Something has gone wrong! All my tests keep coming back fine, yet we have been losing about a fish a day for the past 5 days. We have a 24 gallon aquapod that has been up and running at my place for about 2 months, however it had been running at a friends for a few years before we moved it. All the sand, lr and most of the water all came with the tank when we moved it. Everything was fine and stable with regular water changes until this. We did a major water change (about 35%) two days ago hoping to help buffer whatever is going on, yet fish keep dying. The only thing I could come up with as a cause is that things started happening right after i switched the sponges from my little copepod tank to the refug. in the back of my main tank. The corals all seem fine, but the anemone isnt looking so hot either. He has moved down to the sand bed and doesnt open as big as he used to, looking slightly discolored but not rotting yet. So far we lost, in order, a cleaner wrasse, a blue/green chromis, bullet goby, coral beauty, and today a six line wrasse plus the mandy is on his way out too. I have used a tupperware bin with holes in the sides to put the mandy in to keep the other fish (and giant bristle worm) from picking on him, but im pretty sure he isnt going to make it. The two clowns and damsel that are left seem to be doing fine, but the previous fish all died quite suddenly. Never had a problem like this with my smaller tanks, not sure what to do from here. We don’t have a QT since our place is too small and don’t want to lose the few remaning fish. Was thinking about doing weekly 25% water changes for a month to see if that helps but other than that didn’t really have any ideas. We also took down the copepod tank since we are thinking it was the culprit and it’s looking like we wont have a need for it anymore anyways. All the snails and hermit crabs seem to be doing fine as well. Lucky for us the bristle worm has been polishing off most of the fish by the time we get home from work so we haven’t had a spike in nitrates or nitrites. Any ideas anyone?
Not sure where to start. Please take all this as trying to be helpful.
The first question you are going to get when you make a post like this is what levels are fine at what level? If you believe Nitrates don’t bother anything and they are only 50ppm well if your kit maxes out at that they could be VERY high. What brand kits, what are the levels, what do you use to check your salinity, temp.
Define losing fish. It is 100% possible to have almost perfect natural levels in your aquarium and still losing fish. Fish disease can wipe out all the fish not immune to it quickly and any new wet animals added to the tank could introduce a disease. Are you seeing white spots? Heavy breathing? Milky substance on the scales? Cloudy eyes? Blotches? Images would be more helpful then words and clear video would be best.
First a fish a day dead in the tank with out being removed from the tank will cause nutrient problems regardless if it is eaten. That is a lot of worm poop your filtration system would have to handle. You need to be removing dead fish and not letting them decompose/be eaten in the tank.
I would recommend 25% water changes at least every other day for time being until you find the source of the problems. Hermit crabs and corals can live through a lot of crap that fish tank and they both likely wouldn’t be affected by fish disease. Also would be a bad idea to add some activated carbon or replace what you have.
If you already had enough bristle worms in the tank to polish off an entire fish before you get home then you were likely feeding too much before this happened.
Cleaner wrasse are likely not the best choice for most hobbyist. What is a Mandy?
how long have you had that many fish in the 24 ?
get a saltwater ammonia test kit and check the ammonia as with that many fish there is a good chance that you have elevated ammonia levels.
If ammonia was present in the tank in any significant quantity, the majority of the animals would be dead; not just the fish.
Agree with Andrew ammonia would affect the other animals as well. The other thing is if he had them in the tank for a long time and things were going well for a while the system would adapt and be able to quickly process Ammonia to Nitrite and Nitrite to Nitrate. All part of the Nitrogen cycle that happens continuously with our aquariums, NOT just during the first couple months of running the aquarium.
I do have to say it sounds as if there were a bit too many fish in the aquarium. I started to wonder when he said he lost 5 fish already how many more there could possibly be in a 24gallon tank.
I meant to say before and this is VERY important. Do NOT replace any of your fish or add anything wet to your tank for at least a month. If conditions are not good it’s cruel to put an animal into them. Not only that, but anything wet could introduce a new disease. If the animals immune systems are already fighting off something else and weakened by what ever is killing the animals and you introduce a new disease… won’t be pretty. Any local fish store, any wholesaler, any online vendor, and 99.99% of hobbyist aquariums have some sort of disease or parasite in the water. Most of the time fish are capable of dealing with these if they are health and conditions are ideal, but obviously right now that is not the case in your aquarium.
Hope this all was helpful and you get things turned around. Small frequent water changes. Careful observation, research, and time. Good luck.
