I have suffered a near total wipeout of fish in my tank to what I first thought was Ick, but now I'm not so sure. I want to get some input on what the potential problems were, so that I can properly treat the tank before stocking again. Right up front, I want to say - I was stupid. I didn't quarantine and I added fish too quickly - I know it, so there's no reason to beat a dead horse. I now have a QT setup and all future fish will be added 1 at a time after 4-6 weeks of quarantine.
Here is my tank data and water parameters (which have seemingly been very good the whole time):
75g main tank, 15g sump, 20g refugium, DSB in main tank and refugium, 120 lbs. live rock, LifeReef VS2-24 protein skimmer (didn't use it too much - still tweaking the pump adjustments). No macros in the refugium yet. Total circulation is about 15-20x the tank volume.
Water parameters - ammonia and nitrites at 0, nitrates < 5ppm, pH 8.0-8.2, temp is a steady 80F (chiller, temp controller), salinity is a steady 1.026 (auto topoff system).
Here is the history of my tank, which was setup about 2 months ago. Hopefully someone can help me figure out exactly what the problem was:
- Setup the tank with 120 lbs. of fully cured liverock. Never observed a cycle. Added fresh shrimp for several days - never triggered an ammonia spike. After 10 days, I added 3 chromis to tank.
- Next day after the chromis were added, 2 of them had what appeared to be bloody bruises on them. I assumed they had been fighting (the 3rd one never hung out with them - he always hid). The next day, one of the bruised ones was dead, the next day the other one. Then a couple days later, the surviving chromis had a smaller bruise on him in the same spot. No one to fight with at this point, so I figured he maybe scraped against a rock, maybe a bacterial infection. It's been getting better although he still has a slight bruise at this point.
- A week or so later, added a lawnmower blenny to take care of all the hair algae growing in the tank.
- Really dumb move #1 - about a week later, found a Potter's angel that I really wanted. I knew I should wait at least 6 months before adding an angelfish, but you don't see potter's around that often, and heck, I had all that hair algae it could eat.
- About a week later, got a pair of tank-raised ocellaris clowns from a friend. One died the next day. Bought a wild caught ocellaris to replace her (didn't want the male to change to a female, so I acted quickly). It died 3 days later. Got a replacement (store has a 7 day warranty - nice).
- By this point, I was thinking I might have an ick infection, because my angelfish was going up to every fish in the tank and rolling on its side, like it wanted to be cleaned. And I observed a few spots on it. I have oolitic sand in my tank and very strong circulation, so I was never really sure when I observed these spots on fish if it was ick or just sand particles on them. Especially on the clownfish, since they would dig around in the sand.
- Thinking I might have a "mild" ick infection, I decided to get a cleaner to help out. Cleaner shrimp were out of the question, because I want to get a flame hawk eventually, so I decided on a neon goby (had one before, great cleaner). Someone told me Petco had them, went to 3 stores and couldn't find one, but alas, at one store - they had an orchid dottyback, which was another fish I wanted to add eventually and is hard to find. So I made Stupid Impulse Purchase #2. Added the dottyback and it did fine - started eating right away, and even came out more than I expected.
- I wake up one morning last week and check the tank and the male clownfish from the original pair had some white spots on it. That night when I got home, he was dead. It looked to me like the dottyback and angelfish also had white spots (mostly noticeable on their fins). I didn't observe anything on the female clownfish, but the next day she was dead too.
- This is when I really started to think I had a problem. The chromis deaths were easy to dismiss to fighting, but now I had lost 4 clownfish in a 2 week period. That's when I started doing more reading, and I went out a purchased a QT setup over the weekend and started mixing a batch of saltwater to set it up with.
- Stupid purchase #3 - I returned the second female clownfish under warranty and decided to replace it with a maroon clownfish (should have just taken the store credit and waited until everything was sorted out). Added it to my tank, it hosted immediately in my LTA and was eating and doing great. This was on Sunday.
- Monday morning - the dottyback is dead when I get up. That night the angelfish is near death. I manage to catch him - which tells me how weak he really was - and gave him a 5 minute formalin dip, but it was too little too late and he died an hour later. I setup the QT that night, but waited to fill it because the saltwater had not been aerated for a full 24 hours yet.
- Last night - the clownfish isn't looking too good. Very lethargic in the anemone, wouldn't come out to eat. I finish setting up the QT and add formalin and copper (.1 ppm to start). By this time the clownfish is looking bad - I move him to the QT but it was too late. Now all I have are the chromis and blenny, neither of which show any signs of problems.
Other potential factors I have noticed:
- I've seen the chromis nip at all the clownfish at one time or another. Last night, when the maroon clown was looking really weak, I saw the chromis go over and start harassing it. Maybe I have a particularly aggressive one? Maybe he killed the other 2 chromis (although he was by far the smaller of the 3)?
- I've also seen the lawnmower blenny harass the angelfish and my emerald crabs - anything else that grazes on the rocks. Both it and the chromis are gone after I catch them and treat them in the hospital tank for anything they might be carrying.
- Lately I've seen a lot of very fine particles blowing around in the current. I thought they were just sand particles, but is it possible they could be ick and the fact I can see them means it's a pretty heavy infestation?
- All invertebrates are doing fine.
So where I'm at now - 2 fish which will be treated and given away. Tank is going fallow for 6 weeks. I'll start over again slowly, adding 1 fish at a time after 4-6 weeks in quarantine.
Here's my concern - if this was ick, I've never heard of it acting so quickly. The maroon clownfish was dead within 2 days. Most of the fish went from visible specs to dead within a matter of a day or two. Some of them had no visible signs of ick at all.
So, I'm wondering if there is something else that was at fault - a bacterial infection or something? Is there anything (antibiotics, etc.) I should consider treating the main tank with during that 6 weeks, to make sure I can safely add fish again (any treatment needs to be invertebrate safe)?
