So it's not like I had a tankful of fish, I had 2 mandarins and 2 pipefish. But they were doing fine, I have plenty of pods in my tank, I've been feeding baby brine shrimp 2x a day. There was no sign of anything being wrong. Then.... I did a water change - I know this must have had something to do with it but I can't figure out why. Before the water change all was good, after the pipefish which were always swimming together began to separate, and started swimming vertically (I thought they were just looking for pods). Then 1 pipefish dies the next morning and the other has been AWOL, the same day a mandarin died and then the next day my last mandarin died as well. With the mandarin I could see it was breathing heavily, but the night before it died I fed it baby brine and saw it was eating.
I tested my water and ammonia is 0, nitrite is 0, nitrate is 0-2 (I can't tell), salinity is 1.0255 which is what it was before the water change. The only parameter that is different from last time I tested was phosphates that went from 0 to .1.
So I mentioned I did a water change, 5 gallons and the tank is a 50 gallon so 10%. During the water change I stirred up the sand to remove diatoms. When you disturb diatoms does that release anything that might have poisoned the fish? I say diatoms because they go away at night with lights out and progressively grow during the day with lights on. And they sure look like diatoms but could be something else.
I do have 3 gorgonians, a xenia, a sympodium and those are doing just fine. I added 2 Acans and mushroom from my other tank and those are doing just fine as well.
So I'm stumped. This tank is being set up for Seahorses and now I'm afraid to put them in the tank. I'm afraid to put anything in the tank to be truthful. So any ideas would be most appreciated.
Thanks as always!
I tested my water and ammonia is 0, nitrite is 0, nitrate is 0-2 (I can't tell), salinity is 1.0255 which is what it was before the water change. The only parameter that is different from last time I tested was phosphates that went from 0 to .1.
So I mentioned I did a water change, 5 gallons and the tank is a 50 gallon so 10%. During the water change I stirred up the sand to remove diatoms. When you disturb diatoms does that release anything that might have poisoned the fish? I say diatoms because they go away at night with lights out and progressively grow during the day with lights on. And they sure look like diatoms but could be something else.
I do have 3 gorgonians, a xenia, a sympodium and those are doing just fine. I added 2 Acans and mushroom from my other tank and those are doing just fine as well.
So I'm stumped. This tank is being set up for Seahorses and now I'm afraid to put them in the tank. I'm afraid to put anything in the tank to be truthful. So any ideas would be most appreciated.
Thanks as always!