Anemone Toxin / Sea Cucumber Toxin

[downonthereef]

Hi!

Unfortunately, this morning I woke up to all my fish deceased, the sea cucumber and anemone also dead, with some gooey like slime stuck in my return pump.

All of my crabs and snails are alive including my pom-pom, Anemone Crab and my Conchs, critters I thought to be extremely sensitive. Are crabs and snails likely to survive toxins? What is likely to have killed everything?

A little insight, I have been on Holiday for over a week, got back and did a water change, one of my fish died last night, but he looked awfully skinny qnd was covered in scratches, I saw my fish attacking him and I just assumed him dying stressed the other fish into attacking him. This morning, they were all dead, after all appearing fine and eating last night.

More details on the fish, all of their gills were puffed out, none of their gills were pink. They had all lost their colour.

Ammonia was slightly high at 0.25, but 5 dead fish in the tank over night checks out.

another thing to note, only one thing had been eaten. Normally when something dies in my tank, the crabs and snails are on them in an instant, but nothing had been eaten on the sea cucumber. Were the critters spoilt for choice? Or did they go to the first thing that died, the cucumber? How do critters behave with multiple casualties? I would have thought they'd sort of split up and eat everything, instead of everything on one thing.

Could it have been something entirely different? I had done a waterchange with slightly cooler water at 22 degrees instead of 25. But the salinity is 33.9 ppt, it's a little low after my week away as I had forgotten about the filter sock blocking up.

 

[fishguy242]

hi, sorry to hear, what type of cucumber ?
I think best course of action rt now would be remove all dead , 75% water change, run fresh rinsed carbon.
add extra air,
in effort to keep rock alive at this point.

what size tank ?
running skimmer ?

 

[downonthereef]

It was a black sea cucumber, it had been in the tank for about 3 weeks.

I don't have enough water at the moment. Will the toxins kills the bacteria on the rock then? How come the critters haven't died?

The tank is 25 Gallons, no skimmer.

 

[fishguy242]

have no idea why critters are ok ? strange.
also being unsure what actually caused die off ,we don't know toxicity of tank. does it smell bad ?
recommend adding air, 20 gallon water change asap ,can run carbon now, but suggest new after WC.

 

[downonthereef]

have no idea why critters are ok ? strange.
also being unsure what actually caused die off ,we don't know toxicity of tank. does it smell bad ?
recommend adding air, 20 gallon water change asap ,can run carbon now, but suggest new after WC.

Okay, thank you, I have a triton test coming to see if anything stands out but I'm not sure they even test for toxins.

Will put all of the carbon I have left in the tank then change water once enough is made. Thank you

 

[downonthereef]

have no idea why critters are ok ? strange.
also being unsure what actually caused die off ,we don't know toxicity of tank. does it smell bad ?
recommend adding air, 20 gallon water change asap ,can run carbon now, but suggest new after WC.

The tank smells, Earthy but like the Seaside. Nothing stands out as abnormal

 

[jmichaelh7]

thats too bad and very unfortunate. its never good to read these stories.

i agree with the Water change, run carbon. there is not much you can do , you have already taken the L

I am contemplating about getting a sea hare , but the toxin release etc... yeah i don't know now either. Sorry for your loss . Things only get better from where your at now..

 

[Nano sapiens]

Sounds oh so familiar...

A very long time ago I went on vacation for a week...and lost virtually everything in a Euphyllia dominated 55g. My 6" black sea cucumber had found it's way into a pump and the rest was history.

So yes, they do pose a potential risk to a reef aquarium. The risk can be reduced by using smaller specimen(s) (perhaps other less toxic species?), making sure the rockwork is stable and especially making sure that pumps are not open to intrusion.

 

[downonthereef]

thats too bad and very unfortunate. its never good to read these stories.

i agree with the Water change, run carbon. there is not much you can do , you have already taken the L

I am contemplating about getting a sea hare , but the toxin release etc... yeah i don't know now either. Sorry for your loss . Things only get better from where your at now..

Thank you! Slowly getting over it, feels like losing a family member. Going forward, nothing that can potentially kill everything will enter this tank, I say save yourself the heartbreak and don't get a sea hare.

 

[downonthereef]

Sounds oh so familiar...

A very long time ago I went on vacation for a week...and lost virtually everything in a Euphyllia dominated 55g. My 6" black sea cucumber had found it's way into a pump and the rest was history.

So yes, they do pose a potential risk to a reef aquarium. The risk can be reduced by using smaller specimen(s) (perhaps other less toxic species?), making sure the rockwork is stable and especially making sure that pumps are not open to intrusion.

Absolutely heartbroken at the loss of the fish. I feel like such an idiot, I knew they were toxic but I still selfishly added it to the tank and now look at me. I lost all of my euphyllia last year to Vibrant. And here almost a year later I lose my fish, feels like I can't win with this hobby. I'm sorry for your losses, this absolutely sucks

 

[Nano sapiens]

Absolutely heartbroken at the loss of the fish. I feel like such an idiot, I knew they were toxic but I still selfishly added it to the tank and now look at me. I lost all of my euphyllia last year to Vibrant. And here almost a year later I lose my fish, feels like I can't win with this hobby. I'm sorry for your losses, this absolutely sucks

The 55g had some of the nicest Euphyllia I've ever seen to this day and I can still see some of them in my mind's eye (this was before the days of cell phone cameras). After the sad event, I just left the tank alone to do it's thing and didn't buy anything new for years. I got reenergized in the hobby again when I sold off the 55g and started with my little 12g nano over 14 years ago.

