Fish deaths cont'd

[Treefer32]

Well, fish deaths continue - 1 by 1. I think they're finally done though... I hope. However, I suspect, I'm unable to add a new fish ever again without a very high probability of it dieing...

I had 8 Anthias die. That's when I discovered that Anthia's can carry a disease that primarily affects them. Some type of pink bruise forms. I didn't notice any large bruises on them, but, one by one 8 anthia's died. 7 females 1 male. 2 females died, then 3, then 1 then the male, then the last female over a 2 week period.

My blue throat trigger died yesterday and today I found my yellow head goby dead in a cave. The goby had massive bruising around hits head and gills. Like it'd been punched in the face. It was just swimming around yesterday. Fed good, and I watched swimming on camera from work. Tonight it's upside down in a cave with a massive blue bruise around it's neck.

My yellow coris wrasse, dragon wrasse, Royal gramma, black tang, powder blue tang, and pair of black and white clowns, foxface rabbit fish, as well as a blue spot goby, are all fine. No signs of dieing yet. I had seen a disease that affects anthias and it doesn't die off like ich if the tank is fallow. The fish are either immune or not... So, if it's that disease, any new fish I add is subject to this disease and if it's not immune it dies.. ... Anyone dealt with this type of situation? I've been in the reef industry for a long time, and never had this much problems with fish.

I don't know for sure if it was disease or agression, stress, or my horrible terrible luck with fish.. The blue throat trigger was at the fish store for 2 months doing just fine, very happy and very healthy. Get into my tank and 5 days later it's dead.

:(

I tested my nitrates tonight. they were between 1 and 1.5 - Red sea test kit.
Alk is 10.4, salinity 1.025 - refrac. 350 gallon display and 75 gallon sump. Diablo skimmer rated for 500 gallons an Turbo Aquatics Scrubber as well as 10% water changes twice a month. I'm dealing with a cyano problem, but other than that, my corals are healthy and remaining fish appear healthy....

So, either the remaining fish are super mutants... Resistant to everything. or it's a matter of time before they die????

 

[Frtdrmrose7]

Well, fish deaths continue - 1 by 1. I think they're finally done though... I hope. However, I suspect, I'm unable to add a new fish ever again without a very high probability of it dieing...

I had 8 Anthias die. That's when I discovered that Anthia's can carry a disease that primarily affects them. Some type of pink bruise forms. I didn't notice any large bruises on them, but, one by one 8 anthia's died. 7 females 1 male. 2 females died, then 3, then 1 then the male, then the last female over a 2 week period.

My blue throat trigger died yesterday and today I found my yellow head goby dead in a cave. The goby had massive bruising around hits head and gills. Like it'd been punched in the face. It was just swimming around yesterday. Fed good, and I watched swimming on camera from work. Tonight it's upside down in a cave with a massive blue bruise around it's neck.

My yellow coris wrasse, dragon wrasse, Royal gramma, black tang, powder blue tang, and pair of black and white clowns, foxface rabbit fish, as well as a blue spot goby, are all fine. No signs of dieing yet. I had seen a disease that affects anthias and it doesn't die off like ich if the tank is fallow. The fish are either immune or not... So, if it's that disease, any new fish I add is subject to this disease and if it's not immune it dies.. ... Anyone dealt with this type of situation? I've been in the reef industry for a long time, and never had this much problems with fish.

I don't know for sure if it was disease or agression, stress, or my horrible terrible luck with fish.. The blue throat trigger was at the fish store for 2 months doing just fine, very happy and very healthy. Get into my tank and 5 days later it's dead.

:(

I tested my nitrates tonight. they were between 1 and 1.5 - Red sea test kit.
Alk is 10.4, salinity 1.025 - refrac. 350 gallon display and 75 gallon sump. Diablo skimmer rated for 500 gallons an Turbo Aquatics Scrubber as well as 10% water changes twice a month. I'm dealing with a cyano problem, but other than that, my corals are healthy and remaining fish appear healthy....

