HELP! Tank crash? Inverts dying, coral stressed

[MnFish1]

This fish has an obvious bacterial issue and with shallow breathing points to water and even low saturated oxygen. Try increasing oxygen with air stone and consider adding ruby Rally pro which is effective with anthias but will take 2-3 days to take effect.

what do you think caused the deaths of the other fish? A contagious bacteria? - And all of the invertebrate problems?

 

[Nate Chalk]

Woo this tank is going through alot of diagnosis and changes since August.

I crashed my tank with low nutrients, triggered dinos just as you did.

Keeping nutrients at 15-25 nitrate and .1-.2 phosphate , manual removal, UV, adding healthy system materials to tank. Live rock, mud, etc. Eventually brought everything back.

Total treatment time was Jan - May. Finally was able to keep easy Sps.

June- August got acros again.

August - now just barely taking off.

Reefing takes time. These changes all this quick. Might be part of your issues

 

[buruskeee]

This fish has an obvious bacterial issue and with shallow breathing points to water and even low saturated oxygen. Try increasing oxygen with air stone and consider adding ruby Rally pro which is effective with anthias but will take 2-3 days to take effect.

I only have general cure on hand. Will this help? I can grab some rally pro tomorrow. The Wrasse that died had a different behavior than the other Anthias that died the same time. This is another Anthias 2 days later that was fine yesterday.

 

[buruskeee]

it is high for inverts not fish. why did you think there was copper I don't get it.

I’m just testing all I can h til ICP comes. Someone asked me about copper because it can have an effect.

on coral and invert which could chain reaction cause the fish. Thought might as well grab a Hanna and test to at least rule it out. Trying to just go down a list and rule things out one by one.

Assuming you're using the High Range Copper Checker, unless I'm mistaken 0.03ppm is within the margin of error, so you may not have any copper in the system.

That said, assuming the 0.03ppm is accurate (i.e. that it's really in the system), that could be enough to kill some corals and inverts, but it definitely wouldn't be killing fish

I just read on the box it can be +/- 0.05ppm lol .. guess I could be as low as undetectable or 0.08ppm. I just figured I rule out copper since I can’t do anything else besides water changes.

What is the safe range for coral and inverts? Looks like Randy’s post mentions 10-15ug/L (my original ATI ICP from 4 months ago said 50ug/L is nominal - which I think is 0.005ppm?).

 

[buruskeee]

Woo this tank is going through alot of diagnosis and changes since August.

I crashed my tank with low nutrients, triggered dinos just as you did.

Keeping nutrients at 15-25 nitrate and .1-.2 phosphate , manual removal, UV, adding healthy system materials to tank. Live rock, mud, etc. Eventually brought everything back.

Total treatment time was Jan - May. Finally was able to keep easy Sps.

June- August got acros again.

August - now just barely taking off.

Reefing takes time. These changes all this quick. Might be part of your issues

Yeah I knew I wouldn’t be growing SPS like weeds until my tank matured, I’m just baffled how it crashed like that with very stable parameters. Even my pH stays locked at 8.0-8.5 naturally.

Did dinos cause you to lose inhabitants like me as well?

I just did the last waterchange that I believe will be helpful before diminishing returns. I added a half dose of AF life spice mud. Hope that helps with biome.

 

[Nate Chalk]

Yeah I knew I wouldn’t be growing SPS like weeds until my tank matured, I’m just baffled how it crashed like that with very stable parameters. Even my pH stays locked at 8.0-8.5 naturally.

Did dinos cause you to lose inhabitants like me as well?

Yep inverts, pods, lots of coral.

Fish no

 

[Jimbo327]

White stringy poop might mean your fish has internal parasites. I would mix Seachem Focus, General Cure, and your fish food together. And feed the fishes with this, and will kill internal parasites/worms. Or dose Prazi Pro to DT if don't want to use GC as some debate whether metro in GC is reef safe. That's why I suggest putting it in the food, so it is more targeted.