I use a API master kit and just retested this morning. Levels are 0ppm for ammonia, 7.8 pH, between 0-.25 ppm nitrites, and 0ppm for nitrates. I have a salinaty meter by oceanic in the tank as well as a refractometer reading 1.023, temp moniter by coralife stays between 77 and 79 depending on if the lights are on or off. Heater in tank is set to 78. No physical signs of illness with the fish, all seem comfortable and happy. The only one to exhibit signs before death is the manderian, but not for long. I found him on his side on the bottom of the tank barely breathing, with loss of color (almost flushed him down the toilet early, except i saw him twitch!), and of course the anemone’s signs. We have been removing the fish as soon as we find them (we’ve been checking the tank as often as possiable now), but some (like the cleaner wrasse) were never discovered. I caught the bristle worm eating the coral beauty when we got home from work the other day and took what was left out. Not sure if he is the only one in there but he is pretty big. Never saw him in there until about 2 weeks ago. We do use carbon in a sock in the back, but it just got changed a month ago. Wasn’t sure if doing everyother day water changes would do more damage than good. Also thinking the cleaner wrasse may heve been a coincidence since the sixline was acting very aggressive towards it. Don’t think overfeeding is a problem, usually just feed frozen mix once a day(brine, mytis, squid, krill, playnkton), seaweed in a clip, and a mix of live and frozen copepods later when the lights go out. The frozen mix is usually gone in about 3 minutes.
Don’t worry we dont plan on adding anything else (including corals just to be safe) to the tank until we get this sorted out. So, small(like 3 gallon?) water changes everyother day would be fine? We don’t want to stress out/kill the remaining ones. Also is there any danger that the anemone could be releasing toxins into the water if he is indeed dying? So far he doesnt look too bad yet, just a little stressed out. We’ve had him for about a month and he’s been fine so far but definatly a difference in size and activity durring the past two days.
PH is low - should be at 8.2 minimum.
Other than that it sounds more to me like a matter of coinsidense. If the six line was picking on the cleaner the cleaner could have very well stressed and died - or been killed - which will cause an amonia spike, which could easily kill off a chromis, etc. etc. An ammonia spike for even a short while can be very detrimental to all animal but especially your anemone.
Mandarin’s are VERY difficult fish to keep by the experienced hobbyist with a HUGE fuge. Is there a possibility that the mandarin simply starved?
Small frequent water changes, and buffer the PH up a little bit and you should be fine in a few days.
Natural sea water’s salinity is 1.026. I would adjust that parameter, as it will throw off Ca,Mg and DkH. That is one possibility for your anemone retracting among others.
That is the level I have always kept the salinity, I don’t have autotop off so I like it a little on the lower end to give more range. So while it may be on the low end, it is nothing new. I do have a pH buffer I will try adding some of that, but doesn’t seem like a likely cause. I’m thinking Cdangel’s chain of effect is sounding more on point hopefully. My ammonia is at zero now but that doesn’t mean that there couldnt have been a spike that I didn’t catch. We had a special copepod tank set up that we used to feed the mandarin along with the population in the fuge. We also supplemented a refrigerated copepod food (which he probably didn’t eat) and added his food once the lights went off to give him a better chance at eating. I know that they are every sensitive though and he might have been stressed by short ammonia spikes with the dying fish? We did set up a small 3 gallon about an hour ago for the damsel as he has developed white spots since this morning. Thinking it is most likely a secondary infection due to stress than the original trigger. We used water from the display for it and figured we could change out a cup or two a day until he either dies or recovers. Thinking we will probably have to leave him in there at least a month. Now the delima is to leave the clowns in the display or put them in with the damsel? We dont want to get them sick if they arnt already but not really sure what to do. Theyre the only ones left besides the anemone and corals.
agree completely on s/g reading and ph, both of which, though can be off due to bad calibration of refractometer or poor differentiation of color charts on api ph kits, which, for me were impossible to determine. how old are the kits [it’s a number in black on the top of their label–the last 4 digits. my bet is 0409 or so, meaninf april of 2009.] master kits, well, they sell slower than individual ones, and they are generally older
If you’re going to medicate than I would move the clowns too and leave the main tank fallow for 6 weeks - if you’re not going to medicate but just move the damsel until it gets better I wouldn’t move the clown fish with him.
I would like to medicate but not sure what to use was thinking about heading over to the fish bowl to see what my options are.I’d rather treat all three then risk leaving them in an infected tank. Not sure what the date is on the test kit since we’re not at home but I did add the Ph buffer going to check it again tomorrow, can up salinity a little with the water changes but I don’t think thats the main problem since I’ve been keeping it that level.
Well I personally believe that a healthy fish should be able to fight off any infeciton - as long as it’s immune system isn’t compromised, and it isn’t stressed. If it is ich and you want to kill it completely the fish will have to be moved to a QT and medicated there - the main DT will need to be left fallow (no fish) for a minimum of 6 weeks. Moving the fish may cause enough stress to prevent them from being able to fight the infeciton.