So, either the remaining fish are super mutants... Resistant to everything. or it's a matter of time before they die????

The parasite you are speaking of is Uronema. It is a free living parasite that requires no host to survive so it cannot be starved out with a fallow period. Although Uronema does kill quick I suspect you may also have something else going on. Do you have any pics of your fish? Any aggression? What size tank? Have you noticed any spots (white)? Did the Trigger have a bruise?
I do not doubt from your description your Anthias or some of them died from Uronema, but I suspect a secondary cause.

 

[Treefer32]

The fox face was highly agressive of the trigger. I witnessed it whacking the trigger with his tail, then literally ramming his nose into the side of the trigger. After that it went into hiding and died a day later. So, I don't know if it was injured.. I don't think a foxface has teeth, so I can't see a bite doing much. But, I think the trigger was so scared, it just hid. Plus, I probably didn't see all the agression. When the trigger was hiding, the foxface searched out every cave looking for the trigger. it was crazy how paranoid it got. The trigger, I didn't notice any spots or injuries. The only fish I noticed injuries on was the yellow headed goby that was found dead tonight. It looked swollen and head badly blue in color. The anthias, some of them had white spots around their heads. but not all, and no other fish showed signs of ich if it was ich.

I'm so done with fish. The tank is 350 gallons, 75 gallon sump, about 100 pounds of rock, 3 inch or so sand bed. Lots of caves in the rocks. I empty out softball sized balls of hair algae from my turf scrubber every 4 days or so. On top of the pure black crap that the skimmer removes. My skimmate is solid black. I have 3 powerheads running, Need at least one more to help with the cyano. I use RODI water. Test the TDS and it's usually 0-1.

The sump and display are in my furnace room (with a wall in front of the tank -- in-wall). There's two sump holes in the furnace room for removing water from the foundation of the home. I've heard recently of radon being in basements, with the radon coming through the sump holes? Would radon affect fish in water? (I haven't tested for it yet, thinking about testing it.) The tank is within 8 feet of a 200 amp breaker box. Don't know if EM fields from the power box would affect fish? - the EM Field is strong enough to shut down WiFi in that room. heh.

The furnace is natural gas. Not sure if that would hurt the fish at all? PH swings from 8.1 to 8.4. The high being 8.5. the low being 7.98. I don't know what else would be affecting fish. I keep the temp between 76 and 77.

 

[ccombs]

As someone who has personally dealt with Uronema, this is kind of what I went through. The unfortunate part about this one is that it does not need a fish host to live. I had to fully break down my display tank and bleach it.

I have read that some people can live with it if their fish are healthy and have a good immune system. I was not that lucky. If this is what you end up having, we will all be here to support you.

 

[Frtdrmrose7]

The fox face was highly agressive of the trigger. I witnessed it whacking the trigger with his tail, then literally ramming his nose into the side of the trigger. After that it went into hiding and died a day later. So, I don't know if it was injured.. I don't think a foxface has teeth, so I can't see a bite doing much. But, I think the trigger was so scared, it just hid. Plus, I probably didn't see all the agression. When the trigger was hiding, the foxface searched out every cave looking for the trigger. it was crazy how paranoid it got. The trigger, I didn't notice any spots or injuries. The only fish I noticed injuries on was the yellow headed goby that was found dead tonight. It looked swollen and head badly blue in color. The anthias, some of them had white spots around their heads. but not all, and no other fish showed signs of ich if it was ich.

I'm so done with fish. The tank is 350 gallons, 75 gallon sump, about 100 pounds of rock, 3 inch or so sand bed. Lots of caves in the rocks. I empty out softball sized balls of hair algae from my turf scrubber every 4 days or so. On top of the pure black crap that the skimmer removes. My skimmate is solid black. I have 3 powerheads running, Need at least one more to help with the cyano. I use RODI water. Test the TDS and it's usually 0-1.

