Confused

[Bremenguppie]

I have a thirty gallon tank I have had in operation for over a year with a lot of success. I had a couple of clowns, a couple different tangs, and a few other types of fish. I've got several blue leg crabs, a horse crab and about 4 or 5 emerald crabs. About 3 weeks a go we added a sail fin tang. I believe that's what it was called and a couple emerald crabs. Then my problems began. About two weeks later my new sail fin is not looking healthy..he dies a few days later..then one by one I start losing fish..I took a sample of my water to fish store and they tested it. Everything was perfect on my levels other than we learned that my salt water meter had malfunctioned and therefore my salinity level was way high. It was 1.30 by this time I had lost 3 fish. Which were all my tangs..I bought a new meter and came home and took out about 4 gallons of water and got my water back in line and down to 1.22 salinity. So I'm thinking crisis averted all is good....wrong. a few days after that i lost my clown fish and day after that i lost my other clown..now I'm down to one fish. Who knows if he'll make it. So could this have all come from the salt water being too high for to long and all the fish were in trouble regardless or did I end up with some kind of disease that ran through my tank? Anyone come across this? I'm really confused on what happened but i pretty much lost all my fish in about a week and half. So do i take the bulk of the tank water out and start over or just go get some more fish and see what happens?

 

[bshow24]

Although the salt got high, I don't think that was necessarily the problem/reason the fish died, especially since you weren't having issues with the salinity being high prior to the sailfin. Did you ever inspect the fish to see if there was anything on them? From the quickness and sound of it, I would guess your sailfin was infected with marine velvet, and it was quickly passed on to your other fish. I'm not 100% on this, so hopefully someone with more disease experience will chime in, but if it was, you would have been able to see tons of little white dots on the fishes body.

As far as the current tank, you do not want to just go buy some more fish and add them. If it was velvet, you'd need to leave it fallow (fishless) for 6 weeks. The safest bet would be to leave it fallow for 72 days in case something else was an issue.

During this time, you should do some research on the forums regarding Quarantine Tank set up. This was a part I didn't know about when I first entered the hobby, but it's extremely worth it and will help you a ton. It's a hard lesson to learn, but putting fish directly into a display tank is asking for trouble.

 

[scattered]

The die off aside, please don't put a Sailfin in a 36G tank. They get 10+ inches. I am not the tang police but you said you kept multiple tangs?

The minimum recommended tank size for any tang is about double what you've got going on. They need swimming room.


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[bshow24]

The die off aside, please don't put a Sailfin in a 36G tank. They get 10+ inches. I am not the tang police but you said you kept multiple tangs?

The minimum recommended tank size for any tang is about double what you've got going on. They need swimming room.


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This is also a good point and something I didn't see originally. Tangs will get super stressed out in that size tank.

 

[Anemone]

Yes, your tank was overstocked, which probably contributed to your fish die-off. What disease took them all out is anybody's guess, without a description and/or picture of the infected fish.

The salinity issue didn't help matters, and it sounds like you dropped the salinity from 1.030 to 1.022 very quickly, which can also stress the fish.

Kevin

 

[Bremenguppie]

I didn't take a picture of the fish. I wish I would have now. But what would happen is they would start resting in a corner, they appear to be breathing heavier, would lay on their side at times, the front half around the face, side and forehead area would be almost like sucken in, u could see like veins running up around the head and gills. They would get like a whitish color to the skin around the forehead area and they would stop eating. That is about best description I can give. Then they would be dead in about 24 to 48 hours.

 

[scattered]

I didn't take a picture of the fish. I wish I would have now. But what would happen is they would start resting in a corner, they appear to be breathing heavier, would lay on their side at times, the front half around the face, side and forehead area would be almost like sucken in, u could see like veins running up around the head and gills. They would get like a whitish color to the skin around the forehead area and they would stop eating. That is about best description I can give. Then they would be dead in about 24 to 48 hours.

Algae bloom leading to O2 starvation and ammonia spike would be my guess.

I personally stock heavy but I would never approach what you were keeping. A 36G will support a pair of clowns, a medium rock dweller (goby), and maybe a little wrasse if you are ready to work for nutrient export.


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[laverda]

The high salinity would not have killed your established fish as they were used to it. I definitely may have contributed to the death of the sailfin tang. That plus the stress of 2 other tangs in a tank that is too small would make it very susceptible to diseases or parasites. These then attacked your other fish which are stressed by the addition of another fish and the high salinity. Stressed fish are much more susectiable to diseases and parasites. If your salinity was correct and your tank was 150 gallons you still may have lost everything depending on what actually killed them, but then again you may not have. Imposible to say.

 

[Bremenguppie]

Well its official. I lost all my fish. Not sure really why. But I'll let the tank sit for a few weeks before I add anything. This time we wont put near as many fish in it.

 

[bshow24]

Well its official. I lost all my fish. Not sure really why. But I'll let the tank sit for a few weeks before I add anything. This time we wont put near as many fish in it.

Since you're leaving the tank empty for a while, look at setting up a Quarantine for your fish. Much better than putting them directly into the display tank.

 

[Bremenguppie]

I'll do that. I've got a 5 gal tank I could use as a quarenteen tank

 

[scattered]

Well its official. I lost all my fish. Not sure really why. But I'll let the tank sit for a few weeks before I add anything. This time we wont put near as many fish in it.

I am really sorry.


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[Bremenguppie]

Thank you scattered.. I just wish I knew what happened for sure. This tank has done so well for over a year and within a matter of a couple weeks it was destroyed. All that's left are some blue leg crabs and emerald crabs

 

[laverda]

Well its official. I lost all my fish. Not sure really why. But I'll let the tank sit for a few weeks before I add anything. This time we wont put near as many fish in it.

I am sorry you lost your fish. You will need to leave the tank without fish for 3 months to make sure what killed everything is no longer a threat to any new fish. Especially since vou fo not know the cause. Sadly I had the same thing happen to the fish I had in my QT recently. I did not see sny signs of illness or parasites. I just had less fish each day. My QT is a small 50 gallon reef tank that I monitor all new fish for 90 days before they go in my displsy tank. At least it did not kill any of my established fish 4 of eich are over 20 years in my care.

 

[Bremenguppie]

Laverda thank u for the advise like everyone else who tried to help. I appreciate everyones advise as I let things sit for awhile and reevaluate how I do things

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

Laverda thank u for the advise like everyone else who tried to help. I appreciate everyones advise as I let things sit for awhile and reevaluate how I do things

Glad to hear that. The minimum fallow period is 12 weeks. Trying to add any fish before that time is a certain death sentence.

A 5 gallon tank is much too small for a QT tank. 20-30 gallons would be a much better choice.

Lastly, please research your fish choices for your small tank. There are no tangs compatible with a 30ish gallon tank. http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1946079

Look into fish that are compatible with nano tanks. At the most a pair of perc or occy clowns and another small fish.