Here is my tank data and water parameters (which have seemingly been very good the whole time):
75g main tank, 15g sump, 20g refugium, DSB in main tank and refugium, 120 lbs. live rock, LifeReef VS2-24 protein skimmer (didn't use it too much - still tweaking the pump adjustments). No macros in the refugium yet. Total circulation is about 15-20x the tank volume.
Water parameters - ammonia and nitrites at 0, nitrates < 5ppm, pH 8.0-8.2, temp is a steady 80F (chiller, temp controller), salinity is a steady 1.026 (auto topoff system).
Here is the history of my tank, which was setup about 2 months ago. Hopefully someone can help me figure out exactly what the problem was:
- Setup the tank with 120 lbs. of fully cured liverock. Never observed a cycle. Added fresh shrimp for several days - never triggered an ammonia spike. After 10 days, I added 3 chromis to tank.
- Next day after the chromis were added, 2 of them had what appeared to be bloody bruises on them. I assumed they had been fighting (the 3rd one never hung out with them - he always hid). The next day, one of the bruised ones was dead, the next day the other one. Then a couple days later, the surviving chromis had a smaller bruise on him in the same spot. No one to fight with at this point, so I figured he maybe scraped against a rock, maybe a bacterial infection. It's been getting better although he still has a slight bruise at this point.
- A week or so later, added a lawnmower blenny to take care of all the hair algae growing in the tank.
- Really dumb move #1 - about a week later, found a Potter's angel that I really wanted. I knew I should wait at least 6 months before adding an angelfish, but you don't see potter's around that often, and heck, I had all that hair algae it could eat.
- About a week later, got a pair of tank-raised ocellaris clowns from a friend. One died the next day. Bought a wild caught ocellaris to replace her (didn't want the male to change to a female, so I acted quickly). It died 3 days later. Got a replacement (store has a 7 day warranty - nice).
- By this point, I was thinking I might have an ick infection, because my angelfish was going up to every fish in the tank and rolling on its side, like it wanted to be cleaned. And I observed a few spots on it. I have oolitic sand in my tank and very strong circulation, so I was never really sure when I observed these spots on fish if it was ick or just sand particles on them. Especially on the clownfish, since they would dig around in the sand.
- Thinking I might have a "mild" ick infection, I decided to get a cleaner to help out. Cleaner shrimp were out of the question, because I want to get a flame hawk eventually, so I decided on a neon goby (had one before, great cleaner). Someone told me Petco had them, went to 3 stores and couldn't find one, but alas, at one store - they had an orchid dottyback, which was another fish I wanted to add eventually and is hard to find. So I made Stupid Impulse Purchase #2. Added the dottyback and it did fine - started eating right away, and even came out more than I expected.
- I wake up one morning last week and check the tank and the male clownfish from the original pair had some white spots on it. That night when I got home, he was dead. It looked to me like the dottyback and angelfish also had white spots (mostly noticeable on their fins). I didn't observe anything on the female clownfish, but the next day she was dead too.
- This is when I really started to think I had a problem. The chromis deaths were easy to dismiss to fighting, but now I had lost 4 clownfish in a 2 week period. That's when I started doing more reading, and I went out a purchased a QT setup over the weekend and started mixing a batch of saltwater to set it up with.
- Stupid purchase #3 - I returned the second female clownfish under warranty and decided to replace it with a maroon clownfish (should have just taken the store credit and waited until everything was sorted out). Added it to my tank, it hosted immediately in my LTA and was eating and doing great. This was on Sunday.
- Monday morning - the dottyback is dead when I get up. That night the angelfish is near death. I manage to catch him - which tells me how weak he really was - and gave him a 5 minute formalin dip, but it was too little too late and he died an hour later. I setup the QT that night, but waited to fill it because the saltwater had not been aerated for a full 24 hours yet.
- Last night - the clownfish isn't looking too good. Very lethargic in the anemone, wouldn't come out to eat. I finish setting up the QT and add formalin and copper (.1 ppm to start). By this time the clownfish is looking bad - I move him to the QT but it was too late. Now all I have are the chromis and blenny, neither of which show any signs of problems.
Other potential factors I have noticed:
- I've seen the chromis nip at all the clownfish at one time or another. Last night, when the maroon clown was looking really weak, I saw the chromis go over and start harassing it. Maybe I have a particularly aggressive one? Maybe he killed the other 2 chromis (although he was by far the smaller of the 3)?
- I've also seen the lawnmower blenny harass the angelfish and my emerald crabs - anything else that grazes on the rocks. Both it and the chromis are gone after I catch them and treat them in the hospital tank for anything they might be carrying.
- Lately I've seen a lot of very fine particles blowing around in the current. I thought they were just sand particles, but is it possible they could be ick and the fact I can see them means it's a pretty heavy infestation?
- All invertebrates are doing fine.
So where I'm at now - 2 fish which will be treated and given away. Tank is going fallow for 6 weeks. I'll start over again slowly, adding 1 fish at a time after 4-6 weeks in quarantine.
Here's my concern - if this was ick, I've never heard of it acting so quickly. The maroon clownfish was dead within 2 days. Most of the fish went from visible specs to dead within a matter of a day or two. Some of them had no visible signs of ick at all.
So, I'm wondering if there is something else that was at fault - a bacterial infection or something? Is there anything (antibiotics, etc.) I should consider treating the main tank with during that 6 weeks, to make sure I can safely add fish again (any treatment needs to be invertebrate safe)?
just whats up top! Wonder why someone posted on it and brought it out from way back. Probably someone like me doing research and forgot they were in old posts and posted he he. I have been known to do that. This is kinda funny.