Lost a blenny and an urchin tonight

[cmichael88]

Bought a Pincushion Urchin on Tuesday and an Algae Blenny yesterday. Both looked great last night, as the Blenny was chowing down on algae about 30 minutes after placing him in the tank. Came home from work tonight and the urchin has lost almost all of his spines, appears to be gone. The Blenny looked a little discolored when I got home, and then died about 30 minutes later.

Parameters are:
SG- 1.024
Temp- 79.5
pH- 8.4
Alk- 12
Ammonia- 0
Nitrites- 0
Nitrates- 0
Phosphates are still up around 4, but that shouldn't matter, right?

Plenty of algae in the tank, definitely no lack of food.

Stock List-
Court Jester Goby
About 10 Margarita Snails, 15 Dwarf Red Tip Hermits, 5 Scarlet Reef Hermits, 18 Cerith Snails, 17 Nassarius Snails
2 Fighting Conchs
3 Peppermint Shrimp
1 Serpent Sea Star
1 Emerald Mythrax Crab

I don't have the slightest clue what could have caused them to die. Any ideas? Did I miss anything?

 

[MikeG]

Wow sorry to hear this. Your parameters all look good. How long did you acclimate them, especially the urchin as inverts are really sensitive to changes in water parms. Never good when a urchin looses all his spines. I have heard people say that sometimes they shed their spines and grow them back, but I have never had that happen with my two long spine urchins so I don't know if that is true or not. The blenny may have just been unhealthy at the LFS and there may not have been anything you could have done or did do. Sometimes fish just die and we never figure out why or what caused it.

 

[Smitty]

Sorry to hear that...that truly sucks.

 

[cmichael88]

Floated the urchin for 15 minutes, then dripped for an hour.

 

[little_fish]

what about the blenny? And how was the blenny acting at the store?

 

[cmichael88]

Acclimated the Blenny the same way. He seemed pretty active at the LFS, but maybe I jumped into a little too quickly.

 

[justanotherfishhead]

Sorry for your loss. I just lost a blenny suddenly after I thought he was doing so well. I had him for a while, but from what I've heard I think it's more common to lose a fish in the few days after you get them. I guess the stress from shipping to the LFS, followed by stress going to your tank...of course other possibilities like cyanide, etc. It just happens sometimes even though you did everything right.