Lost some "new fish" and I have a question as to why

[riche]

I picked up a tank during the week and there were some rather large fish, tangs a angel clowns, 2 star fish and a few others I cant recall what they were.

Well they came from a tank that was NASTY to say the least.

I put them in a bunch of different tanks when i got home to QT them.

Well I have lost most of them except the Yellow eye kole tang, the yellow tang the powder blue tang, the 3 clown fish and one other tang.

Everything is the same in all the tanks.

Could it be they were so used to the nasty water that when introduced to new stable water they died becasue of it?


The ones that died didnt die right away its one here and one there, and they all lasted the first few days, so I know it wasnt shock or anything like that. They didnt show any signs of being sick.

Sucks because they were part of the package that I paid for, but im glad it happened in qt and not the display tank.


When I say the water was nasty, when I cleaned the sump yesterday(not using it) the sump has a 2" layer of sludge over top of the sand bed, it was like something from a swamp/sewer Its was nasty


So part of me thinks they might have been suffering and when introduced to clean new stable water they couldn't handle it

 

[Mike in CT]

What were the conditions in your Q. Tanks? Any chance of an ammonia spike? Wouldn't take long with big fish. We're the fish eating before they died?

 

[Reefing Madness]

How did you acclimate them to the QT?

 

[RalphsReef]

Could be that the conditions were so bad in the former tank that the stress of moving them was just too much. How did they look prior to you picking them up? Were they eating?

 

[saltyphish]

I think fish can still die from shock in a day or 2. It doesn't always happen quickly. Also as others asked what were the QT set-ups, was there biological filtration otherwise ammonia builds up quickly. Need more info to help you out.

 

[reefwiser]

PH of the Dirty tank water vs PH of QT tank water can do it real fast.

 

[riche]

They were eating before I picked them up, I am in the process of changing tanks and I filled a few tanks with water from my old tank and some of there water.

All my old fish that are in different tanks with the water from the old tank are doing just fine and eating fine.

The ones that really thru me for a loop was the brittle star fish. They just died over night and I thought those things were hard to have die on you?

And when I say the old home these fish came from (there old tank) was bad, when i showed a friend of mine who is in saltwater what came out of the sum, he was surprised any of them lived.

 

[Mike in CT]

Did you do any testing of the water they were coming from, vs the water they were going into? Could have been a combination of things. The stress from moving, change in water conditions... Etc.

 

[Waters]

I am guessing it is the change in water conditions......going from bad water to good water isn't always going to benefit the fish if it happens too quickly. How were they acclimated?

 

[_Conway]

Rapid increase in salinty would do it
Im assuming old tank maybe low and your qt was normal
Without parameters hard ti know exactly.
I had a friend with a nasty green f.w. tank not maintained but he said its been that way for a while and fish seemed ok.
He decided to completely drain and clean it and everything died a couple of days later.

 

[Humblefish]

So many possibilities... ammonia, rapid change in SG, stress from the move causing the fish to succumb to a preexisting disease like ich. Did you (or the seller) "stir things up" (especially the sand) when trying to catch the fish in the old tank?

 

[Reefing Madness]

Ok, so this is my personal ecxperience of over 20 years with SW fish, that I've run into
As soon as a fish starts to get picked on, no matter how long its been in the tank, it goes into hide mode. It will only come out of its hiding spot occasionally, and not very often. If it does during feeding time, and it gets pummeled, then it goes underground. When this happens, the game is over, it won't eat, won't swim, and only worries about that fish thats chasing him around. At this point, the fish kinda just shuts down, its not from starvation, because generally theres not enough time, they just give up.
I've seen it several times, and have had it happen in my tank a few times. I've had a fish for 2 years, all of a sudden, someone started pickin on him, BOOM, next week the fish is dead, no other apparent reason. Healthy fish.....It just happens in our small systems, and mine is 240g.