Urgent help! everything is dying...

I'm so sorry to hear this

 

Sorry to hear about this. Tank crashes are never easy to recover from. *knock on wood* but it sounds like you've identified the source and I'm glad to see you're not so discouraged that you listed everything for sale

A few things tho...

The bristle worms and mini stars are a GOOD thing. They are essential to a thriving and healthy ecosystem within your tank. They are primarily nocturnal, so maybe that is why you haven't seen them.

A healthy clean up crew of snails, crabs, worms, and stars can eat small fish very quickly. I have "lost" fairly large fish and within a few hours they're half gone and covered in worms and snails.


Also, you should do a bit of research on mandarins before you add one to a small tank if that is your target species.

anyways, best of luck getting back up, and hopefully more things survived than you'd expect. Corals can be pretty hardy if you can keep them alive past an initial shock. Massive water changes can also be a shock, so make sure the new water parameters are inline with your normal parameters as close as possible.

-Doug

 

at least it wasn't a mantis

 

ya, but at least they are cool =-)