All sharks and rays randomly stopped eating/lethargic

[eelman]

Sorry, WHAT was at 3ppm?

Losing a starfish could indicate a water quality issue - but starfish can die for many reasons. First, what species of star was it? Second, does the tank have any other starfish or snails in it that didn't die?

The RODI unit reading was 3. Sorry, the starfish was a general starfish and a choc, I do have a biocube that was using same source water with cleaner shrimps and 4 starfish as well, no fatalities.

 

[bkwonnn]

I know rays can’t handle copper, it’s in some medicine

 

[eelman]

I know rays can’t handle copper, it’s in some medicine

Prazi was only medication applied as a precaution after symptoms arose.

 

[xzt]

I work as an aquatic animal veterinarian at a public aquarium. If you have necropsy images of stingrays and sharks that died previously, I might be able to make a rough judgment as to whether they died from an infection.
However, a healthy cartilaginous fish usually does not easily contract a bacterial disease from newly introduced fish and die rapidly. In the hundreds of cases I have treated and necropsied in the past, the only causes I have encountered that can lead to acute death in cartilaginous fish (from loss of appetite to death in less than a week) are as follows: 1. stress (capture/handling, rapid water quality fluctuations, excessively aggressive mating); 2. severe trauma (intestines bitten off, liver rupture, etc.); 3. poisoning/toxicity (excessive residual oxidants in ozone disinfection systems, heavy metal poisoning, drug toxicity, etc.).

 

[winxp_man]

The RODI unit reading was 3. Sorry, the starfish was a general starfish and a choc, I do have a biocube that was using same source water with cleaner shrimps and 4 starfish as well, no fatalities.

Another post asked. Have you done an ICP test after all?

Not many off the shelve products that test for metals in water.

 

[eelman]

Another post asked. Have you done an ICP test after all?

Not many off the shelve products that test for metals in water.

I have not done the ICP test, I was planning to, but removed all of them from the tank and no local test at any local aquarium stories, so I was focused on the new system QT of treatment to keep them alive. After they passed, no issues with any fish or eels, even the shrimp were okay from same water.

Source water RO did read 3, tds meter ran 2, I ordered a brand new system

Water quality was flawless from “normal readings” I planned to treat the system like it had metal and wanted to know how to flush it properly and refill with 100% pure water, no new fish for parasites either.

 

[eelman]

I work as an aquatic animal veterinarian at a public aquarium. If you have necropsy images of stingrays and sharks that died previously, I might be able to make a rough judgment as to whether they died from an infection.
However, a healthy cartilaginous fish usually does not easily contract a bacterial disease from newly introduced fish and die rapidly. In the hundreds of cases I have treated and necropsied in the past, the only causes I have encountered that can lead to acute death in cartilaginous fish (from loss of appetite to death in less than a week) are as follows: 1. stress (capture/handling, rapid water quality fluctuations, excessively aggressive mating); 2. severe trauma (intestines bitten off, liver rupture, etc.); 3. poisoning/toxicity (excessive residual oxidants in ozone disinfection systems, heavy metal poisoning, drug toxicity, etc.).

Unfortunately, I didn’t take photos, there are a couple photos from above of a few hours, prior to one of the stingrays dying.

There was no physical damage done that could be fatal or any aggression in the tank, no two of the same exact species for mating. Stingray had one sharp scratch on his stomach, but I believe that came from him aggressively trying to get food with the horn shark, he was a very competitive eater regardless of how much food he got.

The horn shark, one stingray and one bamboo shark were removed as soon as I noticed severity of the issue, they were placed in a 210 quarantine tank, this tank had different water, still pristine plenty of oxygen and I removed all the inhabitants so it was just them in there. The bamboo shark died within three days. The stingray died within five the horn shark survived almost 2 weeks after and then passed, he was the only one that had white eyes which were cloudy.

