Sudden death

moe103

Member
I just lost a juvi queen angel and juvi emperor angel. Both had been in QT for 6 weeks with a neon dotty back and male squareback anthia. Transferred to a new 300 gallon tank 1 week ago. Tank stats are SpGr 1.023, pH 8.0, Temp 75.7 F, ammonia- 0, nitrites- 0, nitrate 2. Everyone was doing fine, eating San Francisco Bay Angels and Butterflies frozen cubes. Last night I noticed the angels were hiding in a cave and this afternoon I found them both lying on their sides in the sand. The other fish are doing fine along with a trio of Talbot's damsels. I quickly took the angels out and moved them back to the QT tank. Initially, they were fine and then three hours later they were dead.

Anybody have any ideas as to what might have gone wrong?

Thanks
 
They died within three hours of adding them to your DT?! :eek1: That sounds like an environmental problem to me. How did you go about cycling the 300?
 
No, they lived for 1 week in a brand new cycled DT. They were transferred back to QT, appeared to perk-up and died 3 hours later. The tank was cycled by adding media from an existing tank. Once the ammonia and nitrites were 0 I introduced the fish
 
Did you ever see the nitrates go sky high in the 300? I'm not saying for sure this is an ammonia issue, but I typically don't considered a tank "cycled" until it can process 2ppm ammonia in under 24 hours and nitrates go through the roof. Sometimes a new cycled DT can experience brief ammonia spikes (i.e. mini-cycle) if the bacteria population isn't strong enough. Some fish can survive that, some don't.
 
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