Dead fish

napsterMS

New member
2 out of the 3 fish that I just bought 5 days ago died. My coral is doing
great and my tank parameters are fine. One lemon damsel died 2 days ago and a red coris wrass died this morning! Please help!
 
need tank paramteres to assist...tank size, age, sg, all levels....pics would be huge...even if fish are dead...
 
Size 20 gallons the wrass was 1.5 inches (i know it will need a bigger tank it was going into a 120). The damsel was 1 inch.
Parameters:
nitrates-0
nitrites-0
ph-8.2
ammonia-0
phosphates-0
 
over the years Ive come to the conclusion that its hard to keep any fish alive in these small tanks for the simple fact that they are to small. What I mean is parameters can change in a matter of hours. You can check them one hour and in the next couple of hours you will get a different reading. Why because of water evaporation,temperature control,stable salinity, ph high n lows to name a few. Plus thats to many fish in a 20glln. Ofcourse this is only my opinion but have attempted to keep one of these small tanks in the past. And there maintenance is just to intense and time consumming. IMO best of luck.
 
It is always possible that you had an ammonia spike because the new fish overwhelmed your biofilter. Were those the water parameters around the time of death?

Another possibility - how did you acclimation the fish to your tank? Also, did the fish eat and did you observe heavy or unusually rapid breathing, spots on the fish or their gills, or flashing off the rockwork?
 
over the years Ive come to the conclusion that its hard to keep any fish alive in these small tanks for the simple fact that they are to small. What I mean is parameters can change in a matter of hours. You can check them one hour and in the next couple of hours you will get a different reading. Why because of water evaporation,temperature control,stable salinity, ph high n lows to name a few. Plus thats to many fish in a 20glln. Ofcourse this is only my opinion but have attempted to keep one of these small tanks in the past. And there maintenance is just to intense and time consumming. IMO best of luck.

Small tanks are hard to keep; but any of these fish should survive 5 days in a 20. Most QTs aren't much bigger and fish do just fine in a 20 for the 8 week QT period.

To the OP; How were these fish acclimated/ Sudden changes from lfs water to yours can be a problem. (PH, SG, etc.)
 
For all of those reasons I agree. The larger the tank the easier to maintain. I'd have your water checked at your LFS. Ammonia spike was probable. Damsels are hardy so if you can't keep those something else is wrong.

Water temp, chemistry, unhealthy fish, etc.,
 
Thanks for all of the answers guys. I think that maybe rpjaws74 is right and the tank is simply too small for these fish. I did acclimate them over a 1 hour period and my tank has been running for over 4 months now so it is fully cycled. It is for these reasons that I am getting a 120 pretty soon. I also think that the fish went through a lot before they got in my tank. Anyways thanks for commenting and happy reefing!
 
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