 

[buruskeee]

White stringy poop might mean your fish has internal parasites. I would mix Seachem Focus, General Cure, and your fish food together. And feed the fishes with this, and will kill internal parasites/worms. Or dose Prazi Pro to DT if don't want to use GC as some debate whether metro in GC is reef safe. That's why I suggest putting it in the food, so it is more targeted.

If my corals are all super stressed already, would it add to the stress or would it be a no worse?

 

[vetteguy53081]

I only have general cure on hand. Will this help? I can grab some rally pro tomorrow. The Wrasse that died had a different behavior than the other Anthias that died the same time. This is another Anthias 2 days later that was fine yesterday.

General cure will help but Seachem kanaplex or ruby rally pro will address the skin issue

 

[vetteguy53081]

what do you think caused the deaths of the other fish? A contagious bacteria? - And all of the invertebrate problems?

Without clear video and symptoms described, will be hard to pinpoint

 

[buruskeee]

General cure will help but Seachem kanaplex or ruby rally pro will address the skin issue

Looking for Rally Pro at all the LFS today for preventative measures now.

When I checked the tank this morning, the biggest Anthias is now lost too.

That’s a wrasse and 2 anthias. Although the first Anthias and Wrasse perished at the same time, I’m unsure if all are related or coincidence.

This hobby is taking its toll on me. I had much worse husbandry habits 15 years ago and a smaller tank, that thing thrived (I assume because of real live rock to start it).

I’m at the point where I feel like I need to break down the tank before my tangs suffer. They look super healthy still, but they’re the reason I came back into the hobby.

 

[buruskeee]

@vetteguy53081

Now my Purple Tang for the last couple hours has been swimming with its dorsal fin stuck fully extended. Never seen this before. Concerning?

Even when it contracts its bottom fin the top dorsal stays fully extended. It’s the first time I’ve witnessed this.

 

[buruskeee]

@MnFish1 any ideas regarding post above? It’s still doing this

 

[vetteguy53081]

@vetteguy53081

Now my Purple Tang for the last couple hours has been swimming with its dorsal fin stuck fully extended. Never seen this before. Concerning?

Even when it contracts its bottom fin the top dorsal stays fully extended. It’s the first time I’ve witnessed this.

Fish is distant in pic which is also a little blurry. I can see at least one dot but need clearer look.
Also take a look again at water quality as your rock has a substance that appears to be chrysophytes.
Fully extended dorsal often a signal of stress or intimidation from another tankmate

 

[Jay Hemdal]

@MnFish1 any ideas regarding post above? It’s still doing this

With so many people weighing in here, it is going to be VERY difficult to figure out the cause of all this, indeed, there is probably multiple issues; water quality issues affecting the invertebrates and fish disease issues. It is best to keep them separate. If you have specific fish issues, feel free to create a post in the fish disease forum. This post explains how to do that:

Some Helpful Hints When Posting or Responding to Threads in the Fish Disease Treatment and Diagnosis Section

Aquarium Fish Disease Problem Solving Determining the best course of action for a problem with your aquarium can be a difficult task. Even advanced aquarists will often need to seek the help of others for complicated or unique issues. Our intent here on Reef 2 Reef is to offer expert advice...

www.reef2reef.com

Jay

 

[buruskeee]

Fish is distant in pic which is also a little blurry. I can see at least one dot but need clearer look.
Also take a look again at water quality as your rock has a substance that appears to be chrysophytes.
Fully extended dorsal often a signal of stress or intimidation from another tankmate

Sorry for the blurry pic, I took a still from a video. That is GHA on the rocks, I was able to get rid of the chrysophytes a few months ago.

I know the tang flares its dorsal fins when stressed or being aggressive, but I’ve never seen it become “stuck” in the most extended flared position for an extended period of time like this before. Usually when my tangs flare up they extend and contract both top and bottom dorsal fin. It’s never had its dorsal fin extended for more than a couple minutes at a time since I’ve brought it home (almost 6 months in my tank now). Today is the first (after all the events of the last week with the chain reaction, related or unrelated).

