Quick help Needed: Anemone's Toxins in Water

[Falconeer]

Help! I came home today to find my anemone in pieces in my powerhead and my water cloudier than I've ever seen it.

My params aren't any worse than usual, but my concern is that I've read many horror stories about anemones releasing toxins into the tank and crashing very well established systems, even those much larger than mine.

I think I may have an out though. I set up a second tank nearly identical to my DT and it has cycled and is actually in better shape than the DT in terms of water quality. I'm waiting for that tank to heat up, and I'm trying to see if the water will settle since when I turned that pump on it kicked up a lot of sand.

Here's my question:

Should I wait it out in the DT? I really don't want to and I know i'll worry about it all weekend because of the idea that there could be toxins that my tests don't look for.

Or

Should I move all the animals that I would be upset if died to the newer tank? Meaning, two clowns and a brittle star. If I can pull off some of my snails I will, but I will not be crushed if I lose my corals - I have not had great success with them anyway over the past few months.

PLEASE ADVISE.

[ta_billy]

First, don't panic...I would do a 25%-30% partial water change immediately. Hopefully you have a skimmer on the tank, if so, crank it up to get a wet foam action. The collection cup should fill up in a couple of hours so keep an eye on it. You can do a 10% water change tomorrow, but I would wait another day. Keep wet skimming for a couple of days. You should see things get back to normal.

That's what I would do.

BB

[Falconeer]

First, don't panic...I would do a 25%-30% partial water change immediately. Hopefully you have a skimmer on the tank, if so, crank it up to get a wet foam action. The collection cup should fill up in a couple of hours so keep an eye on it. You can do a 10% water change tomorrow, but I would wait another day. Keep wet skimming for a couple of days. You should see things get back to normal.

That's what I would do.

BB

Thanks for the help. I'm not panicking (yet, haha), but unfortunately, I do not have a skimmer.

As soon as I recognized what happened I started to run carbon and I did a 15-20% WC (that's all the water I had in the house). So I went to the LFS to get more RODI.

As long as the fish aren't acting out of character, I think i'll be able to handle waiting, but I'm going to keep my second tank running until i'm sure.

[ta_billy]

By the way, I have a Tunze nano-reef skimmer (model 9002 I think). That little thing rocks. I highly recommend it. Might be good for your small tanks. Has a cool magnetic mounting device...like a cleaning magnet. Quiet and does not release bubbles into the aquarium.

BB

[mike536]

You could also try running some carbon for a bit.

[Falconeer]

That's the first thing I did, along with what WC I could.

[mfinn]

I had a very large RBTA go though a powerhead. It went completely through.
It turned my 240 into a sea of milk.
I did three 30% water changes over the next 4 days and ran carbon in both my BRS dual reactors. I lost a couple zoanthid colonies in the direct path of the powerhead and a few frags, but no fish.

[jestr]

depending on the amount of fish and size you might be safer not switching do to the fact the other tank isnt set up for the amonia of the fish (unless you feed the tank)

[Falconeer]

depending on the amount of fish and size you might be safer not switching do to the fact the other tank isnt set up for the amonia of the fish (unless you feed the tank)

Well the tank has gone through a full cycle, and the two clowns are maybe 2" long each. They're still acting ok, I'm testing my water again - nothing seems out of the order so I may have overreacted at first, but I'd rather do that than lose what I have invested in this because of a small anemone.

I'll do some WCs over the next few days and test what I can every day. Though right now my tank doesn't look any different than it was before my anemone shredded itself, other than the fact that there is no anemone.

[jestr]

not sure if the toxins will show up as anything but wc are allways good because its deluting said toxins. i think you will be fine more worried about the coral lol. i am pretty sure those clowns have a built up resistance to the nems toxins

[Falconeer]

Ok, the only action I've taken other than carbon and my first WC is that I removed a leather frag I had since it was looking more than angry, and I didn't need it tossing more stuff into the water at this point (I wasn't particularly attached to that one anyway). The clowns seem fine in terms of health symptoms, though they appear to be acting anxious - if a fish can act anxious. Though i'm sure I'm over analyzing what they're doing now...