You'd think I'd learn, but apparently I'm an .....

In the process of breaking down my big salty tank at home I moved a few decent size rocks with a lot of coral growth on them to my work tank along with 3 blue/green chromis, 2 yellow chromis, 1 banggai cardinal, a long spine urchin, a pencil urchin, a sand sifting star fish and a serpent star fish. I moved them all here Saturday, then didn't think to come check on everything Sunday, so I come in today and first thing I notice is all of the blue/green chromis and my foxface are all at the surface gasping for air. Then I notice the long spine urchin appears to be dead, has lost most of its spines and is not moving, then I notice the sand sifting star fish is at the top of the glass trying to escape... so naturally without bothering to test I know I've done something bad... gotta be ammonia in the water, so I dumped what salt I had in to my ATO bucket and put a spare pump in it to mix it while I ran to the store to buy some ammonia safe and airstones... came back and did a 5 gal water change, added the ammonia safe and air stones. Now I sit and wait... I found the banggai cardinal is dead so I removed it, then poking around I found my black clown is dead so I removed it... I have not seen my yellow watchman goby yet so I assume it is dead under the rock someplace.... ahhhhhhhhh what a way to start the day.

If things keep progressing like this I might be completely out of the saltwater hobby by the end of the week. Hopefully the ammonia safe is going to save what is left, I'll mix up some more water at home tonight and bring it in and do another water change tomorrow and monitor everything else so I can remove it as it dies so it doesn't keep adding to the ammonia...