Fish deaths!

[asmodyus]

So I have been trying to stock my 180 with some more fish and I am having the worst luck.

Current QT Setup is:

QT Tank 29 gallon 3 months established with live rock for DT.
QT Sandbed tank over year old 40-gallon breeder

So I intially bought a Sunburst anthias went through QT everything was fine month after QT Dies today.

Also bought 2 Bella Gobies about a month ago one died the very next day the other one went surfing after 2 weeks (bought a top for the tank 40 gallon)

I also bought 5 Allen Dasmel's or neon and Male lyretail anthias. 4 damsels died in the QT over the course of the month no symptoms. Medicated with Prazi and metro. One damsel and the Anthias where put in the DT. The anthias after week start acting weird and seems in capiabkle of swiming above the sadn bed and only hovers on the sand bed. I Immediately put in the refugium to see if he was okay after couple days does not get any better put in him in the QT dies 2 days later.

Seems to be one of the worst run of fishes I have had. None showed any signs of anything. Water was free of any normal issues salinity was the same has my DT 1.026. Not sure if I just had a bad set of luck but hey the Allens Damsel still kicking.

180 Gallon Alive Tank Mates

Red Sea Salfin Tang
Nasso Tang
Yellow Tang
Very Small Blue Hippo
2 Black ClownFish
Male and Female Bellus Angel
Midas Blenny
Bi-color Blenny
Azure Damsel
Rabbit Fish

 

[asmodyus]

So any thoughts or ideas am I just messing up or having bad luck?

 

[Ted_C]

I always had troubles self-medicating the fish when I started out. Follow the directions perfectly and fish would just die.

I suspected at the time one of two things in my experiences (that I never verified / ran down): one was the prazi and possibly driving the available oxygen down (I'm not sure if this is a thing). My second thought in a medicated tank was copper and massive dieoff of algae - causing "undecetable" ammonia (but enough to kill the fish). Plants and copper do not react well together. add copper - kills the algae - algae decomposes - ammonia.

I was brand new to the hobby, only using a 10 gallon at the time and didn't really understand the nitrogen cycle and the need to have a well established "system"

Since then, I've steered the purchase of all fish to a single source that does the medication before putting them out for the public. My quarantine now is a non-medicated 150 gallon with a bit of rock and two marinepure blocks in the sump (so it's more observational now instead of trying to medicate fish).

As for your personal experiences are you sure there's no aggression taking place whatsoever? aggression between fish takes a trained eye to spot. it's more than a fish getting bullied that is easily observable. There's other behavoirs to look for - like one fish always has no line of sight to some other fish? Aggression you can see (a fish getting picked on) - I've found that to be the case when the fish getting picked on is already on it's way out and is weakened.

Damsels are supposed to be some of the worst fish when it comes to aggression and territory (I really dont know if this can be a blanket statement or not - it's just what I've heard and have been told). Clownfish / Chromis / damsels are all damselfish though.

I know in my 300 - I have to put any new fish in on the opposite side of the barrier reef chromis I have. they are the worst bullies I have.

So I would say:
Make sure your system is really established biologically
Isolate the damsel from the other fish (maybe a piece of egg crate in the tank to separate them?)
Stop the pre-mediciations. Dont medicate at all unless you see a problem that has a specific medication solution.

 

[asmodyus]

I always had troubles self-medicating the fish when I started out. Follow the directions perfectly and fish would just die.

I suspected at the time one of two things in my experiences (that I never verified / ran down): one was the prazi and possibly driving the available oxygen down (I'm not sure if this is a thing). My second thought in a medicated tank was copper and massive dieoff of algae - causing "undecetable" ammonia (but enough to kill the fish). Plants and copper do not react well together. add copper - kills the algae - algae decomposes - ammonia.

I was brand new to the hobby, only using a 10 gallon at the time and didn't really understand the nitrogen cycle and the need to have a well established "system"

Since then, I've steered the purchase of all fish to a single source that does the medication before putting them out for the public. My quarantine now is a non-medicated 150 gallon with a bit of rock and two marinepure blocks in the sump (so it's more observational now instead of trying to medicate fish).

As for your personal experiences are you sure there's no aggression taking place whatsoever? aggression between fish takes a trained eye to spot. it's more than a fish getting bullied that is easily observable. There's other behavoirs to look for - like one fish always has no line of sight to some other fish? Aggression you can see (a fish getting picked on) - I've found that to be the case when the fish getting picked on is already on it's way out and is weakened.

Damsels are supposed to be some of the worst fish when it comes to aggression and territory (I really dont know if this can be a blanket statement or not - it's just what I've heard and have been told). Clownfish / Chromis / damsels are all damselfish though.

I know in my 300 - I have to put any new fish in on the opposite side of the barrier reef chromis I have. they are the worst bullies I have.

So I would say:
Make sure your system is really established biologically
Isolate the damsel from the other fish (maybe a piece of egg crate in the tank to separate them?)
Stop the pre-mediciations. Dont medicate at all unless you see a problem that has a specific medication solution.

Also just to clarify I do not medicate until I notice odd behavior or if the fish dies off. For example, the Bella Gobies were not medicated. As for the Damsels and Anthias, I did not run meds until one of them died and since there were no visible marks. I assumed some kind of possible bacteria or something hence why I started with prazi and Metro and I never use copper until I see dots or something visible. I also run air stone on both QT tanks because of the oxygen with meds.

I have also been thinking about getting fish from pre QT places not sure about Divers Den but I'm looking more towards that, I support LFS but it seems a lot of fish I'm getting lately are just not doing well and I hope it's not me. I just lost over 350 dollars in fish deaths over the past couple months.

But yeah there is a lot of different talks about pre-medicated and not I like to try to monitor my fish for a week before really trying meds from the stress but than again not sure if that a good thing or not.

 

[asmodyus]

So I believe it's my Sailfin tang that is killing fish from, stress or Inhave some kind of crazy disease. Yesterday my Naso Tang who been hiding a lot lately and has been getting really skinny got some type of cut or lesion on is upper backside area and today it must have got infected and it died.