HELP! Saddle clown, cardinal, yellow clown goby, and barnacle blenni are all dead!!!!

[iamtreewithleaf]

i'm new to reef central. I've had my 24 open canopy nanocube for about 5 months now. My nano has the k2 viper and an upgraded rio1800 w/ no other modifications. I have marshall rock and a handful of coral frags. The 2 fish I initially purchased were the firefish. Then i proceeded to buy corals such as: several zoo frags, 2 frogspawn, torch coral, medusa coral, sun coral, blueberry gorgonia, and one mushroom.

I recently started to add new fish (ones named above). But within about 2 months, they all started ending up on the floor becoming munch for my inverts. It wasn't all at once. It was one by one.

I suspected bristle worms. I bought a trap and it doesn't work. I was told i was overfeeding, so i made sure i limited the amount and watched my fish (2 firefish...one with seemingly chomped tail) eat all the food.

I checked my water. nitrates nitrites all 0...phosphate slightly above normal, ph normal, salinity normal, and temp ranges from 78-79. i also checked all other possibilities. I checked my water and a store.

If you suspect bristle worms, can you provide a detailed description on how to derive a DIY trap that'll work. I've heard the store-bought traps do not work. I've read stuff on DIY traps and they don't provide a description of the kind of household containers i should use and how.

If you suspect anything else, can you please let me know.

THANK YOU

-iamtreewithleaf

 

[bigevill1]

bristle worms dont eat fish unless they are already dead. I have bristle worms in my tank so big you would freak. I have bristle worms in such great quantity that when they do thier mass spawning events in my tank it clouds all of the water. I have never lost a fish to a bristle worm. That being said it doesnt mean there isnt something else killing your fish. You say the fire fish are fine? Were there any clues as to what killed the other fish? Marks, injuries, signs of stress before they died?

 

[Sk8r]

Something else is definitely going on, but it's not the worms, which are innocent undertakers of the deceased. What kind of tests are you running? What brand?
Your parameters should be:
Salinity: 1.025
Temp: ca. 80
Nitrite, nitrate, ammonia 0
Ph: 8.2
Calcium: 400
mg: 1200
alk: dkh 8.3 is a good reading.

Things that often account for mysterious fish death: a hidden predator like a mantis shrimp [hear any clicking?}
leaking voltage---a cracked heater casing, etc.
Wild spikes in salinity or ammonia.
oxygenation shortage: skimmer or main pump not aerating adequately: too great a fish load for tank size. Too much algae, switch to night cycle takes up oxygen, starves fish of breath.
Previous use of tank with poisonous compound. Usually this is copper and it gets inverts, not fish.

Any of those ring a bell?

 

[iamtreewithleaf]

thanks for responding

thanks for responding

There were absolutely no signs that i noticed. Aside from bristle worms i have no idea wat could have killed my fish. The absolutely only thing is that i've seen one of my firefish (bigger of the two) chase the smaller one around at high speeds leaving the tail tattered. But i'm not even sure if the firefish did that and i know they are not aggressive fish at all. And one last thing, the day before my saddle clown died he looked ever so slightly pale. it wasn't very noticeable and i think i only noticed b/c i'm very meticulous and attentive about things.

Aside from what i described i havne't seen anything else.

Can you suggest anything? Tests? anything?

ps i've read and have been told bristle worms were known to eat fish.

pss i have brown little things scurrying aorund in my tank (bristle worms??? or something else??). it was all over my crocea. i don't know if it caused its death or if it was dying.

THANKS FOR THE RESPONSE!

-iamtreewithleaf

 

[bigevill1]

if you have two male firefish or two female one may attack and bite the other. I have seen it happen more then once, and I now only keep one firefish. The whole bristle worms eat fish thing is an old wives tail. Doesnt happen. Brown little things scurrying sounds like pods of some sort and are perfectly normal. So long as they arent swarming on something where it is obvious that they are harming it. You need to go deeper into the testing as SK8R has said.......

 

[Shade00]

If the fish were in poor health when you got them from the LFS, they might never have recovered - it may not have anything to do with your tank.

But I do think that six fish in that nano cube is way too many. Just my two cents.

 

[coralnut99]

I agree that the fish load may have been a bit high too. The skimmer you're employing is probably small, and couldn't be of much help. What type of skimmer/filtration are you using? Did you acclimate properly?

Did you buy all the fish from the same LFS? One of the toughest variables in buying fish, is determining the reliability of the actual suppliers. Most LFS just buy from a local wholesaler, who've purchased from a west coast distributor, who bought from a distributor in Fiji, or Indonesia. Poor handling along that long chain of supply is always a possibility. Then there's always the cyanide-caught issue.