I personally would not treat a fish that isn’t showing signs of disease as the treatment can be detrimental to the fish itself.
The fish will not be as susceptible to a lower or higher salinity as your inverts.Hypo-salinity and hyper-salnity are treatments for many fish diseases. I have noticed a specifc gravity of 1.026-1.029 will not harm my corals or inverts.But when it drops below 1.024, I notice polyp retraction etc…
I only have one extra tank, so it’s either put them all in the gt and treat them all or treat just the one and leave the other two in the dt in which case the dt wont be empty. I would like to leave the display empty for awhile since I still don’t know the cause of deaths. I don’t want to leave the clowns in there and have them die suddenly like the rest however you say not to treat if they are not sick, just not sure what to do, possibly they are sick too and not exhibiting signs? Confused about the advice here.
Ok I wool definitely try raising the salinity with water change but probably isn’t what’s causing my fish deaths. Thanks for the info though, wouldn’t want to lose the corals too!
Unfortunately there isn’t usually an easy answer in this hobby - how do you plan on treating? Medication or hyposalinity? Is treating necessary -do you know what to treat for? Is it ich or something else?
I’m not trying to overload you here - just trying to show why advise can be difficult to give sometimes - are you able to take any pictures of the fish? Are they still eating? Any signs of stress?
Keep in mind that damsels (and clowns are damsels) are some of the hardiest fish in the sea - it’s why people used to cycle tanks with them. They can live through some pretty severe stuff.
Perhaps someone had given you advice on what it takes to maintain a tank that was… a bit relaxed. You said, “We do use carbon in a sock in the back, but it just got changed a month ago.” Did you mean to say that? After 1 month in your tank activated carbon can begin to dump all it’s nutrients back into your tank and will have a bigger nagative influence on your tank then not using it. For time being I would change the carbon once a week until things are stable and all is going well.
You also said you were going to start doing water changes once a week when that likely is how often you should have been doing it to begin with. You had a decent bioload for a 24 gallon.
Overfeeding is a very relative term. It really sounds as if you were. Try feeding the squid by itself in the future and see if anyone eats it. If no one does don’t put it in your tank because it is packed with nutrients and proteins that will just rot away and add to your problems.
3 gallon water changes every other day will do very little to help in my opinion. That would work for regular maintenance if things were healthy, but daily or every other day 5gallon water changes are more approaite when things are screwed up.
If anything were releasing toxins new activiated carbon would likely help. If there is a mystery contaminant in the tank new carbon would help. If you do infact have an aquarium at all new activated carbon would help. Unless you put a massive amount in or have stagnant water, it will help.
1.023 is unnatural and shouldn’t be used. In some parts of the world there are elevated levels of salinity and above isn’t as bad as too low. Try to target 1.025. You are likely right this isn’t the underlying cause, but if you have no idea what the cause is you try to do what you can to improve their chances.
If you want to consider treating the fish at all I would consider googling for Lee screen name Leebca and Marine ich. Treating for fish disease is not an easy task by any means and you need to begin reading if you are considering it. For time being make sure the aquarium water is healthy and close to natural levels as possible. If your API test kit is showing any Nitrates they are likely pretty high. Often times these kits will show ~5ppm when it is actually closer to 10ppm. They will also give a false negative reading if they are old. Meaning if it is old you might have 100ppm Nitrate and it will show 0ppm. Contact the manufacturer with the serial numbers on the bottles or if you bought it a year ago just trash it now and pick up a better quality kit.
Ok so the damsel is in the qt and i have added a chemical ick treatment and a stress reducer as he is the only one showing the white spots typical of ich. None of the other fish exhibited any visable signs of illness before death. I’m thinking the damsel suffering from ich might just be doing so as a secondary reaction from the stress of whatever has been killing everyone off. I have left the clowns in the DT for now and added the stress reducer there as well. We had been doing our water changes bi-weekly but will start doing the recommended 5 gallon everyother day changes until things balance out. As far as the food, we arn’t doing a cube of each everyday. We take a strip of the multipack and mix each cube in a bottle and use that, each strip lasts about a week. We were using about 3/4 of a turkey baster to administer the food evenly throughout the tank so the anemone and corals get some too. We will try replacing the carbon and see if that helps, I was told the carbon only needed to be replaced bimonthly, however this seems to be missinformation. We used about 3 cups, but I’ve read now that we can use half that amount. I figure I’ll leave the clowns in the DT unless the damsel dies in the QT in which case ill probably move them into there. Along with increasing the salinity during tomorrows water changes, any other suggestions?