Fish died randomly and all new fish die within an hour

[Lazydaze73]

Ok so I set up a new nano tank about 2 months ago. I used dr Tim’s and the dr Tim’s ammonia as well. Took about 10 days to cycle. Oh then added two snowflake clownfish and added some bio spira just to be safe and add some more bacteria.
The clownfish lived happily for over 35 days. Looked awesome. Ate whatever I put in the tank. No flashing, no white spots, no excess mucus cost production. Nice bright colors and a good appetite. Then one day the smaller one didn’t want to eat breakfast and just sat on the bottom on the tank in the corner rapidly breathing. He still looked great though. I noticed no tell take signs of disease. He died 12 hours later and then the bigger female did the exact same thing the next day.
I added nothing recently. The livestock consists of a cleaner shrimp, brittle starfish, bubble tip anemone, two hermit crabs, toadstool leather and weeping willow leather. Everything else looks fine.
ammonia 0 nitrite 0 nitrates 0-10 and ph8.2. SG 1.026 and temp 78.
The only thing I did the day before was lightly stir the sand bed to mixing up the dying diatoms. But the sand bed is only 1” deep and not that old so I’m highly doubting I released any hydrogen sulphide. But I’m not sure. Because I got another pair of clowns a few days later and they died within 2 hours of putting in the tank. I floated them for 30 mins to temp acclimate and then put them in. The store I bought them from salinity was 1.025 so I figured no need to drip any.
The new fish swam around great for a few mins then started to breathe rapidly as well. Sticking to the surface and and swimming all stupid very shortly after that. They then just went to the bottom where they stopped swimming and both eventually fell to their sides and died. This was all in the span of about 2 hours max.
I’m lost on what could be the problem. Both sets of clowns looked great even when dead. No signs of anything. I feel like something is poisoning them but everything else in the tank seems just fine.
Anyone got any ideas? I’ve got poly filter and carbon on the way but I’m lost.

 

[Lazydaze73]

I should also add I did a 30%ish water change after the first clowns died.

 

[Suohhen]

Thank you for being very thorough with your information. A few things that could be of concern is that the tank may be too new of the bta but I doubt any chemicals of behavior from the bta would have been the main culprit. Perhaps it moved around and hit the leather, or did some chemical warfare which set off the leather or maybe the leather just went off on its own.
The next concern could be stray voltage or if the fish were from the same source disease. It is hard to believe disease from the original fish would have infected the new fish and killed them so quickly but if they were all in the same system they could have all gotten sick a month prior by something that takes that long to kill. Disease is tricky with clowns as they are pretty much all aquacultured im the US and have been for many years. That means they are very unlikely to come in diseased but it also makes them far less resistant to disease. If they were kept in a system with wild fish, especially wild clownfish they could very well have been exposed to disease.
The next concern is nano struggles, parameters can fluctuate a lot on a small volume of water, temp, salinity, and aeration are the main concerns in a nano system.
And then there is just random bad luck. Sometimes fish die with no apparent cause. Sorry that there are so many possibilities and sorry for your losses. I hope this info helps.

 

[Lazydaze73]

Thanks for the reply. I did check for stray voltage with my meter but found none.

the anemone is pretty far away from both the leathers and hasn’t moved much at all since I put him in the tank.

the clowns were from two different stores as well.

 

[Lazydaze73]

When I put the second pair of clowns in it was exactly what happened to the first pair just at an accelerated pace.

 

[Reefing_addiction]

What test kit do you use?

 

[Suohhen]

Okay so let's drill down on the nano factors. Is their anything disturbing the surface and is the lid sealed tight or can it breath. Is their any chance the temp has been flucuating? And how do you test for salinity? Did you test your water and the water of the incoming fish yourself?

 

[Lazydaze73]

I use the API for the standard tests. Ammonia nitrite and nitrate. I use a Milwaukee refractometer to check salinity. And yes I checked the Lfs before I add the fish after temp acclimation. The lid fits good but it has cutouts in it for the heater and power heads as well as the HOB filter. It also has a power head agitating the surface of the water. Temp seems pretty steady. I check it the morning and night and it only fluctuates .5 degrees one way or the other.

 

[Lazydaze73]

It just so strange. Everything seemed great until one day then they just went straight downhill. Is it even possible for an anenome to poison tank water and only kill the clowns while everything else looks fine?

 

[Tcook]

What size nano? How is the surface agitated? Low O2 levels?

 

[Lazydaze73]

20 gallon long. Surface is agitated my the HOB filter and power head blowing across the surface. The first two clowns seemed absolutely fine for 35 days.

 

[MaxTremors]

To me it sounds like either a lack of oxygen. Have you been having any bacterial blooms, dosed anything, cyano, or anything that can lower oxygen levels? Is the water cloudy? Barring that, it could be a toxin of some sort, maybe the leathers, are you running carbon? If you can’t identify the issue, I would do an ICP test to try and pinpoint what the problem is.

 

[Lazydaze73]

No bacterial blooms that I’ve noticed. Water is pretty clear. Just the standard diatoms but those are fading now. I’m not running carbon yet. I have some poly filter and carbon on the way.

 

[Pkunk35]

Sorry for the losses, I hate losing fish.
I’m no expert just trying to help stimulate some thoughts,
My first guess is just always disease. I feel like heavy breathing points towards that. Are they from LFS or were they qt’d? To be safe you could just run fallow long enough to ensure disease is gone.
second guess would be to check source water if not disease. Do you use RO?

 

[Lazydaze73]

They were from two different stores. First ones showed no signs of disease. Color stayed nice and bright even though they were dying. 2nd set started having trouble breathing within 15 minutes it seemed. I’ve never seen any diseases that work that quick. They looked nice and healthy in the LFS for a few days before I got them. I use RODI water. 0 TDS coming out the end.

 

[Lowell Lemon]

Have you painted the room recently or stained or varnished anything in the room? It seems like poisoning to me from some outside source that you may not have noticed.

 

[Lazydaze73]

I thought the same. The tank is in my garage and I’m pretty much the only one who goes out there and I haven’t used any chemicals or aresols recently. And my wife sure isn’t going to go out and clean the garage with anything. It’s puzzling. I just wanna know what’s killing them so I can fix it.

 

[Tcook]

Is it near the water heater? Do you have a CO detector in the garage?

 

[Lazydaze73]

Tankless water heater but it’s no where near it. We don’t park our cars in the garage either. I would think that it it’s some poison that it would have killed the inverts and corals as well?

 

[Suohhen]

Thankless water heaters can put off carbon monoxide which can cause fish to suffocate. I don't have a lot of experience with them but I've been told that some produce a lot of CO and are required by code to be placed outside. I would guess that CO would not have an effect on ph and while the algae in coral needs oxygen I would presume that they are not as sensitive to CO as algae is a plant and fish are animals.