help... losing fish

[kelipalmer]

Hi all,
I am new to reef tanks and need help. We have an established 100 gal reef tank with 100 lbs live rock and a 20 gal sump. We bought the tank used 5 weeks ago and successfully moved it. We have 12 fish, some inverts, and several coral.

The tank was running well for 3 weeks with no problems. We left on vacation for two weeks, with competent friends watching our tank while we were away. A couple days before we returned, our box anthia died. When we arrived home, our kole tang was emaciated and had white hair-like protrusions around his mouth. He died a few days later. One of our clowns has small white spots on his back, but seems to be doing fine otherwise.

Here are our water #s:
Salinity - 1.023
Ph - 8.4
Amm - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0
Phos - 0.1
KH - 7

We do weekly 10% water changes. We did one before we left and when we returned after two weeks.

We pre-portioned food and gave appropriate instructions so that our helpers maintained the tank in the same way that we have been.

Please let us know what to do. We have gotten mixed advice on what is best for the clown: using a hospital tank, more frequent water changes, etc. Do we need to do something to protect the other fish?

Thanks!

 

[jcw]

I know it sounds silly, but did you check the tank temperature?

 

[Amdeus]

isnt that salinity a little low for a reef tank also?

 

[spieszak]

small white spots sounds like ich, could have been present in the tank when you bought it... google pictues if you don't know what it looks like... white hair-like protrusions around his mouth sounds scary, and not like anything I know of, but if you google marine fish diseases it might give you a clue as to what you are dealing with...
Pictures of the fish/tank here would help people to help you identify disease if there is any at this point.
Are the fish eating? Some garlic in the food might help for a bit until you figure out whats going on...
Personally I would do small 5-10 gallon water changes daily until you figure things out too, if there is something "bad" in the tank, your constantly diluting it that way, and it will keep harmful params in check... helping sick fish fight what's ailing them

EDIT: Note : marine ich and "white hair like protrusions" are/sound more like parasites than disease per se, which may help with the search

 

[kelipalmer]

Temp is good... varies from 78.5 at night to about 80.1 during the warmest part of the afternoon.
At this point, we're concerned most about the clown with the spots (I'll try to post pictures tonight). But it appears that what killed the anthia, the tang, and what's on the clown are all different (at least visually).
It seems to me the best option is just small, frequent water changes as spieszak suggested.
We're working on bringing the salinity up a bit. We usually keep it around 1.024.