I'm not sure what is going on. Everything is dying.

T

truben1010

New member
I have a had a reef tank for over 2 years now. I bought a blue hippo tang and had it in quarantine for 14 weeks because I didn't want to risk it. I had 2 clownfish and 1 bicolor blenny that went 8 weeks through quarantine as well. They were all living happily for more then a year and now everything is starting to die except for the corals. I have no idea what is going on since I haven't added anything. Any help would be awesome. Here are some pictures of their remains, viewer discretion is advised.
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Did she fish show any symptoms of being sick? Any physical symptoms, weight loss, discoloration,...

How did the fish behave before they died? Any scratching or flashing, elevated breathing, reclusiveness, apathy,...?

How fast did the die-off happen?

Also, did you add anything wet (inverts, coral, rock, algae,...) before the dying started?

Did anyone use chemicals, aerosols, hairspray,... near the tank?

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truben1010 said:
40 gallon breeder. 2 years old. 9.5 alkalinity. 470-90 calcium. 0 nitrate. 0 phosphate. API masters test kit.


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I'd upgrade from API, especially the ammonia test is not super accurate. But aside from ammonia spike, not sure the cause. They don't like like they had an ich, or other visible ailments. The eyes on the tang look big. Not sure if it's the picture or possible pop eye. Hopefully someone smarter will chime in soon.

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ThRoewer said:
Did she fish show any symptoms of being sick? Any physical symptoms, weight loss, discoloration,...

How did the fish behave before they died? Any scratching or flashing, elevated breathing, reclusiveness, apathy,...?

How fast did the die-off happen?

Also, did you add anything wet (inverts, coral, rock, algae,...) before the dying started?

Did anyone use chemicals, aerosols, hairspray,... near the tank?

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Yes but everything was absolutely healthy and fine for more than a year.
A day before death my blue tang started hiding more and breathing really hard fast, her eyes seemed cloudy as well.

My bicolor blenny showed his camouflage colors and started breathing really hard and died.
2 weeks later just today my platinum clownfish is breathing really hard and laying in its side. My other clownfish is just there oddly swimming in the same place "œsluggishly"
So this die off has been going on for 2 weeks.
I added prazipro to the tank and fresh water dipped the blue to see if it was flukes but nothing came off.
Here is a pic of my blue tang during the fw dip..
9601579c596d60f5f8e392efe577de96.jpg



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Something coming on that fast could be a major malfunction such as a faulty heater or a faulty reading on salinity have you closely double checked these on the DT also? Hope you get this figured out fast.................. fatal emergencies are the pits.
 
Oldreeferman said:
Something coming on that fast could be a major malfunction such as a faulty heater or a faulty reading on salinity have you closely double checked these on the DT also? Hope you get this figured out fast.................. fatal emergencies are the pits.
Click to expand...
Salinity being off would kill corals much faster than fish. Same goes for equipment malfunction, electricity in the tank, heavy metals,... almost all of such things would affect corals and inverts long before it would affect or kill fish.
This sounds much more like an infection. And these kind of staggered deaths are typical for an occult velvet outbreak among partially immune fish.
The easiest way to test for such an infection would be to acclimate a freshwater black mollie to saltwater and add it to the tank (ideally confined in a breeder box or something similar).


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Oldreeferman said:
Something coming on that fast could be a major malfunction such as a faulty heater or a faulty reading on salinity have you closely double checked these on the DT also? Hope you get this figured out fast.................. fatal emergencies are the pits.
Click to expand...



I live in Arkansas and the weather right now hasn't become cold yet so my temperature stays 78-80 and I double check my salt. I am really hoping too. Thank you for your thoughts


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ThRoewer said:
Salinity being off would kill corals much faster than fish. Same goes for equipment malfunction, electricity in the tank, heavy metals,... almost all of such things would affect corals and inverts long before it would affect or kill fish.
This sounds much more like an infection. And these kind of staggered deaths are typical for an occult velvet outbreak among partially immune fish.
The easiest way to test for such an infection would be to acclimate a freshwater black mollie to saltwater and add it to the tank (ideally confined in a breeder box or something similar).


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I am thinking it's a disease as well, but I don't think it's ick or velvet because I I didn't see ANY signs of it. And they were all quarantined in copper.


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truben1010 said:
I am thinking it's a disease as well, but I don't think it's ick or velvet because I I didn't see ANY signs of it. And they were all quarantined in copper.


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There are strains of velvet that can tolerate copper levels that would be leathal to any fish. And unfortunately, the habit of many LFS to run low dose copper in their systems promotes such strains.
Then there is the fact that fish can acquire various degrees of immunity against nearly every pathogen and parasite. But it takes just one stressor to impair the fish's immune system and allow the pathogen or parasite to break loose.
Uronema could also be a possibility, especially since it is an opportunistic parasite that can exist in a system for a long period of time without causing any issues.
But without a thorough microscopic examination of the infected fish it will be difficult if not impossible to pinpoint exactly what you are dealing with.
I would also not entirely exclude toxins. There are invert toxins that can kill fish but don't affect inverts and corals. But in such a case I would expect all fish to die around the same time and not weeks apart.
Finally there would be the possibility of contaminated food.

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A blue hippo in a 40B seems a bit tight. I think the disease claustrophobia might be to blame.

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lowtek said:
A blue hippo in a 40B seems a bit tight. I think the disease claustrophobia might be to blame.

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The blue tang was tiny. And it was healthy and had no visible signs at all of anything.


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Oldreeferman said:
Hmmmm, and the mystery continues. Is odd its only effecting fish but not showing obvious external signs on them.
Click to expand...



I just saw this today on my jawfish!
a984ffdc78fe74eaa7485a3dc0f07fe2.jpg

It's really hard to see anything, but it's so hard to get a picture of him without him hiding. He has a white thing on both of his eyes. And his side fins are frailed.


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