Dead lionfish poisoned the tank...!?

[zeromus-x]

I have (had) a ~3" fuzzy dwarf lion. Had it for a few months. My tank is a 36g corner bowfront with about 70lbs live rock and a 3" sandbed. On my way home from work my girlfriend called to let me know that it looked like the lion was having a seizure or something... completely freaking out, and then it died. I called a LFS to ask if it would be a problem, since they're venomous, and they said no problem, just get him out of the tank.
Not five minutes later all my fish started dying. The water turned cloudy and they started swimming crazy and then just laying motionless. I had some premixed saltwater so I poured it into an Igloo cooler and started getting fish out of there with a net so I wouldn't bring any water into the new "tank". I ran to another LFS to buy a 10 gallon tank to put them in, and got some more premixed saltwater. They checked the water parameters and nothing looked off, so it seems like it was the lion that did something -- that's the only thing I can think of.
So now I've got a tank half-full of poisoned water. I moved all the live rock to buckets with saltwater, and put all my coral and fish into the little tiny 10g for now. How do I get the main tank running again? I figure if I take all the water out I'm going to have to wait for it to cycle again... and there's no way those fish can survive in a 10g for a long time, it's waaaaay overstocked. On the other hand if I do 30-50% water changes repeatedly, the poisoned water is still gonna be in there, right? On the same note, how do I clean the rocks/sand to make sure that's not going to be an issue?
I've got plenty of water left that I can take to a LFS that might know what they're looking for, since all this one did was stick a test strip in it, but I don't know if that's something that could even be detected.
Any ideas please respond ASAP, don't want to lose any more!

 

[jer4916]

I had the same crap happen when i moved my tank from my 55...my lion died and killed all my fish...it sucked ass...lost over $500 in fish because of one dumbass lion...point is...there kickass fish...but dude...seriously....there not worth it....plus i got stung once..doesn't suck as much as people say...but it does hurt alittle...and your arm goes numb....
i love to look at lions...dont like to keep them
~chris

 

[squidd]

Very unlikely that a 3" Lion poisoned the whole tank...
More likely is that whatever killed the Lion is killing the rest of the fish as well...
...looked like the lion was having a seizure or something....The water turned cloudy...
Sounds like ammonia spike followed by bacterial bloom (also indication of ammonia)
...They checked the water parameters and nothing looked off...all this one did was stick a test strip in it...
Doesn't sound like a solid diagnosis...
...water left that I can take to a LFS that might know what they're looking for...
Better yet get a "Good" test kit of your own (not test "strips") and check the water yourself...Run carbon thru filters to get any "chemical" polutantnts out , but most effective will be to do water changes and monitor levels in tank...
How many fish do you/did you have besides the Lion in this tank...? 70 lbs rock in a 36 doesn't leave a lot of swimming room much less room for error on water quality issues...
Basicly...it wasn't the Lions fault...

 

[zeromus-x]

Nitrates/nitrites/ammonia levels were fine according to the little test that they did. One of the nitrates/nitrites (I don't remember) was a little higher than zero, but that's presumably because the fish died in there. I don't see how the water quality could have gone so bad that it just immediately started killing all the fish within a matter of minutes; nothing fell in the tank.
I'm not saying you're wrong or anything, just wondering how conditions can go from "all the fish look fine" to "the lion is dying" to "everyone else is dying at the same time", that's all.
In the tank were two engineers, a yellowtail damsel that refused to die, a clown, the lion, and two tobies. All of the fish were relatively small. The plan was to get them now and move to a bigger tank upon graduation in a few months.
Either way I'll have the water tested somewhere else today and see what comes of it; I can't afford a personal lab.

 

[squidd]

"Anything" is possible, but the Lion fish didn't poison itself, so it seems logical that whatever killed it killed the other fish as well...
The second "clue' would be the "cloudiness" of the tank (bacterial bloom)...
Given enough bacteria (from the bloom) and the time lapse from collecting the sample to testing, the killing ammonia could have been converted and "non-detectable" by cheaper test strips...(hence presence of nitrItes in sample)... so the ammonia spike still stands as the most likely suspect..
The real point though is not to worry about the Lion fish poison, or the accumulation in the rocks/sand etc (from your first post)...
A Larger system, properly cycled and maintained will help greatly in avoiding the "Quickness" factor in how did things go so wrong so fast..
A Decent test kit is really not all that expensive, and can prove "invaluable" in situations like this...Highly recommended you get your own soon...

 

[beth]

Squidd, you should visit the Disease Forum more often.

 

[zeromus-x]

Bought a "Saltwater Master Liquid Test Kit" today... about $35 bucks if I remember right. I had the water tested at an actual place instead of the little LFS here that just used test strips. They said the ammonia was perfect, but that my pH was low and my nitrates/nitrites were both pretty high. The water had been standing for about a day by the time they saw it so I don't know if anything would have changed from the time it happened. I assume that would be due to the fish dying or possibly from other things dying in the tank as well.
I bought some more live sand today in order to speed up the process of recovery if anything did indeed die off. I'm doing several large water changes and I rinsed off the live rock that I've got in buckets in salt water as well. I'm mixing up some fresh saltwater to start filling the tank again, and I'll add the new sand as well -- it can't hurt, and I'd like a little deeper sand bed anyway.
I'm going to use the 10g as a refugium underneath the tank; I've wanted one for awhile but never had the incentive to do it. I guess now is as good a time as any. Going to head over to the DIY forum to check things out there.
I figure everything should settle back down in a day or two with the new live sand, a few good water changes, and the existing live rock. It's been sitting in saltwater the whole time so I don't really expect there to be any die-off. I'll put the rock in and check the water parameters for a few days before I put the rest of the fish who survived in there, and hopefully things will turn out good.
Man, that's some nasty cloudy water still though.