The sump and display are in my furnace room (with a wall in front of the tank -- in-wall). There's two sump holes in the furnace room for removing water from the foundation of the home. I've heard recently of radon being in basements, with the radon coming through the sump holes? Would radon affect fish in water? (I haven't tested for it yet, thinking about testing it.) The tank is within 8 feet of a 200 amp breaker box. Don't know if EM fields from the power box would affect fish? - the EM Field is strong enough to shut down WiFi in that room. heh.

The furnace is natural gas. Not sure if that would hurt the fish at all? PH swings from 8.1 to 8.4. The high being 8.5. the low being 7.98. I don't know what else would be affecting fish. I keep the temp between 76 and 77.

The fox face has venomous dorsal spines and of it feels threatened it could easily kill other fish. I don’t know about Radon or EM fields TBH but how long has this tank been up and running? Do you QT your fish?

 

[Crustaceon]

QT the foxface and see how everything
else does as far as behavior and health goes over a few weeks. Stress kills quickly and having a tank bully is major cause of it.

 

[Frtdrmrose7]

Read this thread, did you see bruises like these on your Anthias?


https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/uronema-marinum.247940/

Well, fish deaths continue - 1 by 1. I think they're finally done though... I hope. However, I suspect, I'm unable to add a new fish ever again without a very high probability of it dieing...

I had 8 Anthias die. That's when I discovered that Anthia's can carry a disease that primarily affects them. Some type of pink bruise forms. I didn't notice any large bruises on them, but, one by one 8 anthia's died. 7 females 1 male. 2 females died, then 3, then 1 then the male, then the last female over a 2 week period.

My blue throat trigger died yesterday and today I found my yellow head goby dead in a cave. The goby had massive bruising around hits head and gills. Like it'd been punched in the face. It was just swimming around yesterday. Fed good, and I watched swimming on camera from work. Tonight it's upside down in a cave with a massive blue bruise around it's neck.

My yellow coris wrasse, dragon wrasse, Royal gramma, black tang, powder blue tang, and pair of black and white clowns, foxface rabbit fish, as well as a blue spot goby, are all fine. No signs of dieing yet. I had seen a disease that affects anthias and it doesn't die off like ich if the tank is fallow. The fish are either immune or not... So, if it's that disease, any new fish I add is subject to this disease and if it's not immune it dies.. ... Anyone dealt with this type of situation? I've been in the reef industry for a long time, and never had this much problems with fish.

I don't know for sure if it was disease or agression, stress, or my horrible terrible luck with fish.. The blue throat trigger was at the fish store for 2 months doing just fine, very happy and very healthy. Get into my tank and 5 days later it's dead.

:(

I tested my nitrates tonight. they were between 1 and 1.5 - Red sea test kit.
Alk is 10.4, salinity 1.025 - refrac. 350 gallon display and 75 gallon sump. Diablo skimmer rated for 500 gallons an Turbo Aquatics Scrubber as well as 10% water changes twice a month. I'm dealing with a cyano problem, but other than that, my corals are healthy and remaining fish appear healthy....

So, either the remaining fish are super mutants... Resistant to everything. or it's a matter of time before they die????

hiss

 

[Treefer32]

Aah! I did not know that about Fox face.. Then, I have no doubt, he venomized the trigger. dangit! He gets mad at my black tang he could kill a $500 fish! Thankfully - the foxface and black tang are best friends. They go wherever the other goes! I don't think he went around killing the anthias though, he couldn't have cared less about them or the goby. He leaves my other goby alone. Probably doesn't even know that goby is there.

I don't QT. I know I should... However, the trigger had been at the store 2 months. Great personality, was very friendly, the workers loved him. I could have QT'd him for 3 more months and within 5 days he'd been dead by the fox face...

The others, I probably should have. I'm going to give it the summer to finish stabilizing. The tank is 5 going on 6 months old.

 

[Oldreefer44]

I too would ask how long the tank has been set up. There are numerous reasons why fish die like this; stray voltage, heavy metals in water etc. Need to know water source, ph, ammonia level to name a few.

 

[Mastiffsrule]

As someone who has personally dealt with Uronema, this is kind of what I went through. The unfortunate part about this one is that it does not need a fish host to live. I had to fully break down my display tank and bleach it.

