What went wrong.

[sgtfuzz]

There is no such thing as using cycled water from one tank to start another and not get a cycle in the second tank. You will need to cycle the qt just like you cycled the main tank. Your fish died of ammonia poisoning due to uncycled tank.

I don't get how using water and live rock from my dt in my qt would require another cycle?

My thought process for that was to match the environment that the fish would ultimately end up in. What I'm going to do is introduce ammonia in to my tank and force another cycle and try to have it go longer than two weeks. I've also ordered new test kits from BRS to compare with my current kit.

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[rajilnaja]

My tank has been cycling for a few weeks now. Last 4 days my test kits have shown.
0 ammonia
0 nitrite
0 nitrate
8.0 Ph
1.025 salinity

After the 4th day of the same results I went and got a pair of false percula clownfish. Using my tank water I filled a 10 gallon qt tank and slowly drip acclimated the clowns.

After 24 hours the first clown died. No visible signs of disease or ich. Did a 50% water change on the qt. And measured water prams. All of which still showed the same numbers as above. The next day I found the 2nd clown dead. I'm thinking they had brooklynella.

Was there anything I could have done to protect them or was this basically bad luck. If any additional info is needed I can probably provide.

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How long where they in the bag? how long did you spend dripping them?

 

[sde1500]

Sometimes fish just die from the stress, with no signs of disease.

 

[ClownNut]

My tank has been cycling for a few weeks now. Last 4 days my test kits have shown.
0 ammonia
0 nitrite
0 nitrate
8.0 Ph
1.025 salinity

After the 4th day of the same results I went and got a pair of false percula clownfish. Using my tank water I filled a 10 gallon qt tank and slowly drip acclimated the clowns.

After 24 hours the first clown died. No visible signs of disease or ich. Did a 50% water change on the qt. And measured water prams. All of which still showed the same numbers as above. The next day I found the 2nd clown dead. I'm thinking they had brooklynella.

Was there anything I could have done to protect them or was this basically bad luck. If any additional info is needed I can probably provide.

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did you medicate the QT tank? if not, then you are not doing anything but stress out your fish.
slow drip = waste of time and more stress for fish. most likely from your LFS to your tank. the salinity should be fairly close, if not, pick a different LFS or change your salinity. if overnight shipment, that even worst, once you open the bag, the pH will go up and if any ammonia now you killing your fish doing that drip. standard cup of water once 5-10mins should be enough for most animals you are getting. once you got advanced enough, you should know what to do at that point for some of those exceptions.
if your fish is not at the top of the tank gasping for air and clear water, ammonia most likely plays not part of the death of your fish.
i always setup the QT the day i got new fish, tank water will not help since most of your bacteria are on the surface of your tank/rock/equipment. i always use prodibio biodigest and bioptim for the first 3 days. feed light for those days after that i just feed normally. from day one they will in cupramine(if copper cant be use they will get CQ powder treatment) 4 weeks follow by 3 weeks prazi(powder not liquid). fish can be a carrier but not showing symptoms. not treat your fish almost like having sex with anyone without protection. just matter of time before you got something deadly and kill everything else.

 

[Rallos]

Slow drip acclimation for most animals has been shown to have no discernable benefits and it puts fish at greater risk due to rising PH/ammonia in the bag and lack of aeration. The most you need to do (assuming your water is within .05 salinity from the LFS, which it should be) is float the bag for temp for 10-15 minutes and then net and into the QT or DT. I've done this for years and never lost a fish from it.

 

[AnnaCassandra]

you can place clowns in Fresh saltwater for ttm and be fine for 3days no ammonia .also match the salinity to the qt to store and simple temp acclimate 10-15min float and they are in

I really don't think it could have been ammonia unless the ammonia was already in your tank and your tests are expired/not working-- there wouldn't be enough ammonia created in the first 24 hrs to kill your fish. It's strange for clowns to die that quickly, it's possible they had some sort of parasite like brooklynella or velvet and maybe you didn't notice the symptoms or it could have just been the stress of the move.

I agree with you adding ammonia to the tank in order to test your cycle, add until you get a reading on your test kit of 2ppm, if you tank is cycled it will be back to zero in 24-48 hours.

 

[jstack]

He put fresh rock in a WY I would very much think there was due off ammonia with 2fish in there

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[jstack]

Qt phone auto-correct and read his whole post he took water from an uncylcled tank which would be fine for ttm 3day but then he added Rock from his dt. Then added fish ......not to mention the long acclimate I would very much argue

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[sgtfuzz]

As of writing this post my dt has 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and >5ppm nitrate. So I have no doubts that my tank is cycled. It's obviously converting ammonia and nitrite as fast as it's produced or the levels are so low that they are undetectable. And in the qt it's exactly the same.

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[AnnaCassandra]

were you able to get a positive reading when you added the ammonia?

