Both my clowns died within 8 hours of each other

[wings516]

Base readings using new API master kit, Salifert and Hanna checkers.

SG - 1.028/1.029 (Salinity higher because I tested my water change salinity at 70F instead of 77, possible cause?)
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0
Ammonia - 0-0.25
pH 8-8.4
Alkalinity - 9.6
Calcium - 490-500
Phosphorus - 0
77F

1. How old is this aquarium?
2 years

3. What is SG of this aquarium? How measured?
1.028 Refractometer

4. When was the last fish added to this aquarium?
Month ago (the clowns) and the cleaner shrimp

5. Was it quarantined? If so, how? And how long? Was it prophylactically treated? How? LFS always quarantines fish before they sell them for about 2 weeks.

8. Please describe in detail, the appearance of the fish? If there is one or more pimples, are they lumpy? What color?
Snowflake and a black clown. Both were found close to each other in a low flow area. NO visible signs of disease, bumps, discoloration (other than pale from being dead). Macro algae and snails doing fine. SPS slightly irritated. RBTA not fully inflated but open. Cleaner shrimp alive and well and was not found hovering over the fish.

9. Please describe the behavior of the fish as best you can. Is it acting reclusive? Is it always up towards the top of the aquarium? Is it avoiding light? How active is the fish? Fish always reacted to my presence coming to the top of the tank. The black clown MAY have been breathing a little heavier but this is my first time owning clowns. They hung around the high flow areas.

10. Is the fish eating? What?
I feed Reef Frenzy Nano twice a week for a minute and they loved it

 

[A1t2o]

I'm not sure if 2 feedings a week is enough. I would increase it to 3 feedings a week at least. At one month after being added, it could be stress or disease. Additional feedings can help fish cope with changes. How big is the tank? If it was smaller then it could be stress. Did they have plenty of hiding spots? Did you notice any aggression? What other fish do you have?

Are you running a skimmer, and if so, was it going nuts? Could be bacteria bloom. Any aggressive corals that they might have been hanging around? Could be chemical warfare and the clowns got stung?

Do you have an auto top off or had you recently done a water change? Could be a change in salinity or salt crystals not fully dissolved causing damage to the fish's gills. Its very hard to tell, but look at what has changed recently and see if that would further stress new additions to the tank.

 

[wings516]

Thanks for the quick reply.

The tank is a 24x24x12 30 gallon rimless. Running a simple wet dry sump for filtration with polyfiber and bio balls. Good amount of hiding under a rock ledge and plenty of line-of-sight breakup.

I've been doing 5 gallon water changes 1-2 times a week depending on parameters. I have also been battling cyano on my bed up until recently.

I have...
Slimer, 2 clove polyp, 1 zoa, 1 RBTA that is a good 6 inches away from any other coral (its only a 50 cent piece size), Purple ribbon gorgonian and corky finger gorgonian and a cleaner shrimp along with cerith and florida cerith snails.

I also have a lot of macro algae that they can hide in. The black clown (bigger of the two by far) had some aggression at the beginning but they always swam together from that point and after a couple of days the black clown stopped being aggressive that I saw.

I did not have an ATO but I have added one as of last night (JBJ). The only thing I can say is my mistake of not measuring my change water at the proper temp and causing a salinity spike, but other than that I am ignorant. I always mix my salt in a 50 gallon can with a nice sized eheim pump.

 

[Deinonych]

Agree that 2 feedings a week is not enough. Personally, I feed my fish daily so they are nice and fat. Since these fish were not quarantined, it could be anything really. For what it's worth, a LFS cannot provide a proper quarantine given the nature of the environment (fish sharing water, high volumes of livestock moving through the store). In any case, 2 weeks is not enough time for quarantine of any kind.

 

[wings516]

So possible death by starvation and/or unidentifiable disease?

 

[A1t2o]

Personally, I think that bio balls suck and are just a nitrate trap. I see you didn't mention a skimmer. I'll take that to mean you don't have one, get one. You need a better way to take the nutrients out of the tank and a skimmer definitely helps, plus it adds oxygen to the water which is very good for your fish. Then I would put the macro algae in the sump with a light and grow it there. That way, you will have nutrient export and the skimmer will handle any spikes. Also change the filter every couple days to keep the crap it captures from decaying and adding nutrients to the tank.

You said you mix your salt in a 50 gallon can. For how long? As in, did you at least wait overnight with a pump on for the salt to mix before doing a water change?

