the heck happened?!!!??? Everything was fine until I scrubbed off the cyano. Did the cyano build up in the foams cause this catastrophe? Does cyano in the water column become toxic? What is causing the ammonia - the closed up mushrooms?

Feeling pretty bad right now Sure could use some advice, suggestions.

TIA.

[BCOrchidGuy]

Wow Beverly that's a shame. I wonder if you didn't stir up and release some hydrogen sulphide from under some rock or something... Always sorry to hear about fish loss etc. I hope everything else is fine.

Doug

[Beverly]

Doug,

My three tanks are BB, so I don't think hydrogen sulphide would have played a role.

Any other thoughts?

[BCOrchidGuy]

Nada, that black stuff concerns me though.. Damn that's a real shame. Hope it all settles back down.

Doug

[Edmonton Eskimo]

That's terrible bev. Have you done any google searches? I have no idea what could have happened but I feel badly for you. As far as your shrooms I wouldn't ditch them so soon. I got some off of a guy that were doing poorly in his tank for months and now they are kicken @ss and taken names!

[rusty]

Now you got me scared I had some red cyano growing in my tank and it turned into a black scum on the back of my tank Most of it has gone away but I still have a little bit on the back glass

[Beverly]

Doug,

The black stuff worries me too. It's all out of the tank, at least the stuff caught in the filters is. Will do some turkey basting tomorrow to see what else the filters can catch.

EE,

I'm so brain dead from worry... what kind of google searches do you suggest?

Also, the shrooms that have closed are less than a tenth their normal size and have their mouths open. Could they be leaching toxins into the water?

[Edmonton Eskimo]

I'm not really sure if they would. Mine were the same and I didn't see any ill effects on other tank inhabitants. Try googling cyano or ill effects caused by cyano I think I might try a few and I'll get back to you.

[Beverly]

Google search: cyanobacteria toxins in aquariums

Near the bottom of the page http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/bacteria/cyanolh.html , my cyano was red:

Nutritious or poisonous?
The cyanobacterium Spirulina, shown at right, has long been valued as a food source; it is high in protein, and can be cultivated in ponds quite easily. In tropical countries, it may be a very important part of the diet, and was eaten regularly by the Aztecs; it is also served in several Oriental dishes. In the US, the popularity of Spirulina is primarily as a "health food", being sold in stores as a dried powder or in tablet form.

Many other species of cyanobacteria produce populations that are toxic to humans and animals. Blue-green pond scums have been linked to the poisoning of cattle and dogs, and occasionally people. It is therefore not recommended that wild populations be gathered and eaten without some knowledge of the organisms involved.

Cyanobacteria may cause other problems as well; a species of Lyngbya is responsible for one of the skin irritations commonly known as "swimmer's itch."

Pond scum poisoning of farm animals (don't think it applies in my case, but who knows):

http://www.ext.nodak.edu/extpubs/ans...est/v1136w.htm

[trilinearmipmap]

My hypothesis is that if you had a large amount of cyanobacteria for some time, it may have taken over much of the biological filtration function of your tank, meaning less growth of bacteria/other organisms which normally play this role on the live rock or in the sand bed. Scraping off the cyano would be removing your functioning biofilter. Just a hypothesis though.