Fish keep dieing

[Reef Frog]

IMO drip acclimation from a typical fish store salinity to typical reef tank salinity is awfully hard on fish when compared to a quarantine tank where the salinity is raised gradually. It really does boost your chances of success.

How your LFS and the supply chain behind it handles the fish is always a wild card. I've always understood captive bred clowns were better bets as well. Best of luck going foreword. We've all lost fish and more often than not we never know what the real cause was. All we can do is try to line the odds up in our favor.

 

[chimmike]

Anything being sprayed in the air?

This is a good question.

febreeze? perfume? etc?

 

[Kalen]

10 gallon weekly water change on a 29 gallon tank seems excessive in my opinion, especially with it being so young. Maybe you are getting parameter shifts with the water change causing stress. 9dkh seems really low for a newly stocked tank using RC. Just an idea. Try testing the dkh of your mixed water to see if a swing could be the issue.

Good luck.

I have 30 reef and I don't do a aggressive water change like that I do a 4 gallon water change every 4 days to keep everything in check. I'm using red sea blue bucket salt. I would venture to say that your salt isn't mixing properly. I know i am using a different salt then you however mine takes 3 - 4 hrs to fully mix. I would suggest that you read up on how long to mix your salt for.

Personally I believe you may have introduced fish to your tank a little to soon, which could be the cause of your fish dying. I am willing to guess that your tank is not fully cycled and the cause of your fish dying is probably they were not able to handle a tank with very little beneficial bacteria as some fish are more hardier then others.

I would be curious to hear what your full system test would be:

Salinity
Nitrates
Ammonia
Magnesium
Calcium
Alkalinity
Temperature

With those that could help to determine what could be the cause of the death of the fish you lost.

However on the another hand the fish could of already been sick. It is possible. Depending how your Lf keeps and cares for the fish and if they even do any sort of quarantine.

 

[timnem70]

Sorry to hear this. I know that loosing fish is hard, especially when we don't know what happened and there are no precursors. So,He has said the fish have been in the tank for weeks before the sudden death occurred, I would rule out the fish store as the culprit. I have a 29 gallon, have had this happen, and can almost unequivocally say it is environmental contamination of some sort. Or... I had the same thing happen in my rush to have cool **** in my tank. Slow way down and let it cycle a while before new additions and stop doing water changes for the time being.(unless you or someone in your home is spraying fabreeze or carpet fresh) If you are doing 35% (10gallons) water changes weekly on a 2 month old tank, you are not getting and beneficial bacteria(know you said you added spiro) buildup and with that kind of volume change, parameters are certainly going to fluctuate. Hope all turns out well for you

 

[Guy W]

I have 30 reef and I don't do a aggressive water change like that I do a 4 gallon water change every 4 days to keep everything in check. I'm using red sea blue bucket salt. I would venture to say that your salt isn't mixing properly. I know i am using a different salt then you however mine takes 3 - 4 hrs to fully mix. I would suggest that you read up on how long to mix your salt for.

Personally I believe you may have introduced fish to your tank a little to soon, which could be the cause of your fish dying. I am willing to guess that your tank is not fully cycled and the cause of your fish dying is probably they were not able to handle a tank with very little beneficial bacteria as some fish are more hardier then others.

I would be curious to hear what your full system test would be:

Salinity
Nitrates
Ammonia
Magnesium
Calcium
Alkalinity
Temperature

With those that could help to determine what could be the cause of the death of the fish you lost.

However on the another hand the fish could of already been sick. It is possible. Depending how your Lf keeps and cares for the fish and if they even do any sort of quarantine.

I already posted my full tank tests with the exception of Magnesium I don't have that test kit.

 

[Grinch589]

I agree. Sounds like your tank hasn't cycled fully yet. I wouldn't put any more fish in there. Even though your parameters are within reason I would hold off. I didn't put any fish in my tank for at least 2 months and that's with some rock and some water from an already established tank

 

[Guy W]

This is a good question.

febreeze? perfume? etc?

No that's not a factor, nothing been sprayed near the tank at all, and it has a glass top so it's pretty well contained.

 

[Guy W]

Here's the biggest question for me. Why have the inverts, every one, survived with no issues? Blood Red Shrimp, Skunk Cleaner, Pepermint Shrimp, 10 hermits, 8 snails. I haven't lost a single invert since day one.

I'd assume if it was a water quality issue or contamination I'd lose those before hardier clownfish, no?

