spooked fish and 1 death

[loganizzi]

I installed a brand new seaclone skimmer yesterday, and had to move some of the equipment around. The powerhead went from the right rear of the tank to the left rear, the thermometer went from the left rear to the center and the protien skimmer went into the right rear corner.

My livestock at the time was 1 perc. clown, 1 yellow tail damsel, 1 pink damsel and a blue damsel, along with a misc cleanup crew.

Everything seemed to be fine for the next several hours and then I went to bed. This morning when I woke up, all of the damsels were missing and the perc. clown was swimming around happy and normal. I waited a few hours and the damsels never showed up, so I opened up the tank and went searching.

I found the pink damsel dead on the bottom and the other two damsels hiding really well in the rocks that I couldn't find them until I removed all of the live rock from the tank.

I tested the water and everything looked good (0 am, 0 nitrite, 0 nitrate, ~8.2 pH) I placed everything back in the tank and performed a water change at the same time.

My question is: what happened? Did moving the equipment around create such a stressful environment that I scared one fish to death and put the other two into a corner? Everyone was so happy.

 

[cal91666]

Did you rinse the skimmer before you added it to the tank??

 

[loganizzi]

Yeah, I rinsed the cap & filled the body with water and flushed it out. Right now the two damsels are still spooked and hiding, the clown is swimming about like nothing is wrong.

The damsels are acting like I just brought them home from the lfs. I hope they sort themselves out over night...