fish are dying help!

[j.a.c.wester]

Ok so here is the problem. A friend of mine got a reef aquarium with the following fish 2 months ago

7 clownfish
3 yellow tang
2 picasso tang
1 yellow wrasse
1 gaimard wrasse
3 Pholidichthys leucotaenia
1 Monacanthus ciliatus
1 Cromis analis
3 Chrysiptera hemicyanea

the 3 pholidichthys died shortly after each other and had very damaged pretty bad and shortly after 1 picasso tang died ( the smallest). Because the larger picasso was pretty big and hunting all other fish he decided the get a smaller one. but the 3 yellow tangs also disappeared within 3 weeks one after the other. in the past 2 weeks 7 clownfish disappeared also.

yesterday the last clownfish died in front of us. we took it out of the tank and took a closer look at the fish. the only think we could see was that the fins where pretty damaged. but did not have visible infections. it just looked like a healthy fish but pretty beaten up. also the fish are pretty fat.

hope to hear some ideas what it could be why the are dying.

 

[Taahirs]

Size tank?
Did he buy the tank setup with all these fish?

 

[Giants13]

Ok so here is the problem. A friend of mine got a reef aquarium with the following fish 2 months ago

7 clownfish
3 yellow tang
2 picasso tang
1 yellow wrasse
1 gaimard wrasse
3 Pholidichthys leucotaenia
1 Monacanthus ciliatus
1 Cromis analis
3 Chrysiptera hemicyanea

the 3 pholidichthys died shortly after each other and had very damaged pretty bad and shortly after 1 picasso tang died ( the smallest). Because the larger picasso was pretty big and hunting all other fish he decided the get a smaller one. but the 3 yellow tangs also disappeared within 3 weeks one after the other. in the past 2 weeks 7 clownfish disappeared also.

yesterday the last clownfish died in front of us. we took it out of the tank and took a closer look at the fish. the only think we could see was that the fins where pretty damaged. but did not have visible infections. it just looked like a healthy fish but pretty beaten up. also the fish are pretty fat.

hope to hear some ideas what it could be why the are dying.

im assuming the tank was cycled? and must be a pretty big tank with them tangs.

 

[lizzbrownn]

Any other information you can provide? Water params, diet, chems, ect?

 

[dweber618]

A picasso tang...do you mean picasso trigger (Rhinecanthus aculeatus)? With that list of fish the tank would need to be HUGE. Liveaquaria has the picasso trigger should be in a min 180 gallon tank, and you had two of them. Sounds like you've got a bat sh** crazy fish killing everything off.

Too many fish, too small of a tank?

 

[j.a.c.wester]

also important. a beter description ( last one sucked)


The aquarium is a 1000L/280 gallon tank. Dimensions are 200cmx70cmx70cm(waterlevel). The tank is way past cycling. Running on its current location for 12 months. ( moved 10 feet from one corner to the other) before that it was standing on it's old location for 1 year.



The beter discription.

The tank was 9 months ago in bad shape. nitrate past the 150 mark, phosphate was 2.0. we changed the skimmer to the current bubble king, added biopellets and rowaphos. all the parameters went down to it's current levels ( see below) 2 months ago he had the following fish:

7 clownfish
3 yellow tang
2 dori
1 yellow wrasse
1 gaimard wrasse
3 Pholidichthys leucotaenia
1 Monacanthus ciliatus
1 Cromis analis
3 Chrysiptera hemicyanea

All of a sudden the big Paracanthurus hepatus went bat **** crazy en probably killed the smaller one. and the started to hunt the yellow tangs. 1 died, second died and the 3rd died. so he desided to get rid of the big Paracanthurus hepatus. At the same time the 3 big and i mean big Pholidichthys leucotaenia started to die, all of them had the same damage to the tail and looked pretty beaten up. I blamed the big blue "dori" fish because when comming of age the larger ones are known to be basterds in a reef tank. so after gotten rid of the big blue dori, we waited a couple of weeks before getting a new one.

we added 1 small dori of about 5/6 cm. at the same time 3 new yellow tangs and 2 sand sifting goby's. and it was perfect for a couple of weeks. sand was clean, goby's found there corner, fish where all happy.


the fish at that moment in the tank:

7 clownfish
3 yellow tang
1 dori
1 yellow wrasse
1 gaimard wrasse
3 Pholidichthys leucotaenia
1 Monacanthus ciliatus
1 Cromis analis



after two weeks, he called me. i lost one goby, week later, the second..... crap.... but it happens sometimes that the goby's just die because of what ever the cause. i went away for a 2 weeks, got back, he calls me, all the clowns are gone. o0..... well that's f**ked up.....

all fish are/where as fat as a guy ho lived in a fastfood joint, accept these where healty. we even got a complement from the dutch import company saying that the the "dori" looked really good!

system specs

bubble king supermarine 250
biopellets
2x jebao dct 6000 pumps
2x maxspect gyre 150FX alternating every 30 min

food:

the fish get every day 4 to 5 cubes of ocean nutrients that consist of mysis, krill en artemia. suplemented 3 times a week with green disks of new era marine grazers

water parameters

kh 7.5
ca 420
mg 1360
salinity: 1.0267
nitrate 0.02
fosfate 0.16

if you have any questions, please ask!

( I know, my grammar sucks!)

 

[Reefstarter2]

7 clowns huh . With that many I am sure there is some tension in the tank causing stress to the fish opening the door for disease and such .

 

[Deinonych]

we added 1 small dori of about 5/6 cm. at the same time 3 new yellow tangs and 2 sand sifting goby's. and it was perfect for a couple of weeks. sand was clean, goby's found there corner, fish where all happy.

Adding six fish to the tank without a thorough quarantine is a recipe for disaster. It's very possible one or more of these fish introduced a disease that is causing the fish to perish. Agree that 7 clowns is way too many.

 

[Giants13]

some people will not agree with me but this is what i did with a friends tank that had some fish loss not as much as urs but he didnt know what was going on either. I got some brigthwells garlic power and selcon and soaked the food in that for a few min a couple times a week. Im a believer in garlic.

 

[mattcoug]

some people will not agree with me but this is what i did with a friends tank that had some fish loss not as much as urs but he didnt know what was going on either. I got some brigthwells garlic power and selcon and soaked the food in that for a few min a couple times a week. Im a believer in garlic.

the first part of your statement is correct