black spiny urchine death

[sansouci01]

Every night before bed, I check my tank while moon lights are on to see if everybody is doing ok. Last night everyone looked happy and healthy. My main lights don't come on until noon and I didn't think to check the tank this morning until I saw the lights come....Apparently during the night ( or maybe even before that ) my urchin died. All my soft corals were closed up and giving off some sort of slime. My xenias looked dead. I only have softies and zoas in my tank. The two clowns looked fine but my serpent star looked kind of like it was in a coma. I tested the water and the nitrates were about 25ppm. No ammonia. I did a major water change (about 40% ) Anything else I can do or is my tank doomed.

 

[Reefing Madness]

Run carbon, alot of carbon, this will remove the toxins.

 

[sansouci01]

Thanks..just did another ammonia test. First one must have been wrong. It tests .25 and thats after a 40% water change. Must have been pretty high before the change. It's only a 20 gallon tank. What form of carbon can I use? I do have a HOB filter that I use for chem-pure

 

[Sniperhank]

I'd run carbon and if you still have ammonia you could use a prime to make the ammonia non-toxic...but I'd want to look into why you had ammonia levels hit high enough to effect your entire tank in such a way. It wasn't the urchin that caused it, but a sign of what was going on.

 

[sansouci01]

Thanks sniperhank. My tank has been looking great for months. I do weekly 20% water changes and check for nitrates, ammonia, ph, alk, calcium.This looked like it happened overnight.

 

[sansouci01]

Well. I am lucky enough to live a few minutes away from World wide corals here in Orlando so I went over and they told me the same thing as Sniperhank. Run carbon and dose some prime. And you were correct Hank. They told me that the ammonia probably killed the urchin not the urchin causing the ammonia. I will do another large water change and hope for the best.