As for the tank not being cycled, I doubt that being the case. I had a small ammonia spike within a few days after filling the tank with water, live sand and fully cured live rock along with the Bio-spira nitrifying bacteria starter, and I've never had another detectable trace of Ammonia or Nitrite.

Let me be clearer on the timeline.

• I set up the tank Oct 10th, filling with water/sand/30lbs cured live rock.

• On the 15th of Oct. I added the Bio-Spira, and 2 Clownfish another 15lbs of fully cured live rock and some of the inverts I currently have.

• I added a Royal Gramma about a week later Oct. 22. This was after testing ammonia and nitrite for several days leading up to the 22nd, and went from getting a small spike at first to getting 0PPM readings. I assume the bio-spira along with my fully cured live rock I bought at the LFS had sufficently seeded the tank with nitrifying bacteria and the tank was cycled.

• The Gramma vanished about a week to a week and a half later. So it died around Oct. 29th-Nov 1st, don't remember exact date.

• I replaced the Gramma with a Sixline Wrasse the following weekend around Nov. 1st. Also added the rest of the inverts at this time.

• My first clownfish died around Nov 15th after being in the tank a month. I saw crabs and shrimp eating the body, I now assume that is what happened to the Gramma.

• My second clown died December 1st after being in the tank for a month and a half. I found his body stuck to the inlet of my HOB power filter.

My Sixline has been in the tank for a month and is currently still alive. I don't believe he harrased any of the fish to death, he hasn't shown any signs of aggression what so ever. Also he wasn't in the tank when the gramma died.

 

[A1t2o]

What size heater do you have? Did you buy it new? Could be temp swings since the tank is smaller. 10 gallon water changes are really big for a 29 gallon tank if you are doing them every week. I would do only 5 gallons. How long do you let the salt mix before doing the water change. If salt crystals are still in the water, then you could be causing damage to the fish's gills. Do you make sure the water you are adding during the water change is within 1/2 degree F? That would cause stress if it wasn't.

Just remember that consistency is better than your parameters to be on spec.

 

[Reverend Reefer]

if i had to guess, i think maybe yer tank hasn't fully cycled yet. maybe i'm confused by the timing but if your tank was set up just 1.5 months ago and you've been putting in fish 2-3 weeks ago, then the tank was barely set up before you started putting fish in. i would wait a couple more weeks before trying again.

i really do think that your tank has not fully cycled yet however, one other option could be some weird random contamination. i had this happen before with some hard metal contamination leeching from some random rock. one way to see if this is the case is to run poly filter, you could probably run that in your hob power filter. you didn't answer if you run any filter media in there but that might be a relatively cheap option when you are unsure what's happening, if i remember correctly, it changes color when there are weirdo contaminants in your water.

 

[Reverend Reefer]

What size heater do you have? Did you buy it new? Could be temp swings since the tank is smaller. 10 gallon water changes are really big for a 29 gallon tank if you are doing them every week. I would do only 5 gallons. How long do you let the salt mix before doing the water change. If salt crystals are still in the water, then you could be causing damage to the fish's gills. Do you make sure the water you are adding during the water change is within 1/2 degree F? That would cause stress if it wasn't.

Just remember that consistency is better than your parameters to be on spec.

another option to check for is related to this, temporal swings. stability is one of the things we strive for in reefing, have you tried testing your parameters at different times of the day-night? like does your water temp significantly drop by the end of the evening towards dawn? how bad are your ph swings, etc. etc.

 

[Sk8r]

If these fish were air shipped, a 60 minute acclimation is much, much too long, and can be lethal about 3 days later due to organ failure (ammonia poisoning). 30 min max, ever.

My suspicion is that your first fish brought in ich in his gills, it killed him, went to your sandbed, reproduced, and has done in the others in turn. Ich requires a fish host to help it reproduce: it spends part of its lifespan in the sandbed, then swims up and infests another fish to reproduce again, cycle after cycle.

 

[A1t2o]

No that's not a factor, nothing been sprayed near the tank at all, and it has a glass top so it's pretty well contained.

How well is the glass top sealed? Is there a sump? Is your tank getting enough air? You also should check your temp at different times of the day to see if the lights are causing your tank to warm up, use an in tank traditional thermometer if you aren't already, those external thermometers aren't accurate at all.

 

[chagovatoloco]

Here's the biggest question for me. Why have the inverts, every one, survived with no issues? Blood Red Shrimp, Skunk Cleaner, Pepermint Shrimp, 10 hermits, 8 snails. I haven't lost a single invert since day one.

