What killed my fish? And is it possible to pair false percs up again.

[swine]

Hello everyone,

So while I was on holiday (5 days) and my housemate was looking over the tank two fish died. :sad1: One was a cardinal fish which she had bought and was not eating. Right before i left I caved and bought frozen mysis shrimp for the pair of cardinals. Spot fed the with tweezers but one would not eat. That one died, semi expectingly...

But what puzzles me is a little false perc I had that died. When I came home I found it sucked into a hydor 750.. I think... It seemed more like a slimy white blob... Im very dissapointed, I had this one and another black one that were pairing up.

All other fish in the tank look/seem very healthy. They are eating normally, acting the same as ever, no visual signs of desease (granted I'm a noob and could be missing something)..

About my tank:
55 Gallons 4 months old.
protein skimmer

3x Astrea
3x hermits
3x emerald crab
3x large mexican turbo
1x diamond watchman goby
1x skunk cleaner
2x ocelli clowns (now one...)
2x kauderns cardinal fish (now one..)
1x bicolor blenny


All of my levels seem ok or good. Only thing is nitrates of between 5 and 10 ppm. tested alk, mag, and calcium too. The mag was slightly off the charts which is very confusing since the calcium and alk are at good levels... I've done the test 3 times with the same results. Its confusing because I thought that if two were good the third should be good too since I thought they were a dependent equation.


Possible things that went wrong:
1) Salinity is a little low: 1.022
2) Temperature could have gotten too warm/cold
3) My house mate said she didnt fill the autotop off bucket and air was being blown through the return pump. I had one heater in the main tank just incase this happened so i think the temperature would have been fine.
4) there could have been too little oxygen since none of the water that had been skimmed was being pumped into the tank.


Things I need to fix in my tank:
1) salinity/water change
2) I need to make sure my overflow box is blocked better since my house mate found my healthy ocelli in my sump :hmm2:

So my questions are:
1) what do you think killed the clown that was eating and acting healthy? the cardinal seems more self explanatory.
2) I still have one ocelli in the tank that I really want to be a pair. It is a juvinel approx 1/2" to 3/4" Can I add another one now and have them pair?
3) why the heck wasnt there an ammonia spike!?! she took out the dead cardinal but I found the clown 3 days after she said it was missing. Is it possible in three days my skimmer/tank cycled out the ammonia from the dead clown?

 

[blanden.adam]

Ok, so there is a whole lot in that post, but to answer a couple of questions:

Your cardinal came sick, so it makes sense that that one would die without treatment. Were there any external manifestions of his illness? Fish don't just not eat for no reason, he could have had an infection that your clownfish got. I would be very watchful of the tank over the next several weeks to look for signs of other fish getting sick.

I can say that the 4 reasons you listed are very unlikely to kill a false-perc, they are pretty much bullet-proof. 1) Salinity of 1.022 is fine for fish if they are acclimated properly. 2) Fish can tolerate a relatively large temperature range and you had a heater in the main tank so it's unlikely your temp dropped much, you would know if you had an on-position heater failure because your tank would still be hot, and and a heat wave would have to be extreme to kill a healthy false-perc. 3) Cutting the main tank off from the filtration in the sump I would expect to cause an increase in nutrients, perhaps even some ammonia if you overwhelmed your biological filtration capacity, but still, false-percs are one of the fish some people use as a cycling fish and can handle relatively high levels of ammonia. That said, it is still stressful on them, and if the fish was weak before it is a possibility that this would have killed him. Still, I'd be surprised 4) Low oxygen is very unlikely as long as you have some reasonable water movement -- you had 4 small fish in a 55 gallon tank at that time, hardly enough to overwhelm the oxygen carrying capacity of the water.

