30 day old clown problems

[shifty51008]

I am starting to see something not right with my clowns this morning, they are all mostly just laying on their sides breathing very fast, yesterday they were all very active and feeding like normal.

sg is at 30ppt
temp 81
ammonia 0
nitrates - 20
plenty of air, as I have 2 stones going in the 10 gal. 1 running the filter and the other is still the bubble wand going around the heater.

any ideas on what is happening?

 

[Jaypilot]

Couldn't tell you. I would try a big water change but other then you may have had one fish get sick and spread to the other. Good luck with the little guys.

 

[shifty51008]

Thanks, after I posted I checked stray voltage which was 0 and did about 75% water change which did perk up most of them, there are still a few laying on their sides but are looking better. I'm not sure the reason either which has me baffled. now I guess it is just a waiting game.

 

[ReefKeeper64]

Traces of chlorine remaining in a cleaned filter sock can do serious damage. Not saying that is the issue but if ammonia has been ruled out, chlorine and chloramine are often next on the list to think through. HTH

 

[shifty51008]

Traces of chlorine remaining in a cleaned filter sock can do serious damage. Not saying that is the issue but if ammonia has been ruled out, chlorine and chloramine are often next on the list to think through. HTH

I actually think you may have found the problem, looking back everything was going great till about a day after I added a couple peices of PVC pipe to the tank for them to hide in. I am almost thinking that I may not have washed the pipes well enough after soaking them in bleach and water to steralize them. after soaking them I rinsed them off in rodi water and let them sit out to dry over night then rinsed them off again and placed them in the tank, after about 36 hours is when it started.

after pulling the pipes and doing the huge water change, things do seem to be back to normal though, all the fish are breathing fine and swimming like clowns, I sure hope I cought it fast enough and didn't do to much harm to the fish.

Thnaks

 

[gmneil]

how about ph and alk, those 2 seem to be the issues i have been dealing with, ph and alk swings can wipe out tanks quickly from my experience.

 

[shifty51008]

pH has stayed a constant 8.1 with my pinpoint monitor and alk I have never checked as I don't see how alk swings can really harm fish, now alk swings can harm corals, I know that from my earlier days of reefing lol.

 

[gmneil]

well i constantly test my breeding tanks for ph and alk, nitrate and nitrite and the ph and alk seem to be related, when one changes the other seems to as well at least in my fish only breeding systems. when i have a tank die off usually the ph and alk of the water is different from the previous day, i have lost tanks or alot of fish in the tanks from the ph dropping as quick as overnight, and then from raising it to quickly as well.

i am still trying to get a handle on what is causing some tank deaths in my system, it seems when i think i have one thing figured out, i have another problem coming up.

feel free to pm me if you want to bounce ideas off of each other, i can explain my situation more in detail then.