# Urgent help please!!



## tomleeds (Dec 14, 2010)

Please if anyone is reading this then can you try and help?!

We have just arrived back from a 3 day break having left our lights for our aquarium on a timer. It is the first time we have left the fish alone and we have arrived back the clowns were swimming very slowly near the bottom of the tank.

So both clowns looked very white especially around the mouth. 

The mushrooms are all shrivelled and the leather coral was fully in.

We turned the lights on immediately and put alot of frozen food in. One of the clowns started eating the other hasnt really touched the food, so we have done a second smaller feed, the second fish got a little bit. Im not too concerned about the blood shrimp he seems fairly happy.

I am just worried and am wondering if the lights have been off for 3 days will the fish be able to overcome this and is there anything else i can do to help them?

We are running a 40 litre nano reef tank, we dont have the ability to check parameters until tomorrow when i can take a sample to the fish shop! We have living rock, the pump and skimmer were running fine and the heater is on. Any help greatly appreciated!


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## reefsahoy (Jul 16, 2010)

tomleeds said:


> Please if anyone is reading this then can you try and help?!
> 
> We have just arrived back from a 3 day break having left our lights for our aquarium on a timer. It is the first time we have left the fish alone and we have arrived back the clowns were swimming very slowly near the bottom of the tank.
> 
> ...


i really don't understand the question because you said the lights were on a timer and the question is if the fish can survive lights out for 3 days. well think about how the fish is transported from the pacific. In a bag, fly to the US, shipped to a holding tank. Probably 3 days of no lights in a box. I think you probably have another issue in the tank. check your salinity because you probably had alot of evaporatin happening at the time you were away.


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## SeaHorse (Dec 27, 2010)

How long did they go without food while you were away. What time did you feed before you left, and do you normally go that long without feeding them? Just a thought. (I only have FW so don't even know what a clownfish eats)


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## SKAustin (Aug 1, 2006)

My suggestion would be to do a larger thn normal % waterchange, and if running a skimmer, wet skim for a while. My best guess would be, while the lighting may not be a factor in regards to the Fish, it may well be a large contributing factor via the corals. If your lighting was on a timer, then there should be no worries regarding light, however if the timer were to fail, the lack of lighting may cause the leather corals to become stressed, and may result in their releasing of toxins in the water. Hypo-salinity due to unreplaced evap may also cause this reaction. While the hypo-salinity alone shouldnt cause this reaction in the fish (unless it was a drastic change) the combination of the hypo salinity and the concentrations of the leather's toxins may well be the culprit.

As a further aside, you really should have the tools to test your water youself. In the even of a big problem, or really any problem, the faster you can identify and remedy the problem, the better off you will fare. Relying on the LFS store hours is never to your benefit. A refractometer and the basic test kits are a small expense that can save you much trouble down the road.

just my $.02


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