I'd be betting on a fish disease carried in by the cardinal. And now for the reprimand. You should always, always, always quarantine new livestock -- particularly fish and for a minimum of 21 days. No matter where it came from or what it looks like when you buy it, quarantine it. This gives you a chance to observe the fish and treat it for any diseases it may have BEFORE it gets into your main display and infects your other fish, and it gives the fish a change to de-stress, acclimate itself to your water, get used to your food and feeding schedule, put on some weight, and be ready to compete for food and territory when it finally is introduced into the display.

Ok, now for the next question. Yes, the clowns can still pair up. At that size, it is unlikely it sexually differentiated yet, but to be on the safe side I'd introduce a smaller clown to it. They will fight and bicker for a while, and then pair up.

And for your final question, it is possible that the ammonia spike either resolved by the time you tested it, or it was so small because your biological filtration/skimmer removed the organics so fast that it was below the level your test kits could detect.

Does this help?

 

[swine]

After I posted that I looked back and shook my head.. I figured the "too long didnt read" response would be most common. Guess I just had to core dump for all you programmers

It helps a lot!!!! thank you..

To be perfectly honest. this tank is sort of turning into my "mistake" tank, to say it in the harshest way possible, and the main reason I didnt quarantine. By the time my quarantine had finished I'd be two months away from moving. So to an extent this tank is my quarantine tank. There are lots of factors that make this tank not set up exactly how I want and a couple more mistakes I had to learn the hard way... There is only so much reading I can do every day.

I plan on getting an entirely new substrate for my next tank and was "ok" with spending $50 on live rock to seed my acid bath rock. Im experimenting with how to splice polyp colonies to the same rock. Although, the one pair of fish I personally bought and really wanted to survive was nemo and thug nemo (a black false perc ).

Still no excuse for not quarantining...

As far as a disease and the cardinal.. I'm really not sure. It was sitting right infront of the glass in a clamer spot so I could study it quite well. At first I panicked and thought it had ich right next to its gills but looking at it closer it appeared to be its coloration. Unless the fish had a ridiculous amount of ich covering it all over the body, then I feel stupid. I looked for pill bug looking parasites but didnt see any. The one thing I saw that looked "funny" was the tips of its fins were a little "sad" looking. Just the tips so I didnt really think it was fin rot. They looked almost shredded a bit. I never witnessed any heavy breathing or it floating at an upright position ect.

When I turned the lights off at night the fish would float (not swim) around the whole tank a bit aimlessly and rather pathetically. Usually it sits in one of 3 different calm spots in my tank. My lfs said that fishes eyes take a while to adjust and that could be why.


I'd say I'd keep a closer eye on the tank but other than that bit of travel I stare at it way too much... My next purchase was going to be a UV filter. Maybe I'll get that sooner rather than later.. But I'd be buying for for a 90 gallon tank because that is the size tank I really want.

 

[JPMagyar]

OK I haven't quarantined a new fish for more than a decade, and I have never lost a fish to disease in that time. If you have a healthy tank and you buy from a reputable store the probability of disease being the killer is low. Nitrate of 5 to 10 is high and indicates poor biology, poor understanding, and poor maintenance. Please, please forgive me if that is harsh and direct, but I'm trying to answer questions quickly.

I'm going to post a picture of my tank and tell you that I write articles for magazines and much much more all of which is trying to say that I'm not somebody that joined RC 5 months ago and I have some knowledge behind my post.

Your fish died because you don't have enough discipline and knowledge. This website is filled with more information than you could ever hope for and if you take the time to read carefully you will never lose a fish again.

In the short run I have two bits of advice that I always offer. 1) Find a tank you like and copy everything that that aquarist is doing. 2) Focus on the tanks biology.

Aquariums became successful with the advent of 3 inventions: the skimmer, adequate lighting, and the Berlin System. If you keep a sufficient amount of live rock in your system relative to your bio-load you will have success . . . period, end, dot, say no more.

Again I realize this post is tert and harsh, but I hope you believe me when I say what I really want is YOUR SUCCESS. You can keep a healthy tank if you follow the basics and work hard at the maintenance.