HELP! They're dying!

[OnoIgotICH]

As you probably noticed, theres not much you can really do. if everything checks out. I wouldn't really blame the lfs, but those fish probably weren't the best out of the batch. hopfully your lfs will 'help' you out next time, sheet happens you know?

Feed your ribbon eel very small feeders. he'll go for it.

 

[MrSpiffy]

I second the question about your lighting, too. Are you using halogens or halides? There's a huge difference. And are your lights shielded for UV protection?

Granted, that's not the only issue at hand. Your tank is very young, you've picked difficult specimens, and you added them all at once without using quarantine practices.

Anemones: Don't usually do well in new tanks. Wait until your tank has matured before adding an anemone.

Ribbon eels: Extremely difficult to get eating in captivity. Usually they're a lost cause. Similar to Moorish Idols, Batfish, etc.

Flame Scallops: Require daily (even multiple times daily) target feeding of phytoplankton. So much phyto would probably foul your water, as Amoore311 mentioned.

Unless you have a lot of experience, start with easier fish/inverts. Clowns would work, but maybe look for a mated pair or larger clowns. And wait on shrimp until things have gotten more mature and settled in.

 

[HoopsGuru]

Fish, even sick ones, rarely die within a few days without some sort of outward symptoms....did you notice anything? (spots, streaks, etc.). The fact that a wide range of animals died (not just fish)leads me to believe there is something amiss with your water or you acclimation procedures. A disease would not have wiped out from fish to inverts.

For example, many fish stores keep their holding tanks at a much lower salinity to save costs. If you brought livestock home and only acclimated them for a short period or for temperature only that could lead to this kind of shock and rapid dieoff. Something is amiss, I would not jump to blame the LFS for this, as an anemone or scallop just a few days from death would have been obvious in their holding tanks.

Evaluate and provide more info.

 

[rebodi]

so I added 2 tiny Percula Clownfish, a scallop, an anemone, a fire shrimp, and a ribbon eel.

If your LFS sold you all of that at one time its time to start surfing the internet. How did you acclimate your new residents? All of the creatures you mentioned are very sensitive to rapid chemical changes. I wouldnt want to have to acclimate all of your purchases at one time.

 

[zippopunk1]

try a marine betta u cant kill those fish with a shotgun lol

 

[rj ripetide]

I would have to question the reply not to blame the LFS...
They should have never sold those to anyone who did know what they were buying and especially to a new tank owner.

mdignard....there is some good advice here in this thread.
Please take the time to research the live stock before you buy it.
If you still are unsure ask someone.
Unfortunately sometimes the LFS is not the best resource of information for two reasons: 1.. the workers there may not be very well knowledgeable of the facts...2.. they may just want to sell no matter what the out come is for you or the animals.
There are many good people in this hobby that are more than happy to help you be successful at maintaining you reef tank.
Good Luck

 

[Swanwillow]

I think what people are saying-
don't go back to that store, they either don't care about their customers and sold them too much, too early, and things that die. Or, they don't know diddly about salt water-a lot of tanks and no dieing fish doesn't mean that they don't remove dead fish by the dozens every morning.

2 tiny Percula Clownfish, -if they are so tiny, as someone also mentioned, they will be delicate and not make it so soon
a scallop, -obligate filter feeders. Even if the stress of no QT, possibly improper acclimation, and a brand new tank-well, since its a brand new tank, it would have starved to death in less than a month. The store should have told you no, and you should do research please. wetwebmedia.com is GREAT for research.
an anemone, the tank should be up and running for awhile, and everything stable as a rock before getting one. Wait a while before trying another
a fire shrimp, see my sig line. Comes in handy with them. It'll eat when its ready
and a ribbon eel. find it a new home ASAP, it needs special feedings in a specilized tank with PVC piping for holes, and someone that can spot-feed it exactly what it needs daily.

 

[ManotheSea]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11631108#post11631108 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by OnoIgotICH
Feed your ribbon eel very small feeders. he'll go for it.

Thats an interesting tip. While I was reading through the thread I was wondering if the eel would go after the baby clowns. I dont know much about eels but your tip opened up the possibilty more.

Deffinately buy medium or large sized fish. They have much better survival rates.

 

[intermision]

You can't blame everything on the LFS. When it's busy it's hard to get the history of everyone that comes in. We try as hard as we can, but in the end it's the customer who chooses the fish.

 

[rj ripetide]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11635478#post11635478 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by intermision
You can't blame everything on the LFS. When it's busy it's hard to get the history of everyone that comes in. We try as hard as we can, but in the end it's the customer who chooses the fish.

Don't take it personally...There are many good LFS workers and owners that do care about thier customers and live stock and are very knowledgeable ...but...there are many that not know thier butts from a hole in the ground, and /or just don't care ..
All I was saying be careful ...It's buyer beware most of the time..Do the research...

 

[MrSpiffy]

I don't see how you can't blame the LFS on this one. They're supposed to know what they're buying/selling. And selling a ribbon eel to someone new to saltwater is a big no-no. And to sell all of those items at once..? You'd think they'd at least have asked a bit about the OP's setup before selling all that stuff at once. (Unless they just want to make money.) Don't just blame the customer. Sure, they should do research. But the LFS workers should do research, too... on the customer! Responsibility goes both ways, here. They're both at fault.

 

[MrSpiffy]

By the way... it's not "hard to get the history" of paying customers. You don't even need a full history. All it takes is a simple question of, "So, I'm just curious. This specimen tends to need special attention/care and might be difficult to keep. How large is the tank? How long has it been set up? And how much experience do you have with saltwater fishkeeping?" And, no, not every employee tries "as hard as we can" to work in the best interests of the tank owner and the livestock. As much as it sucks to say it, there are just some people out to make a buck at all costs.