All animals were eating very well up until a few days after I did a 600 gallon water change, the issue is I put 300 pounds of new live rock in there a new pump, new skimmer, new plumbing, more bio filtration marine pure blocks and matrix and added new fish, the bat ray I added, died only two hours after arrival two times in a row, the bamboo shark came in malnourished and instantly started itching as soon as it entered the tank. The Cortez ray, randomly buried himself in the sand one day and wouldn’t come out until I manually pulled him out and that’s when I noticed he was lethargic, but all stopped eating the same day. The clown grouper was itching it skills and the sunset wrasse was also itching but this was a month ago and now both are completely healthy

Obviously, I severely messed up by doing so many things at once, I’ve had a flawless three years with most of these guys and I let it get to my head, the TDS meter on my old unit was clearly faulty. As soon as I replaced the batteries on it, it went from 0 to 3, my question is even if the level 3 is pure metals like copper lead or anything else would that level alone be enough to be fatal?

At this point, I’m just looking on my best solution to salvage as much as I can within the system and restart, if it’s metals, I plan to remove the metals and I have new source water. If it’s bacterial then I’ll wait out the timing

They were in a warehouse and I don’t use any type of air bound chemicals. I don’t use any chemicals at all, I did treat the tank with prazi but that was only in there for a few hours until I removed them to a new tank

To sum it up, basically I got a bunch of new fish in and wanted to do a complete system revamp I had no issues prior to this. Even using the source water that was at three. So I really just don’t even know. No fish or eels have any problems It was only the sharks stingrays and starfish

Thanks for your in-depth response

 

[xzt]

Unfortunately, I didn’t take photos, there are a couple photos from above of a few hours, prior to one of the stingrays dying.

There was no physical damage done that could be fatal or any aggression in the tank, no two of the same exact species for mating. Stingray had one sharp scratch on his stomach, but I believe that came from him aggressively trying to get food with the horn shark, he was a very competitive eater regardless of how much food he got.

The horn shark, one stingray and one bamboo shark were removed as soon as I noticed severity of the issue, they were placed in a 210 quarantine tank, this tank had different water, still pristine plenty of oxygen and I removed all the inhabitants so it was just them in there. The bamboo shark died within three days. The stingray died within five the horn shark survived almost 2 weeks after and then passed, he was the only one that had white eyes which were cloudy.

All animals were eating very well up until a few days after I did a 600 gallon water change, the issue is I put 300 pounds of new live rock in there a new pump, new skimmer, new plumbing, more bio filtration marine pure blocks and matrix and added new fish, the bat ray I added, died only two hours after arrival two times in a row, the bamboo shark came in malnourished and instantly started itching as soon as it entered the tank. The Cortez ray, randomly buried himself in the sand one day and wouldn’t come out until I manually pulled him out and that’s when I noticed he was lethargic, but all stopped eating the same day. The clown grouper was itching it skills and the sunset wrasse was also itching but this was a month ago and now both are completely healthy

Obviously, I severely messed up by doing so many things at once, I’ve had a flawless three years with most of these guys and I let it get to my head, the TDS meter on my old unit was clearly faulty. As soon as I replaced the batteries on it, it went from 0 to 3, my question is even if the level 3 is pure metals like copper lead or anything else would that level alone be enough to be fatal?

At this point, I’m just looking on my best solution to salvage as much as I can within the system and restart, if it’s metals, I plan to remove the metals and I have new source water. If it’s bacterial then I’ll wait out the timing

They were in a warehouse and I don’t use any type of air bound chemicals. I don’t use any chemicals at all, I did treat the tank with prazi but that was only in there for a few hours until I removed them to a new tank

To sum it up, basically I got a bunch of new fish in and wanted to do a complete system revamp I had no issues prior to this. Even using the source water that was at three. So I really just don’t even know. No fish or eels have any problems It was only the sharks stingrays and starfish

Thanks for your in-depth response

It is very normal for new fish to die; even professional aquariums cannot completely avoid it. I am more concerned about what caused the death of the stingrays you had kept for years. I may not be able to give you an exact answer, but based on my experience I can help rule out some of the possibilities you suspect.

