Both my new semi Picasso clowns dead at the same time, don't know why

[ojonas81]

Yesterday when I came home from work both my clowns were dead. Thought it was very strange. They were alive and kicking when I left that morning for work. My clean up crew had done a great job because I could barely see any left overs of the fish.

I have no idea what would have killed them, just speculations. Tested the water when I came home and nothing wrong there. Even brought water to my LFS and they did not see anything strange either. Did a water change last night but since everything else is live and kicking I don't think that would have caused anything. The only thing I can think of is starvation because they did not eat very well even though I did see them take some flake food. Would still be strange for both of them to pass away at the same time, wouldn't it?

Any ideas anyone?

Here they are after being added to the tank.

 

[bues0022]

The rock looks very new - is this a new tank? New rock? what are your water parameters? What are your tank specs? Have you added anything else?

 

[ojonas81]

The tank is a reboot of a crashed tank earlier this summer. Rock is brand new dry rock that I have cured and then cone through a full cycle on the aquarium before anything live was added. My parameters have been stable for the last couple of weeks.

Temp: 77-78 (controlled by Apex)
Salinity: 1.024
pH: 8.2
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 20ppm
Phosphate: 0.05ppm

Both my test kits and my LFS' show more or less the same values. LFS also tested for copper (which I don't have any test kits for) and no traces at all.

The tank is a 28 gallon Nano Cube Advanced. Controlled by Apex. Have skimmer, GFO and carbon reactors and an MP10 ESW. Use Instant Ocean Reef Crystals and RO/DI water with 0 TDS.

All of my CUC is still alive and kicking so don't think it has anything to do with water quality. Nothing has been added to the tank since the clowns.

 

[seamonkey84]

Did they for you in the past 12-24 hours? Did you notice any heavy breathing and/or swelling if the gills? The most common disease to kill this quickly would be velvet, but it could also be brooklynella, both are parasites with similar habits as ick, but are more lethal and faster. First signs are as rapid breathing, loss of appetite, and swelling of gills with excess mucus production. Always quarantine new arrivals, cause if it was one of those diseases you have to go fishless for 4-6 weeks to starve out the parasites and break the life cycle. Otherwise check for electrical leakage into the tank.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

All of my CUC is still alive and kicking so don't think it has anything to do with water quality

bad assumption. CUC's can survive in very poor environmental conditions and the best CUC critters are there to clean up the ones that don't survive.

 

[OrionN]

I see that you have a new relatively bare tank with one of the Vortech. This can create a lot of flow. Clownfish are not good swimmer. New tank, not eating well, too high flow with nothing for them to rest in (not that I recommend and anemone in your tank) likely cause them to stress out, tire out and eventually succumb to the stress.

I totally agree with Gary on the bad assumption that alive CUC means good water quality. I would rate that assumption as extremely bad rather than bad assumption. Wait a while, get some shelter, possibly dial back on the flow before adding another clown pair.

 

[staindsoul]

when were they added?

 

[seamonkey84]

Almost hate to ask, but How long did you mix the new water befor you did the change? Did you check the salinity of the tank and match the new water to it?

 

[ojonas81]

bad assumption. CUC's can survive in very poor environmental conditions and the best CUC critters are there to clean up the ones that don't survive.

True statement. I should have specified some more. Have a couple of shrimps that usually are much more sensitive to bad water than what clowns are. They are still acting like nothing is wrong.

I see that you have a new relatively bare tank with one of the Vortech. This can create a lot of flow. Clownfish are not good swimmer. New tank, not eating well, too high flow with nothing for them to rest in (not that I recommend and anemone in your tank) likely cause them to stress out, tire out and eventually succumb to the stress.

The Vortech is in there yes but just because you have a Vortech in the tank does not mean it is a storm going on in there. It is dialed back to about 30-40%. The beauty of the MP10 is not that you can have a lot of flow but that you get random flow. If the clowns could not handle that relative low random flow I guess they could have been sick or in a bad shape to begin with? I did not see them eat very well though which probably (hopefully) was the cause. Did tried everything, a couple of different kinds of flakes, pellets, cyclopeeze, mysis etc.

Did you notice any heavy breathing and/or swelling if the gills? The most common disease to kill this quickly would be velvet, but it could also be brooklynella, both are parasites with similar habits as ick, but are more lethal and faster. First signs are as rapid breathing, loss of appetite, and swelling of gills with excess mucus production.

The only symptom I saw was that they did not eat very well. No swelling of gills nor rapid breathing or excess mucus.

How long did you mix the new water befor you did the change? Did you check the salinity of the tank and match the new water to it?

The salt mix was mixed 5 days earlier and kept moving with a MJ1200 all the time. Always check salinity to match up with my tank before changing water using a refractometer.

 

[fishroomlady]

I'm sorry but I don't have any ideas on what could have killed both....they look healthy in the picture. With no obvious signs of distress other than not eating.....the underlying cause for not eating could be so many different things. I'm sorry you lost them. I've learned the hard way to quarantine prior to adding into the major tank. It's a practice that I've not done on a routine basis in the past and I lost 4 fish about 3 months ago to velvet and almost lost a few more but they pulled through. It was very obvious that it was a disease though....

 

[ojonas81]

Thanks for all the inputs. When I added the clowns my tank kind of became a QT tank. Had nothing else in it besides rock so I don't think a separate QT would have made a big difference in this case. For the second fish it will be a different story though.

I am starting to think that most likely it was a combination of stress, being moved between tanks, not eating and too much flow that killed them where the eating and stress part probably was the main suspects.

 

[ojonas81]

Time for some good news in this thread. Tank has been thoroughly checked and nothing wrong was found. After a couple of weeks my new semi-picassos are in and they have been very active and healthy. They eat good as well but only pellets, not flakes yet.

Here are a few pics.

This is "Magneto"

the other one, still unnamed.

Now I just need some luck with them so they go in my RBTA.

 

[fnicklaus]

with those parameters，i would guess either chlorine in water or heat spike. since the clowns were new，they may have been under more stress.

 

[fnicklaus]

ps clownfish are from the ocean so i doubt that you had too much flow.