Need a little help/advice

[aaronw1198]

Hello everyone. I have been lurking around this forum for the past 6 months really wanting to start a saltwater tank. About 3 months ago I decided to pull the trigger and ease my way into the hobby. I started off slowly, I had no interest in rushing things. So for the past 3 months I have had a 50 gallon tank with HOB filter and 2 Hydor circulation pumps, heater, 40 lbs of dry rock, and 4 lbs of live rock. I wanted to keep things simple and upgrade as I went along. Well my tank finished its fishless cycle in a little under 2 months so I waited another 2 weeks and added a small CUC; 6 scarlet hermit crabs, 1 Astraea Turbo Snail, and 3 bumblebee snails. The hermit crabs and snails are doing awesome. Most of the hermit crabs have molted and the snails seem fine. So I took this as a small victory. A couple of weeks ago I finally decided to add a fish.

Parameters
Temp-78 F
Ammonia- 0 ppm
Nitrites- 0 ppm
Nitrates- 0 ppm
Salinity- 1.024 sg
pH- 8.2

Went to my LFS and they had 2 awesome Ocellaris Clownfish which they said were tank bred. Fell in love with the tiny little guys so I decided to pick up the pair of them. Tool them home and slowly drip acclimated them for approx 3 hours. They were great in the tank for the first 2 days! They had awesome color to them, were very active, and eating great. On the second day one had died. He showed no signs of distress and had no abnormalities on his body. I kind of chalked it down to be being unexperienced.

Parameters the day of the death
Temp-78 F
Ammonia- 0 ppm
Nitrites- 0 ppm
Nitrates- 10 ppm
Salinity- 1.024 sg
pH- 8.0 tested early in the day when I discovered his body

I kind of expected a slight increase in Nitrates just because I was finally adding something to the tank increasing the bioload and adding the extra nutrients from feeding.

Well now almost a week later the second Ocellaris isnt looking too good. He has stopped eating, was gasping at the surface, and his mouth/lips appear to be swollen and pale. He has stopped gasping at the surface for now, but he still wont eat and his mouth is still swollen and pale. It doesnt appear to have any mucus or slime on him at all. He has no other body abnormalities that I can see. No spots of any color. I have researched this and it seems most the time it involves a new clownfish and a host anenome causing the swollen mouth but I do not have any corals or anenomes at this time.

Parameters
Temp-78 F
Ammonia- 0 ppm
Nitrites- 0 ppm
Nitrates- 0 ppm
Salinity- 1.024 sg
pH- 8.2

Everyone has told me not to get frustrated in this hobby. And I am being patient, taking it slowly. Testing my parameters often. But is hard to not get a little frustrated because I dont know what is happening and I think I am doing everything correctly. If you have any advice or suggestion of what it could be please let me know. Thanks.

 

[acabgd]

Doing everything correctly would be to quarantine your fish prior to putting them in your DT. Probably some disease, hard to say what exactly. Hope someone more disease experienced will chime in.

 

[gone fishin]

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2389659

without a photo it is hard to say, so try the link. I got it from the fish disease forum.

You may want to post over in that forum. There are some very experienced people in that forum on fish illness. Good luck

 

[aaronw1198]

I am kicking myself now for not placing them in quartine before putting them in the display tank. I foolishly thought that since they are the only fish in the tank for now it was not needed. Lesson learned... the hard way...

Learning Curve- 1
Me- 0

I also make my own saltwater with RO/DI water just to throw that in there. Not sure if it matters in this circumstance.

 

[MMacro]

Also, a 3 hour acclimation is excessive.

 

[aaronw1198]

I just wanted to make sure my fish were slowly and completely acclimated before putting them in the tank. That shouldnt have harmed or killed them correct? What process/how long do you recommend?

 

[shesacharmer]

When you bring home fish from your local fish store test the salinity in the bag. Temperature acclimate the fish in the bag and bring the salinity in the bag slowly up to match your tank...but no more than 30 minutes. Release into your QT. Slow drip acclimation kills more fish than it saves.

