lost 4 of 6 fish

[skibum1681]

over the past 3 weeks or so i have lost 4 of my 6 fish. First was my coral beauty. it showed no sign of illness, i got home from work one night it was dead. Second was my Valintini puffer. No sign of illness. it looked like it had very very small specs of sand it, always in diff spots and it would brush up against the sand when swimmin under rocks. i figured it was actually sand not ick. Next was my clown. seemed healthy then started losing color and seemed to have a "whiteness" on its fin tips. Most recent was one of my 3 chromis (tonight actually). This fish looked sick. its fins were beat up and its scales were very jag-ade (spelling?). The clown and the puffer i did not get out before they were consumed by others. The coral beauty and the chromis i did get out. There has been no new additions for prolly 6 - 8 months.

Now how do i move forward with adding new fish? Is there mostlikely a disease in my tank? what could it be? will a fishless tank cure all disease? I only have 2 chromis left who look very healthy and are active and every single fish ate till the day it died.

I dont want to start adding fish and losing them. i will get frusterated fast. and i dont want to kill anymore fish.

Any help / comments would be greatly appreciated.

 

[skibum1681]

Tank parameters are:

Temp 78deg
PH - 8.0
Alk - 2.0 - 2.2 its hard to tell the diference
NO2 - 0 - 0.05ppm
NO3 - 20 - 30 ppm
S.G. - 1.024

I've been using RO/DI for about a year now. I also just changed the foam filter and added carbon to my HOB filter. The tank is about 1.5 years old and there have been no new additions for about 10 months.

 

[Barracuda1]

There probably is a disease and it may be ick, in which case you need to treat the fish and the tank and it would be a while before new fish could be added

 

[screwsloose]

with a reading of .5 for nitrite it looks as though your tank has hit a mini cycle. at that level i wouldnt expect it to be fatal but it is possible that its causing the fish to stress and letting secondary infections set in. i would get the reading down to .00 ppm asap by water changes or adding more filtration. in the mean time i would dose the tank daily with prime to temporarily detoxify the nitrite until it can be converted. the nitrate is also alittle high. is it a reef tank or fowlr?

 

[WLachnit]

Actually, the post states 0.05ppm NO2 .... is that correct?

 

[screwsloose]

whoops. i misread that. sorry. but there shouldnt be a reading for it regardless.

 

[skibum1681]

Thoes tests were taken after the coral beauty died and the little puffer died and dissapeared. I would assume that with that extra bio load of a decomposing fish there could have been a little cycle.

The tank is a FOWLR, but the way its been going lately its just gonna be a live rock display tank beforetoo long.

 

[screwsloose]

its really a shot in the dark without any physical signs of ailments. any ulcers or pinkish spots on the dead fish?

 

[skibum1681]

The chromis had kinda pinkish sploches on it when i took it out. It was barely dead. The coral beauty was fairly decomposed and eaten by the time i seen it was dead. The other 2 (clown and puffer) just dissapeared.

Im doing 3 days of darkness to try to kill off some cyano then i'm going to do a 50% water change on saturday morning. Just as an FYI on my plans for this week.

Is there and meds i should add before i do my water change?

 

[screwsloose]

the pinkish leasions would make me think internal bacterial infection. they can spread quick and be fatal with in days. i generally would use apis general cure for bacterial since it treats a wide variety of symptoms. it has both prazipro and metro in it should do the trick. i would try to watch the remaining fish and see if you can get sight of any poo. watch for clear or white stringy poo. that could be another indicator.

 

[skibum1681]

The two remaining fish still look good. The poop looks normal i guess. Will the apis general cure affect any of the inverts / benifical bacteria in the tank? should the two remaining fish be moved to a hospital tank for treatment? should i bother treating now since they show no signs of illness at this point?

As a side note i just finished 3 days of lights out to try to combat my cyano problem. I also just did about a 40% water change to hopefully help get my nitrates down in a hurry. I'm also going to head to the LFS to replenish my clean up crew today or tomorrow.

 

[screwsloose]

the general cure has metro and prazipro. i have done reading on this and the prazipro says it can harm inverts but at the levels in general cure i have never seen it have any ill affects. i would let it ride for now and if need be qt them and treat them

 

[skibum1681]

I just found a dead hermit crab out of its shell. Could this be related to the fish death? How long can they live out of their shell? could it have just out grown its shell? there isnt any spare shells in the tank.