There are no white spots or anything of that nature on its skin, but it’s literally been 4 hours now that it’s dorsal fin has been fully extended like this without retracting it for even one second, while its bottom has extended and retracted many times during all this.

I went ahead and uploaded that video to YouTube here:

 

[vetteguy53081]

Sorry for the blurry pic, I took a still from a video. That is GHA on the rocks, I was able to get rid of the chrysophytes a few months ago.

I know the tang flares its dorsal fins when stressed or being aggressive, but I’ve never seen it become “stuck” in the most extended flared position for an extended period of time like this before. Usually when my tangs flare up they extend and contract both top and bottom dorsal fin. It’s never had its dorsal fin extended for more than a couple minutes at a time since I’ve brought it home (almost 6 months in my tank now). Today is the first (after all the events of the last week with the chain reaction, related or unrelated).

There are no white spots or anything of that nature on its skin, but it’s literally been 4 hours now that it’s dorsal fin has been fully extended like this without retracting it for even one second, while its bottom has extended and retracted many times during all this.

I went ahead and uploaded that video to YouTube here:

The spot may be from glass and I don’t think gin is stuck
Having 26 tangs, I have a couple mainly sailfin and convict that will extend dorsal for over a couple of hours mainly at feeding
Turn whites down slightly and see if it retracts the fin. Approaching with a net may do the same and you’ll then know it’s not Stuck

 

[buruskeee]

Having 26 tangs, I have a couple mainly sailfin and convict that will extend dorsal for over a couple of hours mainly at feeding
Turn whites down slightly and see if it retracts the fin. Approaching with a net may do the same and you’ll then know it’s not Stuck

I stuck my long rod with brush at the end I use to level out sand, flip over snails, or brush off algae in the tank, as usual the purple tang is very curious and acted normal - it approached me figuring out what I’m up to, but the dorsal fin never retracted. I even tried to slowly get to the fin to manually lay it down trying to “pet” but she would move out the way a bit before coming back as I was a 1/8th from touching. I couldn’t feel if it was stuck as I failed to successfully make contact.

So it’s acting normal aside from the fin literally fully max extended and permanently staying that way for the past 5 hours without even a flinch of retraction.

Should I be concerned at all?

 

[MnFish1]

I stuck my long rod with brush at the end I use to level out sand, flip over snails, or brush off algae in the tank, as usual the purple tang is very curious and acted normal - it approached me figuring out what I’m up to, but the dorsal fin never retracted. I even tried to slowly get to the fin to manually lay it down trying to “pet” but she would move out the way a bit before coming back as I was a 1/8th from touching. I couldn’t feel if it was stuck as I failed to successfully make contact.

So it’s acting normal aside from the fin literally fully max extended and permanently staying that way for the past 5 hours without even a flinch of retraction.

Should I be concerned at all?

I do not have any comments on the fin - and really no other comments on the thread except what I've already said - IMHO - in the end I think I would treat your fish with copper and prazipro per protocol. If it looks like there is an infection - you can add kanaplex or neoplex.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I stuck my long rod with brush at the end I use to level out sand, flip over snails, or brush off algae in the tank, as usual the purple tang is very curious and acted normal - it approached me figuring out what I’m up to, but the dorsal fin never retracted. I even tried to slowly get to the fin to manually lay it down trying to “pet” but she would move out the way a bit before coming back as I was a 1/8th from touching. I couldn’t feel if it was stuck as I failed to successfully make contact.

So it’s acting normal aside from the fin literally fully max extended and permanently staying that way for the past 5 hours without even a flinch of retraction.

Should I be concerned at all?

The tail-down swimming posture is suggestive of a swim bladder issue, negative inflation. Can you tell, if the tang stops forward momentum, does it sink?

Jay