Whats going wrong??? - HELP!

[KellyKM19]

I helped my aunt set up a 55 gallon saltwater tank (FOWLR). It had one yellow damsel and one blue tail yellow damsel. It has been running for about 6-8 weeks now. When we set it up, we used half cycled water with half of her water. We used established live rock so the tank was fully cycled. The water parameters were fine so a week later she added a couple of tomato clowns from the LFS. The clows did fine for about a week when one of them died. We came to the conclusion it was bullied to death by the damsels (they wer constantly picking at the clowns). Just this week she got a coral beauty from the LFS.
To make a long story short, the other tomato clown ended up dying, the coral beauty died and the yellow damsel! I gave her a sick tank with made up water from my house which she now has the blue damsel (and a conch) in. We are confused on what caused this. The water parameters are: salinity: 1.024-1.025, amonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 50ppm. I know the nitrates are a little high but I have had it off the charts at my house and never lost a fish...

I do know that she has town water. It does contain chlorine; however, she is using Aquasafe water condition which is supposed to take the chlorine out. Could the conditioner not be taking it all out? Could it be a "bad batch"? I did test for chlorine but I don't think my test kit is anygood anymore since it said there was no chlorine right out of the tap when we could smell it... and the local LFS says they can't test for chlorine (its such a crap store). I don't know what else could be in her water (I have well water)...

There is algae growing on the rocks so not everything in the tank has died off, there are some very small starfish that survived, the hermit crabs and the conch survived so far..

Does anyone have any thoughts? I am afraid to let her do anything else with the tank, I had her pull everything out and put it in the sick tank.

I haven't had her shut down the other tank, its still running...

What could have caused this? What should we do?

 

[krazykarel]

How old are those test kits? Maybe they are giving you bad readings. Those fish in general are pretty hardy so to kill them off the water has to be pretty bad.

It could also be a hijacker on one of the LR pieces. I don't know. Aggression is a definite possibility, specimens could have been sick already, or maybe they became too stressed when you first introduced them.

Those are my guesses

 

[KellyKM19]

I appreciate your thoughts! Both the liverock and damsels came from my personal tank so I know they are fine, no bad hitchhikers. The nitrate test kit is new so I know that one is ok, the chlorine one is pretty old, a couple of years so that one could be wrong...

I can understand agression from the damsels but one of the damsels died (the meanest one)... ??

 

[LisaD]

Does aquasafe remove chloramines too? More and more water systems are using methods that put chloramine into the water. I'd use Prime, I know that works for both chloramine and chlorine.

It sounds like you didn't QT the fish, there could have been disease introduced with the new fish and the stress of bullying...

It's also possible the tap water has contaminants you can't test for, though if you have some inverts alive in the tank, I think disease is more likely. I'd also check your test kits by having a LFS test your water.

I'd do a couple partial water changes, might help, can't hurt. Then set up a QT for any future fish.

 

[KellyKM19]

Thanks LisaD. The water conditioner is supposed to take out both chlorine and chloramines. I think we might try the Prime, just to be on the safe side... I told my aunt that I thought it might be disease and I explained about quarantine but she didn't listen (I helped her set up a QT tank). We are going to do a few water changes and see if that does anything.

Just an FYI -- the last damsel died the day after all the rest of them.

 

[LisaD]

did the dead/dying fish show signs of disease?

here are links to marine fish disease diagnosis and treatment:

http://saltaquarium.about.com/cs/compldiagnodisease/a/diseasetrouble.htm
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2007/10/aafeature1

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/mardisindex.htm

if not, are there any household cleaners being used, or indoor spraying, that might have poisoned the water?

have you checked pH?

 

[Billybeau1]

How are you measuring salinity ? The salinity of your aunts tank may not be what you think.

This would be the first thing I would suspect. Next I would suspect ammonia. Nitrates do not usually harm salt water fish.