HELP Tank and Tang crashed

[rockdiver]

OK woke up today to find my yellow tang and clown and cleaner shrimp floundering on the bottom the shrimp was DOA.
Took them out and put them in the hospital tank and the clown recovered right away, but the tang is like in a coma or something.Breathing but thats it.

Now back to the start of this woke up found out the skimmer was not pluged in and found the fish tested the water everything was 0 BUT the nitrates were skyrocketing
did the water change and pluged in the skimmer and waited about 15 minutes after the water change and tested again nitrates were not even 5.0 on the test.
Only thing I could figure is the nitrates got the tang and clown but it didnt affect the damsel,gobie or the cardinal WHY is this???
Is there anything I can do with the tang? Is it just a waiting game? Any ideas would be cool.
The skimmer was off becauce I put some of that phytoplex in. Also I soaked some food in Zoe for the first time but I fed all the fish in all my tanks the soaked Zoe so I figure thats not a problem.
Thanks
DIVER

 

[naesco]

Put an airline with air diffuser in at the bottom of the QT tank.
If there is any indication of ich on the tang, medicate with GreenX or equivalent.
You have to determine why your tank when that way overnight.
Good Luck.

 

[davelin315]

Your nitrates shouldn't have that kind of affect on a fish (maybe on the shrimp) except very long term. Maybe they just got poisoned or ran out of oxygen. After all, your protein skimmer provides a ton of oxygen to the water, and when you remove it, you deplete the water of the oxygen its used to, and you can make your tank crash if it's overloaded. How big is your tank, by the way, and how many fish do you have in it?

 

[rockdiver]

well the tank is 30 gallon with a damsel,gobie and a cardinal
rock and such.
its been up and running for @ a year
no deaths till now a couple of murders

I also have a DSB with LS
all levels have always been great.
since last post the tang went to "tang haven"
THANKS
DIVER

 

[Anonymous]

Have you checked your sand bed. DSBs need a lot of o2. That coupled with LR and your skimmer off may have caused an o2 depletion. Plus a tang in a 30 gallon is not healthy for a tang. Tangs need ample food and swimming space,none of which are obtained in a 30 gallon tank. Unless you are home to feed 3-4 times with seaweeds per day.

I think Davelin315 hit it on the head. Oxygen depletion.

GL

Dan

 

[SPC]

I would agree with the above posts, oxygen depletion, to much life in to small an area.
Steve

 

[danmhippo]

Concur, oxygen depletion. Do you have aggressive surface agitation? In the event of skimmer failure, surface agitation could possibly provide gas exchange to prevent total O2 depletion.

 

[jdeets]

Any chance the power failed overnight and came back on before you woke up?

 

[arnjer]

I just had the same thing happen not a month ago with a yellow tang....the skimmer pump needed cleaning so I unplugged it and it was a day to two before I could clean it and turn it back on. Found the tang on the bottom breathing hard and almost went crazy trying to figure out what was wrong. The only thing that was different was the skimmer not running so I cleaned it and turned it back on and I swear not 30 minutes after I did this the tang was up and swimming and he's still kicking. I was ignorant to this fact and my fish suffered but I was lucky and saved him. This was in a 55 gal(I know a tang in a 55) and I have since upgraded to a 90 gal. I had 2 PH(400 GPH) on the tank one on each end aimed at the surface for agitation and this still happened.

Jerry

[ August 04, 2001: Message edited by: arnjer ]

 

[danmhippo]

I had gone skimmerless for a couple days before.....now you've mentioned it, i guess what's different in my case is that I have a built in overflow where water plunged down 2'. Guess that acts as gas exchange. If you are using canister or a U-tube for overflow, you wouldn't have the same effect.

 

[vp39]

hi Diver,
Have you tested for phosphates lately? This could also have caused the problem. It may have been building and when you added the phytoplex or the zoe it was enough to send it critical. I would make sure and get that tested....it may rise back up after your water change.
Glenn

 

[JohnD]

Rockdiver,

Your tank is okay size wise with the surviving fish, but the yellow tang needed more space. Don't feel bad, my 55 is too small for my regal tang too.

I concur with everybody else - lack of O2 did the tang in. A couple of PH to provide good water aggitation will help, as well as a skimmer.

My $0.02.