I agree with Deinonych that it could be about anything, but making a couple changes for stability could help fish survive better. I don't like the measureable amount of ammonia though. Do you have enough live rock? 1-2 pounds per gallon is the rule and it must be reef rock, not basalt rock. (I saw that recently so I have to mention it.) Your corals don't seem to be a problem. Get you salinity down to 1.026 or 1.027 slowly. Spikes can kill fish, so if that spike you mentioned happened recently and there was a significant change in the salinity of your display tank, then that could have done it right there.

Also that tank is a little small to be adding 2 fish at once. Try adding fish slower so the bio load doesn't spike suddenly. Do you even have any other fish in there? If not then that would be a huge change in the bio load and would cause a mini cycle.

 

[wings516]

Correct, no skimmer, after reading on here I thought I could do more frequent water changes in lieu of having one. I wait about 30 minutes to test for salinity changes and I do let it sit the night before I do a change. I will generally leave about 20 gallons of water in the can at all times.

Spike did occur. I had it religiously at 1.026 and it shot up to 1.028 at the change.

I bought reefsaver rock from BRS and one piece of live rock to seed it and it has been in the tank for about 2 years now, not sure that is enough. This is the tank a few months ago before I added much of anything.


Thank you so much for the direction.

 

[A1t2o]

Nice looking tank. But I am thinking that your lack of fish then adding 2 is what caused the problem. Your water changes prevented the cycle from completing and the ammonia, stress, and low amount of feeding caused the fish to die. You shouldn't need to do as many water changes with all those plant in the tank. They will soak up the nutrients and let you get away with weekly or even bi weekly water changes.

Was your tank empty for 2 years except for the rock and plants? Your rocks look like you just added them last week. I don't think there was much of anything to keep bacteria on the rocks alive. And what little there was, would not support 2 fish without time to catch up.

 

[wings516]

Well noted.

I did add a few pieces up front in the past few months. The rest of the time just plants and rock.

 

[A1t2o]

Just add a small damsel or something to ease you tank into growing more bacteria. Make sure you wait until your ammonia is 0 first. Do some research on what damsel you want since some can be aggressive to other fish.

 

[Deinonych]

Cycling with fish is generally frowned upon. The preferred method is to cycle without fish by adding small doses of ammonia directly to the tank, either using a small piece of shrimp or with ammonium chloride. The process can be boosted by adding a bacteria-in-a-bottle product like Bio-spira. Fish should not be exposed to any level of ammonia, no matter how slight. And frankly, just about any species of damselfish is going to be aggressive in that sized tank.

 

[A1t2o]

He has a shrimp and snails in there, so its not like he will be going through a cycle (except for the mini one he started by adding 2 fish when the current system couldn't handle it). He just needs to increase the bio load slowly, so adding a small fish should help. I agree that using fish to cycle is a bad idea and very hard on the fish, but I don't think that is what he would be doing here. I was thinking that a chromis would be a good fish to add. I had great luck with a chromis and a pair of clowns in my 46 gallon tank. That's not that much bigger and there were several other fish in there too.

 

[ThRoewer]

While 2 feedings per week is for sure not enough (one feeding per day is already on the critical end for many fish), it would usually take a good while for fish to starve to death. And you would see them get skinny before they die.
Also, fish can and will supplement their feedings out of the tank if there are algae and pods. A 2 year old tank should have enough critters to supplement fish for a good while

The overall timeline and behavior as well as the coincidental deaths sounds rather like Ammyloodinium. It is a parasite that preferably infects the gills and you may never encounter any signs of infection on the skin. Usually, when it spreads to the skin the fish's gills are already severely damaged and it may be too late to save it.

LFS quarantine is in 99.9999% of all cases insufficient and 2 weeks is for sure not enough. It should rather be 2 months!

Cycling with fish is generally frowned upon. The preferred method is to cycle without fish by adding small doses of ammonia directly to the tank, either using a small piece of shrimp or with ammonium chloride. The process can be boosted by adding a bacteria-in-a-bottle product like Bio-spira. Fish should not be exposed to any level of ammonia, no matter how slight. And frankly, just about any species of damselfish is going to be aggressive in that sized tank.

I never cycled any tank this way. I just set my tanks up with natural live rock. If the rock is fresh I wait a week or two and then add a clean up crew I also like to dump a bottle of tigger pots into a new tank.
Next thing added would be peppermint shrimps to get rid of possible aptasia.

If the live rock has been cycled before or comes from another tank I usually add fish directly unless I want to keep the tank fishless for other reasons.
So far none of my fish complained and I never had any ammonia issues.