I have read that some people can live with it if their fish are healthy and have a good immune system. I was not that lucky. If this is what you end up having, we will all be here to support you.

sorry to hear about your losses. Qt is good and also research compatibility.

I am one of the Paul B. school graduates. I don’t quarantine. In the 80’s I had no idea what it was.
I just bought a male and female anthia from LiveAquaria. Both arrived with white spots on their fins. I feed clams, various frozen soaked in zoecon and Selcon. 6 months later color is great, growing, and no signs of illness.

Reason I mention that- I am not abdicating no qt. I recommend do recommend qt and researching comparability. But also feed healthy. Larry reef is a good food if not using live

Things will get better. Keep those guys happy save lives and you wallet:)

 

[Frtdrmrose7]

Aah! I did not know that about Fox face.. Then, I have no doubt, he venomized the trigger. dangit! He gets mad at my black tang he could kill a $500 fish! Thankfully - the foxface and black tang are best friends. They go wherever the other goes! I don't think he went around killing the anthias though, he couldn't have cared less about them or the goby. He leaves my other goby alone. Probably doesn't even know that goby is there.

I don't QT. I know I should... However, the trigger had been at the store 2 months. Great personality, was very friendly, the workers loved him. I could have QT'd him for 3 more months and within 5 days he'd been dead by the fox face...

The others, I probably should have. I'm going to give it the summer to finish stabilizing. The tank is 5 going on 6 months old.

Ok, here is my official recommendation, set up a QT you can get a 55G or so cheap on Craigslist. Pull your fish and QT them with copper, Metro laced food etc. I’ll post a link for a QT procedure.
If the Anthias didn’t have the tell tale blood bruise they may have been picked off by the fox face or themselves or an illness brought in (not necessary Uronema). Let your DT go fallow for 76 days, this will also help stabilize your tank and get you through the ugly phase. While fallow just lightly ghost feed to maintain your bio-filter. If you decide to do this we can walk you through it.


https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/my-current-qt-process.483371/

 

[Treefer32]

5-6 months. 400 gallon system. RODI water. Output of RO is around 10 TDS, output of DI is usually no greater than 0. If it hit's one I'll change it after another water 35 gallon water change. Nitrates just tested tonight around 1. PH swings from 8.1 to 8.5. Alk 10.4, 77 temp. salinity 1.24. about 12 corals. All doing good. Some SPS even. Calcium around 440. I know I have phosphates... heh. I'm also running a UV sterilizer 24/7. 34 watt or something like that.

running 3 AI LEDs and 4 T5 HO bulbs. What else? Ammonia is zero. If it wasn't all my corals would be bleaching... Heh. I have two anemones. Both of which appear to be happy.

 

[Cmedeiros]

The fox face was highly agressive of the trigger. I witnessed it whacking the trigger with his tail, then literally ramming his nose into the side of the trigger. After that it went into hiding and died a day later. So, I don't know if it was injured.. I don't think a foxface has teeth, so I can't see a bite doing much. But, I think the trigger was so scared, it just hid. Plus, I probably didn't see all the agression. When the trigger was hiding, the foxface searched out every cave looking for the trigger. it was crazy how paranoid it got. The trigger, I didn't notice any spots or injuries. The only fish I noticed injuries on was the yellow headed goby that was found dead tonight. It looked swollen and head badly blue in color. The anthias, some of them had white spots around their heads. but not all, and no other fish showed signs of ich if it was ich.

I'm so done with fish. The tank is 350 gallons, 75 gallon sump, about 100 pounds of rock, 3 inch or so sand bed. Lots of caves in the rocks. I empty out softball sized balls of hair algae from my turf scrubber every 4 days or so. On top of the pure black crap that the skimmer removes. My skimmate is solid black. I have 3 powerheads running, Need at least one more to help with the cyano. I use RODI water. Test the TDS and it's usually 0-1.

