Clown laying on sandbed, breathing rapidly, and not eating after switching tanks. Stress?

[rennjidk]

I had a pair of clowns in an old tank, which I broke down. I moved them both into my qt tank for 48 hours while I set up the new one. All throughout the time in qt, the mocha has been fine, but the black ice immediately sat on the bottom with very rapid breathing. I moved them both to the DT yesterday and the same thing. She hasn't eaten in 4 days and just lays on the sand. There's no visible sign of disease and the mocha is completely fine. Any ideas? Both the new DT and QT were well oxygenated and filtered with established media, so no ammonia issues. No medication was used in the qt. The spots you see all over them are sand. I stirred some up while working in the tank right before the video.

Here's a video I took

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I had a pair of clowns in an old tank, which I broke down. I moved them both into my qt tank for 48 hours while I set up the new one. All throughout the time in qt, the mocha has been fine, but the black ice immediately sat on the bottom with very rapid breathing. I moved them both to the DT yesterday and the same thing. She hasn't eaten in 4 days and just lays on the sand. There's no visible sign of disease and the mocha is completely fine. Any ideas? Both the new DT and QT were well oxygenated and filtered with established media, so no ammonia issues. No medication was used in the qt. The spots you see all over them are sand. I stirred some up while working in the tank right before the video.

Here's a video I took

Both clowns are breathing fast, but the ice is worse, it also seems to have some damage to its caudal fin.
The water looks a bit murky in the video - is that from stirring up the tank? I wonder if there is a water quality issue. How are you testing for ammonia?
Jay

 

[rennjidk]

Both clowns are breathing fast, but the ice is worse, it also seems to have some damage to its caudal fin.

I didn't notice that at first. Thanks for pointing it out.

The water looks a bit murky in the video - is that from stirring up the tank?

Yes and no. Its exaggerated because of the sand, but this is a small bloom from the nitrifying bacteria I dosed. I'm aware that this can deplete O2 and am skimming heavily. It's also worth noting that they were like this in the qt, which doesn't lead me to believe the bloom is related.

I wonder if there is a water quality issue. How are you testing for ammonia?
Jay

I'm honestly not. It's a 25g cube with 30lbs of 3yo live rock, live ocean sand, and live biomedia. The tank was running for 2 days before adding them. I don't currently possess a test kit for ammonia, only Hanna checkers for normal parameters.

 

[rennjidk]

I usually like to let things balance themselves in a new tank, but i went ahead and turn the UV back on to kill the bloom. I still don't think they are related since they were acting the same in qt, but if that's the cause they should be better in a few hours.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I didn't notice that at first. Thanks for pointing it out.

Yes and no. Its exaggerated because of the sand, but this is a small bloom from the nitrifying bacteria I dosed. I'm aware that this can deplete O2 and am skimming heavily. It's also worth noting that they were like this in the qt, which doesn't lead me to believe the bloom is related.

I'm honestly not. It's a 25g cube with 30lbs of 3yo live rock, live ocean sand, and live biomedia. The tank was running for 2 days before adding them. I don't currently possess a test kit for ammonia, only Hanna checkers for normal parameters.

Going into New Year’s Day will make it tough, but if you can get the water tested for ammonia, you can rule that out.
Velvet can also cause fish the breath fast and act lethargic, but I don’t think the fish’s history support that (no exposure history).
Jay

 

[brandon429]

Did you stir up sand or have to move live rock in the old tank to catch them, to move into the quarantine

Or did they net right out from the top water, no chasing required at all in the old tank

 

[rennjidk]

Going into New Year’s Day will make it tough, but if you can get the water tested for ammonia, you can rule that out.
Velvet can also cause fish the breath fast and act lethargic, but I don’t think the fish’s history support that (no exposure history).
Jay

Thanks for taking time to reply. Happy new years.

 

[rennjidk]

Did you stir up sand or have to move live rock in the old tank to catch them, to move into the quarantine

I pulled the rock and then netted everything. They were very active in the old tank and took several minutes to net. My sand bed was overturned constantly and not very deep, if that's why you were asking.

 

[brandon429]

Yes, this is crucial tracing feedback

thank you very much for responding I’m sorry they’re in distress, this feedback helps us tune tank transfer science


*when is the last time you added anything wet to the old tank from a pet store, such as a crab/snail or coral, anything wet - checking for coincidental disease import timing, most reefs are in a constant state of stocking vs filled up

 

[rennjidk]

*when is the last time you added anything wet to the old tank from a pet store, such as a crab/snail or coral, anything wet - checking for coincidental disease import timing, most reefs are in a constant state of stocking vs filled up

It's been around 2 months, except for pods and phyto from algaebarn, but I'd consider that to be sterile pest wise. Like I said in the post, there were no symptoms in any of my stock, but as soon as filled up the qt and dropped the clowns in, it was like a switch flipped. The qt has been dry for several months so it's sterile. The filter media and water was from their old tank, so no changes in chemistry there either. I'm really not sure what happened unless they are just extremely stressed due to 2 tank transfers back to back.

