Fish die within 24 hours!!!

nitr8 said:
So should I QT all of my fish for three months? Is there some kind if catch all treatment since we don't know what I'm dealing with?
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QTing new fish won't help if a current fish is a carrier.

You could treat the tank with UV or ozone to reduce/eliminate the free floating infection vector. (I use UV) You could still get an infection from fish to fish or fish to rock contact but sterilizing the water column is about the best catch all treatment for a reef.
 
I would go ahead as planned with adding a new fish, still can't confirm that its a parasite and if it were are there any known parasites that would act that fast to death
 
I'm going to go ahead and be the one that says this. Not for any other reason but to save some of the users here from a headache such as this, SHOULD this be the problem, it would be nice to know where you got them from. ;-) I may come back to haunt you if my tank ends up in this situation because I bought a fish from there. A PM would suffice for me.

Now for useful information. (Any anyone feel free to chime in here to correct me) If the cause of your problem is in fact parasitic, would it be a better idea, to quarantine the coral and inverts instead and treat the fish with medication. Then drop the harmful levels of copper, etc with something like Cuprisorb and Carbon before returning the corals to the tank? Because it is my understanding that a parasite can still exist in the water column, live rock, etc. without a fish present.
 
Tenshoa said:
I'm going to go ahead and be the one that says this. Not for any other reason but to save some of the users here from a headache such as this, SHOULD this be the problem, it would be nice to know where you got them from. ;-) I may come back to haunt you if my tank ends up in this situation because I bought a fish from there. A PM would suffice for me.

Now for useful information. (Any anyone feel free to chime in here to correct me) If the cause of your problem is in fact parasitic, would it be a better idea, to quarantine the coral and inverts instead and treat the fish with medication. Then drop the harmful levels of copper, etc with something like Cuprisorb and Carbon before returning the corals to the tank? Because it is my understanding that a parasite can still exist in the water column, live rock, etc. without a fish present.
Click to expand...

It would be a lot easier to treat the fish in QT and fallow the DT. I have almost 60 corals and only 5 fish.
 
nitr8 said:
It would be a lot easier to treat the fish in QT and fallow the DT. I have almost 60 corals and only 5 fish.
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Ouch. I see your point. I just worry that if the parasite remains in your DT, then you may find yourself back to square one after putting your fish back.
 
Tenshoa said:
I'm going to go ahead and be the one that says this. Not for any other reason but to save some of the users here from a headache such as this, SHOULD this be the problem, it would be nice to know where you got them from. ;-) I may come back to haunt you if my tank ends up in this situation because I bought a fish from there. A PM would suffice for me.

Now for useful information. (Any anyone feel free to chime in here to correct me) If the cause of your problem is in fact parasitic, would it be a better idea, to quarantine the coral and inverts instead and treat the fish with medication. Then drop the harmful levels of copper, etc with something like Cuprisorb and Carbon before returning the corals to the tank? Because it is my understanding that a parasite can still exist in the water column, live rock, etc. without a fish present.
Click to expand...

I doubt it is a parasite that killed them...He has fish in his DT. they would be dead too. I didn't think of the bucket...where and what bucket you using?
 
Swirlygig said:
I doubt it is a parasite that killed them...He has fish in his DT. they would be dead too. I didn't think of the bucket...where and what bucket you using?
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I'm not sure what you mean by "where" but the bucket is an old salt bucket. (see avatar).
 
Well it's not the bucket or the LFS......

I bought another Royal Gramma from a different LFS. I confirmed with the LFS that it was eating and they had the fish for about a month before I bought it. I did a 2 hour drip acclimation with an air pump/stone and tested the salinty to match the DT before adding it. I tested periodically to raise it from 1.023 to 1.026. The fish was introduced on the 12th around 7:00 PM and died on the 17th at about 11:30 PM. So I had it for about 5 days. It was difficult to gauge it's health because as soon as I introduced the fish it swam directly for a tiny cave about half way up the aquascape and that's where it stayed the entire time. To the best of my knowledge, and my girlfriends who is home all day, the fish never came out of the cave until today at about 2:30pm I got a text from my gf saying the Gramma wasn't in the same cave anymore. It had moved about 6 inches to another cave. I got home about 4 hours later and it was still in the second cave and I noticed the fish was breathing very heavily (first sign of stress). At about 11 the fish was out of the caves but pressed between a rock and the sand bed and was unresponsive to my MAG Lite. A few minutes later, one of my serpent stars was trying to pull it under a rock. It bolted away in a short burst of energy but then nose dived for the sand bed. It laid there for a few minutes on its side and then it started to twitch sometimes so bad that it looked like it's nose was touching its tail so the body was in a U-shape. This went on for a minute or two and that was it. I scooped the fish out and examined it but I did not see anything externally wrong. Any ideas?

EDIT: Also worth nothing that I did not see the fish eat during my daily feedings.
 
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That's rough. It still sounds like some sort of disease/parasite. If it were me, I'd go fishless in the tank for a few months.
 
That is crazy. All I know is that I am not bringing my fish to your tank to have a play date. :) I really hope you figure out what is causing the problem. Might want to try removing all your fish for a while. Then add a new one and see what happens when it is by itself. Then add back in all the others if everything looks fine.
 
I just got a fish this pass Sunday, I was told to not acclimate the fish at all.
So I did not, I just discard the water put the fish on the net and let him go out when he wants, to my surprise, the fish is moving around already eating and is been the most easy fish i have put it in there.
When I was told I did not believe, but from now on that is my new method.
I am sick of killing to many fishes with the whole acclamation process.
This breeder explain to me that the acclamation make them more stress and is harder for them to get back to normal, about the temp, fishes are very use to move from a cold current to a warm water and vice versa, so in his experience that is part of their natural environment
Sound crazy but it did work!
 
If salinity and pH match reasonably close you generally don't need to acclimate. If the fish is moving from a lower salinity to a higher salinity you should acclimate imo. Most LFS's here run their fish at a much lower salinity than the average reef. An hour or so is all it takes.

Stuff that has been shipped is an exception to that rule for me. As soon as you open the bag and expose it to air you'll get ammonia. I move those fish/corals around quick. That shipping water is pure death.

Nothing nitr8 did in acclimation is going to kill a fish 5 days later.
 
Techbiker said:
I just got a fish this pass Sunday, I was told to not acclimate the fish at all.
So I did not, I just discard the water put the fish on the net and let him go out when he wants, to my surprise, the fish is moving around already eating and is been the most easy fish i have put it in there.
When I was told I did not believe, but from now on that is my new method.
I am sick of killing to many fishes with the whole acclamation process.
This breeder explain to me that the acclamation make them more stress and is harder for them to get back to normal, about the temp, fishes are very use to move from a cold current to a warm water and vice versa, so in his experience that is part of their natural environment
Sound crazy but it did work!
Click to expand...
There is a video on the reef builders website about acclimation. I always kept it quiet about my acclimation process because everyone was caught up in taking hours to get their coral and fish in the tank. I generally add a little water over about 30 min and in the tank they go. I am going to add a step to include bayer dipping but I haven't yet.
 
can you do me a favor and pull out your MP40 and open the wet side and look at the magnet. I have read of a few magnets that for some reason start to rust and affect the water and kill everything, it may not be that since your corals are alive but at least is one thing, i can think of that I have read here in the forum that happen to someone else, and something else to cross out from our list.
 
Considering the expense of the fish you keep losing it may be cheaper to upgrade tanks and let it cycle during the same time frame as you quarantine would be on the other tank
 
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