 

[pyithar]

don't forget to use a refractometer when checking salinities. when i started this hobby, i was using swing arm hydrometer and i set the salinity at 1.024. my clarkii clown was surviving but when i tried to put corals in there, they never opened up and died. so i checked the salinity using a refractometer and it was 1.030.

 

[aaronw1198]

Thanks for the advice. I am using a refractometer, and I checked the calibration on it with plain RO/DI water so I think that should be good. I have heard horror stories about people using the swingarm ones so I went with a refractometer right off the bat.

 

[moneymm]

I got 2 new clowns 2 weeks ago.... One had very similar symptoms to yours, and he died after 10 suffering days. I luckily did qt .. But I stupidly did a drip acclimation for no reason.. And I did it for way too long as well '. Like 90 min or so... I hope it wasn't that.. But I don't know ... It was the only mistake I made though and I won't again

 

[pyithar]

the toxicity of the ammonia increases as the pH rises. when you open the bag, the carbon dioxide inside the bag will be released and thus resulting in higher pH which means the toxicity of ammonia inside the bag will become lethal to the fish. people say don't let the fish stay in the bag for more than 30 minutes once you have opened it.

 

[Sk8r]

Procedure with new fish: prepare qt tank to salinity of the source, ie, the store, or the shipper. Phone and ask. Have it ready, warm, etc. When the fish arrives or you get it home, float the bag 15 minutes without opening it.

Then open the bag and test the water with your refractometer to be sure you got the truth. And if you're within .002, don't acclimate. Put the fish only (gloved hand is best) into the qt tank. Mild temperature diff isn't going to hurt.

If you're forced to acclimate because somebody got the salinity wrong, under no circumstances allow acclimation to go on more than 30 minutes, and really, try to stop at 20.

 

[aaronw1198]

"Samsonite! I was way off! I knew it started with an S, though."

Dang. I didnt know I was messing that up so bad. My thinking was completely opposite. Do you think this is causing the issues I am having?

 

[aaronw1198]

 

[aaronw1198]

 

[aaronw1198]

It has not been gasping at the surface but it's mouth is still swollen and pale. He is not eating and hasn't done so in 3 days.

 

[Pife]

Thanks for the advice. I am using a refractometer, and I checked the calibration on it with plain RO/DI water so I think that should be good. I have heard horror stories about people using the swingarm ones so I went with a refractometer right off the bat.

Get some calibration fluid. The way you calibrated it could have it way off. Calibrate and test in the same light as it can effect your reading as well.

 

[formsix]

Any idea if the LFS runs copper in the tank you got them from?

While I agree 100% with the acclimation procedures described above (float, salinity match, dump in QT), I'm not convinced that ammonia toxicity will build up all that quickly. As in, the ammonia issue is a huge deal if the fish has been in the bag overnight, but if it was just in the bag for 30 minutes while you drove it home, I doubt that + drip acclimation time will do them in. Still wouldn't recommend it, and 3 hours is way long, but I think it's more likely that your fish have some other disease.

Sorry your first fish experience didn't go so well Definitely post over in the disease forum and see if you can figure this out, so that you know what you need to do to fix up your DT for the next fish (and if you can do anything for the second clown).

 

[aaronw1198]

So the second Ocellaris Clownfish died. I have some pictures of him so I will post those to the other forum section to see if anyone can help me with a diagnosis. Now that my tank is fish free, I should prob wait 4-6 weeks before adding anything else incase it was a parasite, correct?

 

[MMacro]

So the second Ocellaris Clownfish died. I have some pictures of him so I will post those to the other forum section to see if anyone can help me with a diagnosis. Now that my tank is fish free, I should prob wait 4-6 weeks before adding anything else incase it was a parasite, correct?

It was probably the acclimation. Next time just float the bags and drip acclimate for about 30 minutes then release the fish into the tank. If you do think there is a parasite present then I would keep the tank fallow for 9 weeks.