All fish died, now what?

JonoB · Feb 12, 2019

I have had some bad luck in my short 8 months in this hobby, but I suppose not as bad as others. I think this last bit was preventable, but we learn and move on.

I have a 20 gallon tank, and had 2 clowns in it. Everything seems completely normal last night and this morning. Went to work, got home for a quick lunch and one of my clowns was dead and the other looked freaking awful. I tried to get a freshwater dip ready real fast and some new water for a quarantine but in the short time it took to do that he was dead. It was a real bummer, they were beautiful black clowns and I really enjoyed having them. I'm assuming it was brook from the way it looked. I've had these fish from the beginning and other than a short issue of ich, they were healthy and happy. I quarantined all the fish, treated them, and left my tank fallow for about 78 days.

I recently added another hermit to my tank from the local LFS. I didn't quarantine him so I'm guessing that's where it came from.

My next question is, what now? I have lots of coral that are doing great and some clean up crew. Do I act like I am still feeding the fish so they can get food and the coral get nutrients? I know I can add more fish, but I'm going to try to set up a quarantine system and do that the right way so they still won't get added fast.

May be an extremely basic question, but I want to make sure the coral I've put time and effort into continue to thrive.

Anirban · Feb 12, 2019

If you fear ich then you can go fallow. For the corals just put a bit of food in the water every 2-3 days and that should work. Lets ee what others suggest... #reefsquad

Crabs McJones · Feb 12, 2019

^^ Correct, with how fast it took out the fish I would guess brook or velvet (more likely brook for clownfish)
Best bet is a fallow period of 76 days. In that time feed the tank every couple days for your inverts and corals :)

HotRocks · Feb 12, 2019

Crabs Mcjones said:
^^ Correct, with how fast it took out the fish I would guess brook or velvet (more likely brook for clownfish)
Best bet is a fallow period of 76 days. In that time feed the tank every couple days for your inverts and corals :)

Agree.

If it was Brook or velvet, 6 week fallow is suffecient. If ich was present at some point I'd go the full 76 days.

Captain Quint · Feb 12, 2019

I'm truly sorry this happened.

JonoB · Feb 12, 2019

I'm going to be completely honest, when I first got into the hobby, I didn't really think of the clownfish as "pets" as you would a dog (I still don't in quite the same way). But man it really does suck! After all that to keep those jokers alive and happy, then BAM.

Thanks for the input. I'll let it sit fallow and continue to feed to corals and inverts. I've been looking to upgrade for quite some time, found a 60g cube I'm interested in, so maybe I can get that and spend some time setting it up and getting everything just right to appease me wanting to get new fish right away lol

MartyF · Feb 12, 2019

JonoB said:
I'm going to be completely honest, when I first got into the hobby, I didn't really think of the clownfish as "pets" as you would a dog (I still don't in quite the same way). But man it really does suck! After all that to keep those jokers alive and happy, then BAM.

Thanks for the input. I'll let it sit fallow and continue to feed to corals and inverts. I've been looking to upgrade for quite some time, found a 60g cube I'm interested in, so maybe I can get that and spend some time setting it up and getting everything just right to appease me wanting to get new fish right away lol

I agree, I don’t name my fish on purpose to make it easier in my mind if my fish died. I have only lost 1 fish and it was from jumping out and my wife was pretty upset. If they were named and she got attached to them it would be a lot worse. We are such wimps

Mical · Feb 12, 2019

MartyF said:
I agree, I don’t name my fish on purpose to make it easier in my mind if my fish died. I have only lost 1 fish and it was from jumping out and my wife was pretty upset. If they were named and she got attached to them it would be a lot worse. We are such wimps

You're not wimps but responsible adults. It doesn't matter if it's fish, dogs, cats, etc... we care for these as we would kids, you CANNOT avoid getting attached it's a part of caring for others.

sfin52 · Feb 12, 2019

If you are going to upgrade than make the 20g your qt. When the upgrade is done. After all your 20g is already running and cycled.

CindyKz · Feb 12, 2019

MartyF said:
I agree, I don’t name my fish on purpose to make it easier in my mind if my fish died. I have only lost 1 fish and it was from jumping out and my wife was pretty upset. If they were named and she got attached to them it would be a lot worse. We are such wimps

I'm super attached to my fish, some of them nearly as much as my dogs. [emoji847]

DLHDesign · Feb 12, 2019

I'm sorry for your loss - it's never easy.

One thing you might want to consider is taking this time to add any other inverts you may be interested in (and/or that the tank needs). You'll be putting them through QT as part of the fallow process (in fact; that's pretty much how you QT inverts and corals...), so it may save you some effort. Just be sure to add them all before starting the 76-day clock.