I don't mean to be rude or harsh with my comments. They're merely observations and I'm only trying to help. They're not meant to be directed or hostile to anyone. No offense was meant.

 

[HoopsGuru]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11635604#post11635604 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by MrSpiffy
I don't see how you can't blame the LFS on this one. They're supposed to know what they're buying/selling. And selling a ribbon eel to someone new to saltwater is a big no-no. And to sell all of those items at once..? You'd think they'd at least have asked a bit about the OP's setup before selling all that stuff at once. (Unless they just want to make money.) Don't just blame the customer. Sure, they should do research. But the LFS workers should do research, too... on the customer! Responsibility goes both ways, here. They're both at fault.

We can dicker about the morality/responsibility of the livestock sold, but that has little to do with why the livestock died, that is what I am referring to about not blaming the LFS. Something killed the livestock in the tank.....a water quality problem, gross acclimation problems, etc. The scallop, anemone, and fish would not have died in a few days otherwise ....and if they WERE that close to death at the LFS they would have appeared so.

Something is greatly amiss with the display tank or practices, and suggesting new "hardy" fish that will likely die in a few days too without correcting the problem is as equally ludicrous to me as debating the morality of fish stores selling delicate (how bout the necessary tangent of individual responsibility that seems to be at a greater and greater loss in our society?) livestock to people.

 

[MrSpiffy]

Good points, HoopsGuru. Whether or not the LFS should have sold these items is beside the point. It's too late for that, anyway.

The best way to know would be to get test readings for water quality, which were supplied earlier. They seem to be plenty adequate enough to keep a FOWLR tank. I'm assuming that it had to do with acclimation. If we could find out how they were acclimated, that might shed some light on things.

 

[DEXNC]

Have you tried feeding live brine shrimp. I would also turned down the lights for now.

 

[Harley-J]

mdignard,
If you checked your params after the deaths occurred and they were still good..we can rule out bio filtration overload w/to many added at one time...
everything that was added, as stated several times, have low and in some cases very few survival rates...i.e. scallops..
Acclimation and stocking choice gets my vote...One of the fish that did survive is one of the hardiest..Lawnmower Blenny....stay within the "Hardy" arena till your comfortable with your tank and knowledge..research is the key to success...The LFS no matter what, are still a business and most I have seen, in the beginning, count on ignorance..I have kept my mouth shut on several occasions, just to hear some of the garbage that comes out of the mouths of some of them...Its humorous at times...But none of that matters as long as you have done your research...If you see something you like go home and look it up first...then go back..and if it's gone..oh well..it will be back and the next time you see it you will probably know more about it than the guy selling it to you...Its a good feeling..

 

[HoopsGuru]

The only problem is that the lawnmower blenny was not a new addition, it was lucky enough to survive as a hitchhiker in the liverock which I am assuming was added at least several weeks ago. With the stable parameters mentioned earlier, I would find a tiny percula hardy enough to survive in a large 125g tank. Even if it was not eating, the fish should thus survive several weeks before it would waste away and die of starvation. To kill fish and inverts, it can't be a common disease (any IMO way to much of a coincidence that multiple things died) and this would lead me to believe it would have to be acclimation or that the water parameters given earlier were not correct (or were the levels before adding this livestock load and subsequent food trying to get everyone to eat!).

I think we need much more participation from the original poster here, who hasn't provided much follow up information.

 

[Sk8r]

Agreed, Hoops Guru. I still can't figure how far this tank is through the cycle.

As for feeding the ribbon eel type, I had way good luck with feeding a ghost eel that I was persuaded was reef-safe [I was new]. It ate 300.00 worth of fish, hunting at night. I think you have to get up at 3am to feed that one, no kidding. The other fish may be scared to feed because of the ribbon eel. If I were a miniperc I'd worry.

And the lfs should NOT have sold that eel to a new tank.

But I'm suspecting the acclimation procedure.

 

[IPowderBlueTang]

Agree sounds like the acclimation method of the animals or the tank was too new and not cycle properly!

 

[mdignard]

Before I got the clownfish, I checked all the levels and brought some water into the store. They also tested all the levels and got the same numbers that I did. I told them the Lawnmower Blenny was eating and seemed fine for almost a week. The owner said that I could probably add 3 or 4 small fish since the tank was so large--180 gal + 55 gal refugium. However, I had talked with 3 different people at different times, and I think that this was the problem.

I called the owner and found out that they keep their fish tanks at different levels than their corals. I bought the live rock from one person, had the water levels tested by a second person, and got the fish from a third person. I think that was the problem. After speaking to the owner, I changed the temperature. I had it set at 75' - 76', and changed it to 77' - 78'. After the post about the lighting, I suspected that this was the problem. I asked the store owner about that. I had 1134 Watts for eventual corals, but they keep their fish at around 300. I shut off the halides and just kept the actinic on--bringing the light down to under 400'. The clownfish began moving around the tank, and after a couple days, one of them has started eating.

The people at the store advised me against some of the things I had originally wanted to buy, and they seem to know their stuff . . . so I think the problem wasn't their trying to just sell me stuff. I think it was probably miscommunication. The owner also did advise me that the eel could be a finicky eater, but he was doing fine there, so I didn't think it would be a problem. I guess I underestimated the extent.

So, right now I just want to keep the eel and clownfish from dying. I am trying some live brine shrimp. I want to make the tank as accomodating as possible, so my question is what to do now? What temperature does everybody think is best? What light levels? What salinity? I have done research on this, but there are so many different answers and different opinions about the same things that it is hard to know.