Fish dead help

[fishyboi]

Need some major help. For the past 6 months ive been struggling with my first marine tank, I keep getting help from these guys at the pet store, but alot of time their advice controdicts themselves.

Right now my tank is just some live rock, sand, 2 cleaner crabs and two ocellaris clownfish. Up till now I've been using tap water and water conditioner before mixing with my aquarium salt. I couldn't get my water stable and so bought a RODI system which hooks up to my tap. Now for each water change I used that to make my fresh salt water- however I noticed my water was very murky and white, like the concentration of salt was too high even though my hydrometer was in the right range when tested. My fish two were acting like they were struggling to breath and styed very close to the surface. This lasted a day and a half, before I got worried and did a full water change as my local pet store advised me. When I was acclimating my fish and crabs back in I noticed they look cloudy on their fins? Stained kinda white? Not spots like ich - just stained like how the water looked. I acclimated them and they seemed to be doing better, swimming around and eating as normal. This morning I woke up and my male ocellaris was dead? My water read high for Ph and Aemona (I assume from being dead all night; since i just did a water change and the levels were normal?) My female clown fish is doing just fine, shes swimming around, eating and seems completely healthy. Both crabs also seems totally fine?

Does anyone know what happened or what I can do?

 

[Clowns-corals-cats]

In my experience I take what they say at the fish store with a grain of salt. They talk so smart and cool cause they work at the fish store but I've heard them saying completely false statements a number of times. But Im no expert with water chemistry I'd add prime and seed though and buy a refractor meter to measure salinity

 

[MaxTremors]

A few things. If your water was super cloudy, it was likely a bacterial bloom, which can strip the water of oxygen (why your fish were gasping for air and near the surface). It generally will go away on its own, but you need either a skimmer or an airstone to ensure your water is properly oxygenated. For your new RODI unit you need to get a TDS meter to ensure that your filtered water is 0 TDS (also when you run the filter, you need to let it run for a couple minutes to flush the lines of the water that has sat in the unit). I would also recommend that you get a refractometer, swing arm hydrometers are notoriously inaccurate.

To help with your issues further, what are your parameters (Alk, nitrates, phosphates, calcium, mag, salinity, temp, etc), what kind of lighting/equipment, and a full tank shot would help us to point you in the right direction.

 

[Sebastiancrab]

I agree with Clowns-corals-cats. Buy a refractometer and make sure it is calibrated (check often). I had no luck with a hydrometer. Don't know about the cloudiness. Are you testing for ammonia and nitrates? Wouldn't be a bad idea. Are you sure you have the right filter if needed for your city water? And testing the RODI water? Temperature ok? You will need to post your water parameters for folks to be of any help.

 

[Tamberav]

When you say the water is cloudy. Do you mean the freshly mixed water in the bucket or the water in the tank becomes cloudy?

If it is the fresh mixed water, sounds like precipitation issue. Salinity may be off (get a reftractometer with calibration solution). The high pH correlates with this (if salinity is high then so is alk/ca).

If it is cloudy in the tank, then it is potentially a bacterial bloom and oxygenation could be an issue for your fish.

I would also suggest a TDS meter for your RODI water to make sure TDS is 0 (before you mix salt in it). Tap water is different in different locations, some with high vs low TDS vs chloramines and so on. Not every RODI may be working as it should (some may need more stages) and also we want to make sure it is hooked up correctly.

 

[fishyboi]

I agree with Clowns-corals-cats. Buy a refractometer and make sure it is calibrated (check often). I had no luck with a hydrometer. Don't know about the cloudiness. Are you testing for ammonia and nitrates? Wouldn't be a bad idea. Are you sure you have the right filter if needed for your city water? And testing the RODI water? Temperature ok? You will need to post your water parameters for folks to be of any help.

Thank you and yes, I have the api saltwater testing master kit. Nitrate and Nitrite where both fine, it was only ammonia and ph that were high. My temp was slightly high, but not by much so i assumed it would go down over night (which it did) and thank you ill buy a refractor.

When you say the water is cloudy. Do you mean the freshly mixed water in the bucket or the water in the tank becomes cloudy?

Sorry - I mean the water in the tank. It looked like freshly mixed saltwater before its dissolved, even though it had dissoved fully.

 

[Birdbrains?]

Sounds like bacteria drained the oxygen in the water column.

 

[Sebastiancrab]

Thank you and yes, I have the api saltwater testing master kit. Nitrate and Nitrite where both fine, it was only ammonia and ph that were high. My temp was slightly high, but not by much so i assumed it would go down over night (which it did) and thank you ill buy a refractor.


Sorry - I mean the water in the tank. It looked like freshly mixed saltwater before its dissolved, even though it had dissoved fully.

If you have ammonia, then you are not thru cycling. I would use some Prime, do water changes and add some Seachem Stability. Since you already have fish, you need to watch this very carefully. If your LFS will hold your fish, I would take them back there until you get your tank under control.

Suggest watching Bulk Reef Supply videos on their Youtube channel. They cover most any topic you can think of.

 

[melonheadorion]

when you say your ph, temp, and ammonia were high, how high were they? cloudy water could be a sign that your tank isnt cycled fully. how long ago did you let your tank cycle before putting fish in?

 

[fachatga]

How long did you wait after mixing to add water to the tank? Could it be the salt wasn’t all dissolved? I wait a day or at least overnight. You shouldn’t add newly mixed water right away. Not sure if you did but that can cause issues.

 

[Gtinnel]

Please be aware that the API test kit is notorious for showing some amount of ammonia, even if there isn't any. My current tank is two years old and if I test ammonia with an API kit it will show around .25-.5ppm.

 

[fachatga]

2 years? You should get on that lol I’ve heard ammonia can hurt fish.

 

[Gtinnel]

2 years? You should get on that lol I’ve heard ammonia can hurt fish.

That's my point. The API ammonia test will read ammonia when there isn't any.

I've seen way too many threads where someone saw an ammonia reading on an API test and started radically trying to lower ammonia when it wasn't an issue to start with. Now I am not necessarily saying the OP doesn't have an issue with ammonia, but the tank is 6 months old. The current parameters of the OPs tank would help a lot.

 

[brandon429]

@fachatga

Sustained Ammonia spikes are misreads

The reason you think your reef tank can’t control its ammonia is due to false training from old cycling science. That and you don’t own a seneye on the tank in question: if you did, you wouldn’t ever think your ammonia was out of control...

www.reef2reef.com

study that thread, look at the power of groupthink

add red sea to the misleading group along with api
(Sometimes the two kits are ok, readers aren’t factoring for tan/nh3 and we know that reef tanks do not ever run zero ammonia when bioload is in place, zero ammonia does not ever ever happen in a reef with animals, cycling merely lowers ammonia but it never removes it)

how many seneye ammonia meter owners were panicking to the sky there= 0



the op here indeed may have spiked ammonia from diseased fish dying and rotting, but no ammonia spike preceded the diseased fish loss

agreed bac blooms can sap o2 and kill fish that way

 

[brandon429]

The op here needs to clean the tank, fallow it out eighty days and input only quarantined fish next round, study fish disease forum for two hours before buying fish again fishyboi.