I keep losing fish and don't really know why.
My first stocking attempt consisted of a purple fire fish and a PJ cardinal. The cardinal died two days into QT, for no reason I could discern.
The next attempt was another PJ, an assessor, and a McCosker's wrasse. These fish got a fresh water bath with methylene blue before QT. A week in the wrasse got what appeared to be ich just before I left on a business trip. When I got back I put the QT tank in hyposalinity, but the white spots came back and seemed to be velvet. I gave them another FW bath and started copper. The PJ died the morning after the FW bath. The wrasse lived about another week, then died.
My latest attempt was a coral beauty. He was in a separate QT tank, and was healthy as a horse for five days, then laid on the bottom gasping on the sixth and was dead that day.
So out of six fish, I have had success with two, the fire fish which made it to the display tank and the assessor which is still in QT. The one that really troubles me is the coral beauty, as I thought I was learning more and he still died, with no visible signs of any distress. I took him back to the fish store, and they couldn't find anything wrong with him, no signs of ich, velvet, flukes, or any visible ailments - he looked healthy as a horse except for being dead. Water quality in this tank was also very good, ammonia was 0 to 0.24 ppm until the day he died, when it went to 1.0. The pH was 8.1, the nitrites and nitrates were both zero.
So, any advice? Is there anything I should be doing that I'm not, or am I doing something I shouldn't? I'm tired of killing fish.
My first stocking attempt consisted of a purple fire fish and a PJ cardinal. The cardinal died two days into QT, for no reason I could discern.
The next attempt was another PJ, an assessor, and a McCosker's wrasse. These fish got a fresh water bath with methylene blue before QT. A week in the wrasse got what appeared to be ich just before I left on a business trip. When I got back I put the QT tank in hyposalinity, but the white spots came back and seemed to be velvet. I gave them another FW bath and started copper. The PJ died the morning after the FW bath. The wrasse lived about another week, then died.
My latest attempt was a coral beauty. He was in a separate QT tank, and was healthy as a horse for five days, then laid on the bottom gasping on the sixth and was dead that day.
So out of six fish, I have had success with two, the fire fish which made it to the display tank and the assessor which is still in QT. The one that really troubles me is the coral beauty, as I thought I was learning more and he still died, with no visible signs of any distress. I took him back to the fish store, and they couldn't find anything wrong with him, no signs of ich, velvet, flukes, or any visible ailments - he looked healthy as a horse except for being dead. Water quality in this tank was also very good, ammonia was 0 to 0.24 ppm until the day he died, when it went to 1.0. The pH was 8.1, the nitrites and nitrates were both zero.
So, any advice? Is there anything I should be doing that I'm not, or am I doing something I shouldn't? I'm tired of killing fish.