1. I do not think the TDS of the source water is as important as you imagine. In my area, source water TDS is about 70–100, and we use it directly to make artificial seawater, and it does not cause acute death in elasmobranch. If, as you hypothesize, the only thing in source water with a measured TDS of 3 were copper, then that concentration would be very high. Because the unit of TDS is ppm, and 3 ppm copper is lethal to elasmobranch and invertebrates; it could absolutely kill them quickly. But this possibility is very low unless there is a problem with your water source.

2. External parasites of cartilaginous fish are mainly monogeneans, but these parasites vary greatly in drug sensitivity. In cases at the aquarium where I work, monogeneans infecting the skin of sharks are resistant to praziquantel but more sensitive to trichlorfon (which is also more toxic). So your use of praziquantel for deworming does not guarantee that the animals’ skin is free of monogeneans. However, monogeneans infecting sharks do not infect bony fish, so the simultaneous scratching by sharks and bony fish that you describe is, in my view, not caused by the same parasite infection; other causes may need to be considered.

3. As for the stingray looking rather thin in the abdomen in the photo, and some minor external injuries, I think these are acceptable and may not even need much attention. This is because juvenile cartilaginous fish usually have insufficient liver fat reserves, so the liver is not large enough; once they stop eating, their abdomen quickly becomes sunken.

4. You mentioned that after noticing abnormalities, you moved the animals to a completely new environment, but still could not prevent their death. To me, this is also understandable, because some organ damage is irreversible. Especially in cases of severe poisoning, there is not much we can do to help them detoxify; it depends entirely on them.

5. Based on the above information, I lean more toward there being something in the water that we do not know about, but that is also the hardest thing to investigate. I would add some activated carbon to adsorb possible toxic substances. I would inject antibiotics into the sick cartilaginous fish rather than giving them bath treatments. Because marine cartilaginous fish differ from bony fish—they rarely drink seawater—so for animals with anorexia of unknown cause, we prophylactically inject antibiotics. I do not know whether you can obtain these drugs. I would buy some purified water and use new sea salt to mix seawater, to completely rule out water quality problems. I would add a UV sterilizer to control the number of harmful microorganisms in the water. Then I would buy a relatively inexpensive bamboo shark to test the water.

 

[eelman]

It is very normal for new fish to die; even professional aquariums cannot completely avoid it. I am more concerned about what caused the death of the stingrays you had kept for years. I may not be able to give you an exact answer, but based on my experience I can help rule out some of the possibilities you suspect.

1. I do not think the TDS of the source water is as important as you imagine. In my area, source water TDS is about 70–100, and we use it directly to make artificial seawater, and it does not cause acute death in elasmobranch. If, as you hypothesize, the only thing in source water with a measured TDS of 3 were copper, then that concentration would be very high. Because the unit of TDS is ppm, and 3 ppm copper is lethal to elasmobranch and invertebrates; it could absolutely kill them quickly. But this possibility is very low unless there is a problem with your water source.

2. External parasites of cartilaginous fish are mainly monogeneans, but these parasites vary greatly in drug sensitivity. In cases at the aquarium where I work, monogeneans infecting the skin of sharks are resistant to praziquantel but more sensitive to trichlorfon (which is also more toxic). So your use of praziquantel for deworming does not guarantee that the animals’ skin is free of monogeneans. However, monogeneans infecting sharks do not infect bony fish, so the simultaneous scratching by sharks and bony fish that you describe is, in my view, not caused by the same parasite infection; other causes may need to be considered.

3. As for the stingray looking rather thin in the abdomen in the photo, and some minor external injuries, I think these are acceptable and may not even need much attention. This is because juvenile cartilaginous fish usually have insufficient liver fat reserves, so the liver is not large enough; once they stop eating, their abdomen quickly becomes sunken.

4. You mentioned that after noticing abnormalities, you moved the animals to a completely new environment, but still could not prevent their death. To me, this is also understandable, because some organ damage is irreversible. Especially in cases of severe poisoning, there is not much we can do to help them detoxify; it depends entirely on them.