I'd assume if it was a water quality issue or contamination I'd lose those before hardier clownfish, no?

As for the tank not being cycled, I doubt that being the case. I had a small ammonia spike within a few days after filling the tank with water, live sand and fully cured live rock along with the Bio-spira nitrifying bacteria starter, and I've never had another detectable trace of Ammonia or Nitrite.

Let me be clearer on the timeline.

"¢ I set up the tank Oct 10th, filling with water/sand/30lbs cured live rock.

"¢ On the 15th of Oct. I added the Bio-Spira, and 2 Clownfish another 15lbs of fully cured live rock and some of the inverts I currently have.

"¢ I added a Royal Gramma about a week later Oct. 22. This was after testing ammonia and nitrite for several days leading up to the 22nd, and went from getting a small spike at first to getting 0PPM readings. I assume the bio-spira along with my fully cured live rock I bought at the LFS had sufficently seeded the tank with nitrifying bacteria and the tank was cycled.

"¢ The Gramma vanished about a week to a week and a half later. So it died around Oct. 29th-Nov 1st, don't remember exact date.

"¢ I replaced the Gramma with a Sixline Wrasse the following weekend around Nov. 1st. Also added the rest of the inverts at this time.

"¢ My first clownfish died around Nov 15th after being in the tank a month. I saw crabs and shrimp eating the body, I now assume that is what happened to the Gramma.

"¢ My second clown died December 1st after being in the tank for a month and a half. I found his body stuck to the inlet of my HOB power filter.

My Sixline has been in the tank for a month and is currently still alive. I don't believe he harrased any of the fish to death, he hasn't shown any signs of aggression what so ever. Also he wasn't in the tank when the gramma died.

That is really fast IMO, I let my tanks sit for a month before adding any fish.

 

[Swanwillow]

That does seem fast to me too. I still think there's something odd going on with all of this happening and your test kits are saying you have 0 for amonia, trites and trates. That just really REALLY doesn't sound right.

 

[figuerres]

Recommend getting different test kits and also take a sample to the fish store to have them test it. My bet is you may have bad kits for ammonia and nitrogen that are part of the problem.

 

[edinphilly]

Is the Royal Gramma definitely dead? I had one go MIA for like a month in my 29g only to come out one day.

Have you looked closely into acclimating? I don't quarantine either due to small size of tank (29g) with limited amount of live stock none of which is expensive. So I acclimate slowly via drip using Prime. Until I figured this out I lost several fish in the beginning.

 

[Four drachma]

You could set up some aggressive carbon filtering in case its chemical. Then run UV to eliminate parasitic. Also might check for stray electrical currents.

Good luck

 

[Kurt03]

A few suggestions,


Tank bio filter is not caught up.
stop adding things, feed light, dont add anything for 1-2 months. confirm ammonia test with another kit. get a bottle of seachem prime, if things look odd, add its dosage (one cap per 50 gal so it will last you a while). It will bind the ammonia etc so it is not harmful. Great insurance to have around.

after this, 1 month between additions. dont over feed as this increases load on bio filter.

Im not sure you are mixing your salt correctly, what size pump are you using in the 5gal bucket? Salt should not sit on the bottom dissolving.
Mix new salt using this method.
rodi in bucket, heat and aerate by running large pump BEFORE adding salt. Salt dissolves better in warm water than cold water
once to temp, slowly add salt (it should dissolve before hitting bottom) until you are up to SG
After its up to SG let the pump run for 24 hrs (or more is fine)
before water change check temp (alk, calc, ph etc isnt bad to check also. You can get alk to precipitate out if salt is moist before using or is added too concentrated) I recently tried to use some salt I had forgot about (Stored improperly in the bad too long), after mixing and testing alk it was like 5 so had to dump it. I could just correct its alk but who know what else went wrong with it.

I would do less water changes for now. move to monthly right now, only 5 gal.

how tight is the glass top? remove glass top until you can be sure you have proper oxygenation/temp control. You can get netting etc to stop fish from jumping. http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/diy-aquarium-screen-top-kits-1-8-netting.html

Do you have proper aeration? http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-09/rhf/#d what is your low ph (just before lights turn on or early morning before room is lit by outside) and alk level?

There are some battery operated temperature gauges that have a high/low history on them and alert. this might be helpful.
I try to buy an ammonia alert tag whenever i cycle a new tank. It stays in the tank all the time and changes colors to indicate ammonia.
It lasts months and lets you quickly check ammonia levels whenever you like.

 

[lawkmlaw]

same as my dad's home