Death of a Coral Beauty

[kanicky]

Well, our Coral Beauty died today- sometime between this morning and this evening. She's usually shy and will only come out to feed and swim around a few times. When I came home to greet her and my two percs, I checked her cave and couldn't see her "treading water" like she usually does.
I immediately checked the parameters:
pH: 8.0
Ammonia: Looks like it's .025 but not quite, so a little lower
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: 0
Temp: 80.5
Sooo, we shone a bright LED light into her cave and saw our Emerald crab and hermit crabs tearing a chunk into her

Thank GOD the cave she was in is accessible from the back with a simple move of a piece of LR that doesn't have anything resting on it. We got her out of there and reassembled her cave.
The two percs seem great, as usual. They're having fun playing in the currents and swimming alongside each other.
Should we be okay, ammonia-wise, since we caught her death fairly quickly? Anything else we can do?

 

[konrade]

That sucks. I know how you feel. I couldn't keep any angels alive either.

 

[sepulatian]

How long did you have the CB? How old is your system? Keep monitoring the ammonia. If you have a decent amount of LR the ammonia should come down to zero within a day or two and be fine. If you are concerned you can do a water change.

 

[joe 09]

i have a cb that i had for 18mos.the last few days it has not come out to eat.i think i am going to lose it also.

 

[nicetry]

Angels are pretty sensitive to water fluctuations. If you have one and it is acting listless, off it's feed, etc, it may likely be due to water quality.
Depending on the size of the tank and how much live rock you have, the system could absorb the ammonia from a dead fish. I've had small fish die and simply leave them for the crabs/nassarius snails to snack on. Hopefully your tank is pretty well established. Angels often times don't fare well in new/unstable systems.

 

[browniebuck]

I have had my system up and running since mid December. We bought an Eibli angelfish (as one of our first fish...I know it wasn't the smartest idea) and it has survived through the death of two tangs (another bad idea) and a maroon clownfish. This thing is bionic...it is the hardiest fish I have ever seen, and it is very active and entertaining!!!