I guess the takeaways for me are: 'Live and learn' along with 'Your setup should be what you, the reef keeper, are most happy with'

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

have no idea why critters are ok ? strange.
also being unsure what actually caused die off ,we don't know toxicity of tank. does it smell bad ?
recommend adding air, 20 gallon water change asap ,can run carbon now, but suggest new after WC.

First off, sorry for your loss OP. Always a danger with some of these creatures, and it's always unfortunate when these things happen.

That said, this actually sounds like a pretty textbook case of "cuke nuking" - meaning your cucumber dying and poisoning the tank is almost guaranteed to be the cause. The inverts are likely okay because the toxins weren't present in high enough quantities to kill them. Sea cucumber toxins (called holothurin) are ichthyotoxins, meaning they are mainly toxic to fish. In high enough quantities these toxins will kill inverts and if touched or ingested can cause problems for people too, but they primarily affect fish. Holothurin causes irreversible damage to a fish's gills and nervous system (amongst other things) - this would explain the discolored and puffed out gills you described.

With regards to why only one thing has been eaten (I'm not certain what you said had been eaten), I'm not sure why this would be the case. I'd assume there's just too much food available with the mass-casualty event, and they likely all went for the first thing that died. It also seems possible to me that, if there was enough toxin in the tank to affect them without killing them, your inverts might be demonstrating some loss of appetite as a result of some degree of (hopefully not lethal) poisoning.

As mentioned, a large water change (or several) and carbon are likely your best bet for clearing the holothurin out of the tank. For the future (assuming you don't already have these precautions in places, though you very well may), nem guards and/or similar protective devices to cover dangerous pieces of tank equipment (such as powerheads and pumps) are essential to the safe keeping of both anemones and sea cucumbers.

Again, sorry for your loss, and best of luck going forward.

 

[downonthereef]

First off, sorry for your loss OP. Always a danger with some of these creatures, and it's always unfortunate when these things happen.

That said, this actually sounds like a pretty textbook case of "cuke nuking" - meaning your cucumber dying and poisoning the tank is almost guaranteed to be the cause. The inverts are likely okay because the toxins weren't present in high enough quantities to kill them. Sea cucumber toxins (called holothurin) are ichthyotoxins, meaning they are mainly toxic to fish. In high enough quantities these toxins will kill inverts and if touched or ingested can cause problems for people too, but they primarily affect fish. Holothurin causes irreversible damage to a fish's gills and nervous system (amongst other things) - this would explain the discolored and puffed out gills you described.

With regards to why only one thing has been eaten (I'm not certain what you said had been eaten), I'm not sure why this would be the case. I'd assume there's just too much food available with the mass-casualty event, and they likely all went for the first thing that died. It also seems possible to me that, if there was enough toxin in the tank to affect them without killing them, your inverts might be demonstrating some loss of appetite as a result of some degree of (hopefully not lethal) poisoning.

As mentioned, a large water change (or several) and carbon are likely your best bet for clearing the holothurin out of the tank. For the future (assuming you don't already have these precautions in places, though you very well may), nem guards and/or similar protective devices to cover dangerous pieces of tank equipment (such as powerheads and pumps) are essential to the safe keeping of both anemones and sea cucumbers.

Again, sorry for your loss, and best of luck going forward.

Thank you for your input, much appreciated, clearing everything up. The tank has been shut down for the time being. Although tragic, the loss fell at a useful time as we're having the house decorated, therefore the tank can be put away for the time being. The rocks are in a vat of 100% fresh saltwater with the crabs, recycling for the new setup.

 

[Cole.mormon]

Use what water you have now for a wc

 

[markwayts]

Absolutely heartbroken at the loss of the fish. I feel like such an idiot, I knew they were toxic but I still selfishly added it to the tank and now look at me. I lost all of my euphyllia last year to Vibrant. And here almost a year later I lose my fish, feels like I can't win with this hobby. I'm sorry for your losses, this absolutely sucks

You don't win with this hobby. Eventually you just kill things less often. In the end something will fail and everything will die. We double up on gear and stock up on supplies to safeguard against this but tropical ocean creatures cannot live on land without constant un interrupted life support.

 

[Nano sapiens]

You don't win with this hobby. Eventually you just kill things less often. In the end something will fail and everything will die.

Everything dies whether in our care or in nature's as it's the nature of living things that all eventually perish and free up resources for subsequent generations. One can argue that it's more natural for them to die in their nature environment and become part of the ocean's 'Web of life', but even if they die in our care and are flushed or buried their body's constituents will become a part of the earth's ecosystem.

We double up on gear and stock up on supplies to safeguard against this but tropical ocean creatures cannot live on land without constant un interrupted life support.

True, we are attempting to keep animals that come from a very different environment than our own. We do the best we can and if we are diligent and sufficiently understand their needs we *can* keep these animals alive for longer period of time than they would typically live in the wild due to on-going predation, disease, fishing, typhoons/storms, etc.