The sump and display are in my furnace room (with a wall in front of the tank -- in-wall). There's two sump holes in the furnace room for removing water from the foundation of the home. I've heard recently of radon being in basements, with the radon coming through the sump holes? Would radon affect fish in water? (I haven't tested for it yet, thinking about testing it.) The tank is within 8 feet of a 200 amp breaker box. Don't know if EM fields from the power box would affect fish? - the EM Field is strong enough to shut down WiFi in that room. heh.

The furnace is natural gas. Not sure if that would hurt the fish at all? PH swings from 8.1 to 8.4. The high being 8.5. the low being 7.98. I don't know what else would be affecting fish. I keep the temp between 76 and 77.

Hey man,

I’m not sure if I’m having the same situation going on here.

Started my tank 135 gallon. 5 months back. I have live rock that eventually was dead because it dried out.

Always maintained a 5% water change weekly because I don’t have a skimmer yet. Done with RO water and TDS reads 2 or 3.

Chromis timeline -

Bought them, no signs of fighting. They were happy in the tank. About a week in I noticed one missing a few scales. Kept an eye on him. A about a day and a half later those missing scales turned into red blisters. Thought right away Uronema.

A day later I decided to pull them out and because I didn’t have a QT tank ready yet, I brought them back to the LFS and traded them for credit. I went back there a week later and there were no chromis in the store. I also want to mention that the store water was a deep yellow colour, I’m guessing he had medication in the water.

The day I noticed the first chromis had lost his scales I added a brown powder tang from a completely different store.

I had the tang and chromis in the same tank for about 4 days until I removed the chromis and brought them back to the LFS.

A few days later the tang started to act different. He hid in the caves, started fighting or trying to scratch himself against the window. I found him upside down in his cave he was still alive but put him in a pail airated for a a while he lasted another day.

All my snails conches and crabs are alive. My parameters are all within safe levels. Phosphates could be a bit lower.

Did the rest of your fish survive ?

 

[Frtdrmrose7]

Hey man,

I’m not sure if I’m having the same situation going on here.

Started my tank 135 gallon. 5 months back. I have live rock that eventually was dead because it dried out.

Always maintained a 5% water change weekly because I don’t have a skimmer yet. Done with RO water and TDS reads 2 or 3.

Chromis timeline -

Bought them, no signs of fighting. They were happy in the tank. About a week in I noticed one missing a few scales. Kept an eye on him. A about a day and a half later those missing scales turned into red blisters. Thought right away Uronema.

A day later I decided to pull them out and because I didn’t have a QT tank ready yet, I brought them back to the LFS and traded them for credit. I went back there a week later and there were no chromis in the store. I also want to mention that the store water was a deep yellow colour, I’m guessing he had medication in the water.

The day I noticed the first chromis had lost his scales I added a brown powder tang from a completely different store.

I had the tang and chromis in the same tank for about 4 days until I removed the chromis and brought them back to the LFS.

A few days later the tang started to act different. He hid in the caves, started fighting or trying to scratch himself against the window. I found him upside down in his cave he was still alive but put him in a pail airated for a a while he lasted another day.

All my snails conches and crabs are alive. My parameters are all within safe levels. Phosphates could be a bit lower.

Did the rest of your fish survive ?

Did your Chromis resemble these pics?
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/uronema-marinum.247940/

 

[Treefer32]

So far, yes, nothing else has died. However, two of my pajama cardinals have white cloudy eyes. One of the cardinals has a white scab over one of his eyes. (I have 3 cardinals) Two of the cardinals with infected eyes are hovering together in a cave and almost ramming into each other. The third one is out swimming in the open like normal. The cardinals were my first fish. . . . So, I don't know if there's a bacterial infection going on? Could a lot of cyano be a sign of bacteria in the water? I don't know. I run UV non stop. So, I don't understand how all these infections and parasites are transferring? I get they could survive for a while on fish, but, when they detach I would think they'd get killed as they go through the sterilizer.