 

[brandon429]

There is some precedence in killing fish by disturbing rocks and sand. Vette tested this once by disturbing his sandbed on purpose and it almost killed his fish, laying on substrate labored breathing was an outcome, I'll try and find the thread.

Reef tanks don't store ammonia in sandbeds, reef tanks use up free ammonia quickly. An ammonia issue is possible in the quarantine setup but not the display. The damaging factors in cloud disturbance in reef tanks isn't ammonia, nobody has identified it yet, but it's likely states of decay in bacteria and it could be various irritants associated with half rotten proteins or organics in states of decay, what we find in the tank transfer thread is that upwelling clouds of waste by moving rocks or sand causes fish stress at times, but not for everyone, it depends on what's in the cloud at time of disturbance. How is the fish today?

 

[brandon429]

Can't find Vette's post it's buried in a big thread somewhere. This is same thing:

Disturbed sand bed.

I have a 75 gallon fowlr tank that has been up for about 2 years. I have had nothing but trouble with this tank. Long story short i decided to clean tank yesterday. Toothbrush to rock and vacuum out detritus. I stirred up sand a little with the vacuum but worse the circulation pump must have...

www.reef2reef.com

That's before I knew sandbeds couldn't release ammonia. What led us to find that were the ten thousand seneye logs uploaded to the web since 2019, many of them running live time during our tank transfers. Ammonia stays controlled in a reef tank, it only rises if several dead fish are left to rot in the tank, ammonia isn't the cause of the initial fish loss

The death is found in the organic decay cloud / upwelling formerly stratified waste layers /but it's not ammonia.

 

[rennjidk]

How is the fish today?

She is up and moving around today but they're still breathing fast. I tried feeding again but only the mocha ate. The water is crystal clear after running the UV overnight, though my glass has some biofilm or something on it from the bloom.

Here is an updated video from a few minutes ago

 

[brandon429]

Well done documentation

This helps to have as a study pattern for tank transfer threads. We can't know for sure what the stress was, those two fish aren't hard bioload to carry in a qt setup using active biomedia-nonetheless there was waste upwelling before the loss, in the presence of fish, and we can go fifty pages not losing any fish in our official tank transfer thread where the only action we took differently was never exposing fish to waste clouding.

This thread helps to refine that process as we collect examples for similar stress events involving waste cloud upwelling events

 

[rennjidk]

Well done documentation

This helps to have as a study pattern for tank transfer threads. We can't know for sure what the stress was, those two fish aren't hard bioload to carry in a qt setup using active biomedia-nonetheless there was waste upwelling before the loss, in the presence of fish, and we can go fifty pages not losing any fish in our official tank transfer thread where the only action we took differently was never exposing fish to waste clouding.

This thread helps to refine that process as we collect examples for similar stress events involving waste cloud upwelling events

That was an interesting read, so thank you for linking the tread. I have to say though, I'm not entirely convinced that it relates to me. Certainly anything is possible, but those tanks were set up for years with an undisturbed sand bed. I vacuumed mine every 2 weeks with a small WC, and I also housed a pistol shrimp/goby pair which created sandstorms daily. This behavior only started once I netted them and moved them to the QT.

 

[brandon429]

That's why I tried to assess detritus disturbance/ moving rocks always casts waste around, it would be different if you had a bare bottom tank

Rarely are people picking up rocks, vacuuming under them and setting them back clean. They usually clean all areas besides under the rocks. Agreed keeping up on sandbed maintenance helps.

I have another thread where our reefer moved everything over to a new tank and was running fine, then he grabs one handful of old sand/adds it to the running tank, and fish die. It takes multiple examples of fish kills before we can link outcomes to activities + and simple disease from biosecurity issues/wet things from another reef tank can't be ruled out unless you're fallow prepping every new wet addition

It could easily be delayed onset disease of one kind or another/ can't be ruled out.

 

[OrionN]

Disturbing the anaerobic area of the sand bed release hydrogen sulfide, the rotten egg smell to the water column. This is a very toxic gas. Minor digging of the fish is fine but large scale disturbance will cause problem. The ammonia was not release by the sand bed but as a result of organism killed by hydrogen sulfide.

 

[brandon429]

Sounds plausible

it would be neat if there were easy reef tests for that as well. Kick up a sandbed, take the test / discover patterns among tanks

so much left to find in reefing it’s neat we are just beginning to discover these things.

 

[OrionN]

It is the rotten egg smell you smell when you dig around. Trust your nose.
Coarse crush coral does not get anaerobic quickly while fine sand will get anaerobic with relatively shallow depth.

 

[rennjidk]

It is the rotten egg smell you smell when you dig around. Trust your nose.
Coarse crush coral does not get anaerobic quickly while fine sand will get anaerobic with relatively shallow depth.

I didn't really smell anything offensive when removing the rockwork and sand, other than algae.