I woke up this morning to find my female spotted boxfish on the bottom of the tank being picked at by my shrimp. I have had this boxfish for almost 3 months now, and it has overcome ich, and developed an awesome appetite, eating anything I put in the tank. I had a volitan lion in with her, but got rid of it a few days ago.
I want to know why this happened. I immediately checked my levels:
ammonia: 0
pH: 8.1
temp: 78 F
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 20 ppm
salinity: 1.021
Yesterday I added a cleaner shrimp and a peppermint shrimp to the 55 gallon tank. Along with the hermits, these are the only inhabitants. I had placed an order for two more fish on Wednesday, which I was expecting today, so I added the remainder of a refrigerated bottle of Cycle bacteria to the tank, in order for it to better handle my two arrivals today.
Well I only got one fish, the other was on backorder. I was nervous on adding it to the tank because I dont know what killed my boxfish. My thoughts were either something in the Cycle that I added, or the new shrimp stressed out the boxfish to release its toxin. I dont think this was the case because it was the boxfish constantly harrassing the shrimp to clean it! It wanted them too, so I dont think they would be the stressor.
Anyways to be safe I literally ran out and bought a filter sleeve and some carbon and am running it in my filter to hopefully kill the toxin if its still there.
I also noticed that my protein skimmer had extra stuff in it this morning. Im guessing this could be some of the toxin?
Please let me know what you think happened.....Im very distraught at losing Roxy..she was by far my favorite fish...
I want to know why this happened. I immediately checked my levels:
ammonia: 0
pH: 8.1
temp: 78 F
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 20 ppm
salinity: 1.021
Yesterday I added a cleaner shrimp and a peppermint shrimp to the 55 gallon tank. Along with the hermits, these are the only inhabitants. I had placed an order for two more fish on Wednesday, which I was expecting today, so I added the remainder of a refrigerated bottle of Cycle bacteria to the tank, in order for it to better handle my two arrivals today.
Well I only got one fish, the other was on backorder. I was nervous on adding it to the tank because I dont know what killed my boxfish. My thoughts were either something in the Cycle that I added, or the new shrimp stressed out the boxfish to release its toxin. I dont think this was the case because it was the boxfish constantly harrassing the shrimp to clean it! It wanted them too, so I dont think they would be the stressor.
Anyways to be safe I literally ran out and bought a filter sleeve and some carbon and am running it in my filter to hopefully kill the toxin if its still there.
I also noticed that my protein skimmer had extra stuff in it this morning. Im guessing this could be some of the toxin?
Please let me know what you think happened.....Im very distraught at losing Roxy..she was by far my favorite fish...