If something that dies doesn't get taken out, could the bacteria that decay the fish also infect living fish? I've been able to find corpses of some of the fish that died.... I assume they decayed somewhere in a rock or under a rock or something. I've not found a skeleteon or anything of the dead fish. I remember someone saying a long time ago that the PH of reef tanks is too high, that fish skeletons get broken down pretty quickly into nothing...

I'm just going to let things sit for a couple months. Tired of all this death. If anything I expand my corals with a clean water column. Wait for the cyano to die off, and only have a dozen fish in a 400 gallon system. I'm hoping the cardinals pull through. They've been in there since the beginning. Not exciting fish or expensive ones, but, I'm just tired of things dieing. . . . . .

If these two die, that's 12 deaths in a 3 week period.

 

[Treefer32]

Well, things continue. The Cardinals have scabs / white over their eyes. My powder blue really weird vertical discoloration / almost stripes up and down his body about 1/4" wide. 3-4 of them and some bumps in the strips. The black part of his tail is highly discolored. It's hiding in the dark at times, then comes out, eats algae then goes back into hiding. Royal grama has white spots all over it's head. I don't have a clue what to do. I've never seen fish so stressed. I've had reef tanks for years. Corals are showing no signs of recession. I'd attribute it to an amonia spike or something, if the corals were bleaching. But, they're showing signs of growth. I guess, if most everything dies. I just let it stabilize for 3-5 months and try a test fish or two. I could try antibiotics, but with the amount of cyano in the tank, I'm afraid of what that would do. Plus treating 400 gallons of water. might be difficult.

I'll do some water changes weekly and see what happens.

 

[Mastiffsrule]

Man, so sorry this is happening. Keep up the fight.

 

[Treefer32]

Good thing it's summer and can let the tank run it's course over the summer.

 

[Treefer32]

Not that I expect anything. I don't have the time or energy to dismantle everything and pull the fish. I'd have to take a day off from work to spend a couple hours trying to catch the last few remaining fish and QT them, plus setup a QT in a last minute setup. And all that would cloud the water with sand and debris and pulling the fish would stress them out further and probably kill them. Not that it matters. Because, I'm losing 1-2 fish a day. Lost two more over night last night. A powder blue tang that had bumps all over on his side. Basically look like it had a massive hive breakout. My guess is an unknown parasite growing on the inside. It had these for about a week. It continued to eat constantly, didn't gain weight or really seem to lose at all. Now all of a sudden it's just gone. I can't find it anywhere. I don't know if it exploded or what. I did a 40 gallon water change yesterday trying to increase water quality. But, I don't know if I'm making things better or worse by doing a water change. One of the pajama cardinals is also gone missing. And it wasn't even the one with the white scab on his eyes. I don't know what would cause white scabs to form on its eyes. But, something not good. It's still alive though, probably will be the next one to go in the next day or two. It's had the white eyes for about a week now.

The foxface rabbit fish that's been in a tank for 7+ years completely healthy, now has black hairlike things sticking out one side of his body. Almost like tiny bee stingers. There were about five of them sticking out one side. Is it possible there's something poisoning fish in the rocks somewhere? I don't know. Just seems odd that I'm losing 1-2 fish every 2-3 days. Went from 19 fish down to 6. At this rate, in 5 days the tank will be empty. In the meantime, the corals and 2 anemones are just fine. If I had a setup with decent lights I'd pull all the corals and treat the display. but, I suppose not a good idea to treat the live rock. My friend at the fish store offered a massive canister filter to try to cleanse the water. The water is constantly cloudy. When the LEDs are on full blast you can see debris swirling in the water column. it's been that way since I started the tank. So, that may not be helping matters. Maybe they're just breathing too much debris in through their gills. I don't know. how that works. But, clearing up the water could help.

I guess if these remaining 5-6 healthy fish survive the next 2-3 months, I'll have super mutant fish. . . .

 

[Frtdrmrose7]

Cloudy eyes can be a telltale sign of flukes, plus the Fox Face has an antiparasitic slime coat so flukes can present as black dots. Can you catch one and do a FW dip? Preferably the fox face?