 

[AnnaCassandra]

Qt phone auto-correct and read his whole post he took water from an uncylcled tank which would be fine for ttm 3day but then he added Rock from his dt. Then added fish ......not to mention the long acclimate I would very much argue

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He said he took the water and rock from a cycled tank not an un-cycled tank, I still don't think ammonia would kill a fish that quickly especially a clown given how hardy they are and the fact they used to recommend using fish like clowns or damsels to kickstart the cycle on a tank... he tested the water before he put the fish in, got the fish from a LFS not shipped... I just don't buy it ammonia doesn't happen that fast, it takes some time for waste to be converted to ammonia and then time for it to kill the fish if the concentration is that high.

 

[JMorris271]

It sounds like you had a defective weak fish from the get go. That is why LFS offer warranties on their fish. It can happen.

 

[LQT]

I kept a dead shrimp in the tank for 4 days. There was an initial spike in ammonia and nitrite. Nitrate did rise too I'm away from my logs right now but it was in the neighborhood of 5ppm. All 3 numbers slowly dropped to 0 and have been there since.

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This is the part of the cycle that seems odd to me. The 3rd number just doesn't disappear. The way a cycle works is ammonia and nitrate spike respectively... the cycle completes when ammonia is zero and nitrites are zero. Nitrate however should have a decent build up to at least 20+ ppm. It doesn't just disappear over a couple of weeks. What are you using for test kits?

 

[sgtfuzz]

Update as of 05/13. Probably will be a long post TL;DR scroll to the bottom.

I found an aquarium club local to me most of the members keep freshwater but a few have saltwater aquariums. Told them about my situation they offered to test my water prams and compare with what I have.

I've been using an API test kit to measure Ammonia, Nitrite, and Nitrate. They used the red sea test kit and our results were the same as in no measurable amount in all 3. They looked through the logs I've been keeping and they also agree that my tank had cycled for longer than what I thought.

Being a new tank and I had limited space I "Cured" my dry rock in my display tank. After 4 weeks of the cure, I did a 75% water change and added the raw shrimp as I wanted to use that as a medium to cycle my tank. I know what you maybe be thinking by now but if you keep reading on surely it would make some sense.

During the cure process which had started back in April, I had used my test kits as I wanted to familiarize myself with how they work. Measuring Ammonia, Nitrite, and Nitrate. first few days everything measured 0 as the days and weeks passed on I measured a massive spike in Ammonia, Nitrite, and eventually Nitrate. After 4 weeks the Ammonia and Nitrite slowly dropped to 0. During the month of April I had done a 25% water change every Saturday with the 4th Saturday a 75% water change. Because of the water changes I ended up taking so much of the Nitrate that my test kit could no longer detect an amount.

Moving on to April 30 I added CaribSea live sand and placed a raw shrimp in the tank to start my cycle. The first 3 days all 3 prams still measured 0. On May 4th I started measuring Ammonia .25ppm, I removed the shrimp as I've heard it could get really gross and nasty if left in there for too long. May 5th I did another check of all 3 this is what I got, Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 0.

May 8th I went and bought the 2 clown fish from my local LFS at the time I thought they were a reputable place to buy livestock but actually take little care of the fish they sell. One of the members of the club use to work there and told me the nightmare the place actually is when it comes to selling fish. And most likely the reason my fish had died was because of their lack of care.

TL;DR. I cured my rock in my DT due to lack of space. This also started the cycle process along with it. Result the rock had cycled since April 1st. Doing weekly water changes with a large water change of 75% lowered my nitrates to undetectable levels. LFS I bought the fish from does a horrible job at caring for their livestock which is a plausible answer to as why they died so fast as there have been stories about having high mortality rates from the store.

 

[ComforablyNumb]

Why were you doing big water changes during the cycle in the big tank?

Two clownfish in a 10 gal...ammonia can spike quickly. My money would be on ammonia poisoning.

 

[sgtfuzz]

Why were you doing big water changes during the cycle in the big tank?

Two clownfish in a 10 gal...ammonia can spike quickly. My money would be on ammonia poisoning.

At the time I didn't know I was doing a cycle. I thought I was doing a cure. I did water changes during this time because of how nasty the water looked and smelled.

While that is possible. Just know that I took rock from my tank and put it in the 10 gallon. Before and after both fish had died I had no measurable amount of Ammonia.

 

[sgtfuzz]

Why were you doing big water changes during the cycle in the big tank?

Two clownfish in a 10 gal...ammonia can spike quickly. My money would be on ammonia poisoning.

I also want to note I only did about a 25% water change for the first 3 weeks and on the 4th week did a 75% water change.

 

[johnike]

Slow drip acclimation for most animals has been shown to have no discernable benefits and it puts fish at greater risk due to rising PH/ammonia in the bag and lack of aeration. The most you need to do (assuming your water is within .05 salinity from the LFS, which it should be) is float the bag for temp for 10-15 minutes and then net and into the QT or DT. I've done this for years and never lost a fish from it.

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