Bacteria, if present, will multiply quickly and may adapt to the change in bio load within hours if just 1 to 3 small to medium fish are added. In a day or two the bacteria population should for sure be where you need it. At least that is my experience.
I usually feed sparsely for this transition period.
I even did this in a naked 10 gallon HT where I treated two clownfish with antibiotics and there was no ammonia spike or any other issues. During the 7 days of treatment I did 50-70% water changes daily but then just let them in there for another two weeks without any water changes and continuously increasing food amounts.

 

[snorvich]

The overall timeline and behavior as well as the coincidental deaths sounds rather like Ammyloodinium. It is a parasite that preferably infects the gills and you may never encounter any signs of infection on the skin. Usually, when it spreads to the skin the fish's gills are already severely damaged and it may be too late to save it.

LFS quarantine is in 99.9999% of all cases insufficient and 2 weeks is for sure not enough. It should rather be 2 months!

I could not agree more. As far as I know, there is no LFS or online supplier that adequately quarantines fish. If you do not do it, assume the worst.

 

[Deinonych]

Both my clowns died within 8 hours of each other

I never cycled any tank this way. I just set my tanks up with natural live rock. If the rock is fresh I wait a week or two and then add a clean up crew I also like to dump a bottle of tigger pots into a new tank.

Next thing added would be peppermint shrimps to get rid of possible aptasia.



If the live rock has been cycled before or comes from another tank I usually add fish directly unless I want to keep the tank fishless for other reasons.

So far none of my fish complained and I never had any ammonia issues.



Bacteria, if present, will multiply quickly and may adapt to the change in bio load within hours if just 1 to 3 small to medium fish are added. In a day or two the bacteria population should for sure be where you need it. At least that is my experience.

I usually feed sparsely for this transition period.

I even did this in a naked 10 gallon HT where I treated two clownfish with antibiotics and there was no ammonia spike or any other issues. During the 7 days of treatment I did 50-70% water changes daily but then just let them in there for another two weeks without any water changes and continuously increasing food amounts.

Understand, but the OP is using dry rock, so the bacteria population must be built up or introduced. Either way, there are many ways to do a fishless cycle. My point was to avoid using a fish that either might be harmed by potential ammonia spikes or become problematic long term.

 

[wings516]

Is there somewhere to get the fish analyzed? I don't think anywhere local to me would do it and I am dying to know if they had velvet now. I looked at them under a scope when I found them but I didn't see anything. Also, wouldn't the cleaner shrimp have been devouring whatever parasite would have been on them before and after death (assuming they do eat the velvet parasites). I have always been told that clowns can take quite a beating before they kick the can, and to see them do just that I am worried given my parameters. Also, if it was an ammonia spike, wouldn't the cleaner shrimp have kicked the can first?

The only live rock I bought was a 4oz piece to seed at the beginning. I just bought another 6 oz piece today to help seed. I won't add fish for quite a while I think... Is adding food a decent way to jump-start the cycle? I have used biospira in my planted tanks before and it does work wonders.

 

[ThRoewer]

Understand, but the OP is using dry rock, so the bacteria population must be built up or introduced. Either way, there are many ways to do a fishless cycle. My point was to avoid using a fish that either might be harmed by potential ammonia spikes or become problematic long term.

As far as I understand, by the time he added fish the system was up and running for about two years.

I've also set up QTs with dry Real Reef rock without any cycling. All I did was to get the water for the QT from the DT and run the HOB filter on the display for a couple of hours after stirring up detritus in the system. That worked fine too.

 

[wings516]

Parameters today. Found my cleaner shrimp dead yesterday morning.

Sal - 1.025
pH 8.4
kH 8.7
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Ammonia 0
Ca 450
P04 .009 ppm

 

[ThRoewer]

Parameters look OK, assuming tests are correct (which they are often not due to test kit inaccuracy).

 

[wings516]

Thanks for checking back in. My RBTA seems to be accepting food ok and "pooping" ok. Not inflating anymore like he did. He gets grumpy come about 10 hours into the photoperiod and closes up. Probably still adjusting since I just changed two bulbs last week.

Things seem to be a hell of a lot more stable since installing the ATO as well. Should I just stick to 10-20% bi-weekly water changes?

The gorgonians are doing great and the zoas and clove polyps are always out.

Probably going to wait another week or two then pick up another cleaner shrimp. Also ordered Brightwells FaStart and MicroBac.