5. Based on the above information, I lean more toward there being something in the water that we do not know about, but that is also the hardest thing to investigate. I would add some activated carbon to adsorb possible toxic substances. I would inject antibiotics into the sick cartilaginous fish rather than giving them bath treatments. Because marine cartilaginous fish differ from bony fish—they rarely drink seawater—so for animals with anorexia of unknown cause, we prophylactically inject antibiotics. I do not know whether you can obtain these drugs. I would buy some purified water and use new sea salt to mix seawater, to completely rule out water quality problems. I would add a UV sterilizer to control the number of harmful microorganisms in the water. Then I would buy a relatively inexpensive bamboo shark to test the water.

First, I just wanna say thank you for taking the time to do such an in-depth response. I greatly appreciate you leaning into this as hard as you did.

In terms of something wrong with the current water, I replaced a new pump as I stated before, theoretically I could test for stray voltage. I also used PVC cement and glue to seal the piping that connected to the pump into the sump, I did weigh the appropriate 48 hours, maybe somehow some of the degassing still was in the pipes? I have done this before without any issue.

As I stated before, I have been using my source water with the previous TDS measurements consider considering it was wrong for God knows how long, so I was also skeptical if that was the issue. On top of that in the past I have even used my direct source water with the chlorinator and it worked just fine, I also dechlorinated and primed the water as a secondary.

Moving forward, I have new source water, a 7 stage 200GPD I have new sand, I have a new 800gal container that the fish can go into, essentially the only thing that would be moved over would be the live rock and equipment and as far as equipment, I can even go back to the older pump just to test it.

If there were a high levels of metal, with adding the old rock and biological filtration such as the marine pure blocks, matrix etc be acceptable if I were to run cuprisorb and poly filter to pick out any stray metals with activated carbon?

I am already going to completely refill a new tank, like I said with brand new sand, brand new water I’ll add my old pump, the only old things that would go in there like I said would potentially be the live rock and the biological filtration unless you truly believe I need to discard this.

There are no current invertebrates inside the tank.
There are a couple groupers, a few eels, wrasses, parrot fish, tangs, and a trigger, and just to clarify, the only fatalities were the sharks, stingrays and starfish.

Would you advise to potentially throw some hermit crabs or some type of invertebrate that would be sensitive to metal there to also test?

 

[xzt]

First, I just wanna say thank you for taking the time to do such an in-depth response. I greatly appreciate you leaning into this as hard as you did.

In terms of something wrong with the current water, I replaced a new pump as I stated before, theoretically I could test for stray voltage. I also used PVC cement and glue to seal the piping that connected to the pump into the sump, I did weigh the appropriate 48 hours, maybe somehow some of the degassing still was in the pipes? I have done this before without any issue.

As I stated before, I have been using my source water with the previous TDS measurements consider considering it was wrong for God knows how long, so I was also skeptical if that was the issue. On top of that in the past I have even used my direct source water with the chlorinator and it worked just fine, I also dechlorinated and primed the water as a secondary.

Moving forward, I have new source water, a 7 stage 200GPD I have new sand, I have a new 800gal container that the fish can go into, essentially the only thing that would be moved over would be the live rock and equipment and as far as equipment, I can even go back to the older pump just to test it.

If there were a high levels of metal, with adding the old rock and biological filtration such as the marine pure blocks, matrix etc be acceptable if I were to run cuprisorb and poly filter to pick out any stray metals with activated carbon?

I am already going to completely refill a new tank, like I said with brand new sand, brand new water I’ll add my old pump, the only old things that would go in there like I said would potentially be the live rock and the biological filtration unless you truly believe I need to discard this.

There are no current invertebrates inside the tank.
There are a couple groupers, a few eels, wrasses, parrot fish, tangs, and a trigger, and just to clarify, the only fatalities were the sharks, stingrays and starfish.

Would you advise to potentially throw some hermit crabs or some type of invertebrate that would be sensitive to metal there to also test?

You've already thought it through very carefully, and I have no other suggestions. As for the organisms for testing the water, I think shrimp would be more suitable, because the starfish I buy sometimes rot for unknown reasons, which has something to do with the source.