Fish dying

[Calireefer92]

okay guys I’ve been banging my head against the wall on this. My fish keep dying. I have a Red Sea reefer 425 it’s been up since May last year. Everytime I add a fish it lives up to 2 to 3 weeks then dies I’ve done 60 percent water chang
Ph 8.2
Ammonia 0
Nitrate 20ppm
Nitire 0

I have 2 fish that have been in the tank for 5 weeks now so I added 3 blue chromis and 2 already died less than a week any ideas? I’m almost about to drain the whole tank and start over

 

[MSB123]

Do You quarantine?

 

[HotRocks]

Fish showing any symptoms prior to passing?

Any red marks, white spots, scratching, or flashing?

 

[Calireefer92]

Fish showing any symptoms prior to passing?

Any red marks, white spots, scratching, or flashing?

No

 

[Humblefish]

How are your corals/inverts doing?

 

[EmdeReef]

What kind of fish have you tried adding?

Do you have any corals in the tank? Are they doing ok?

 

[Calireefer92]

What kind of fish have you tried adding?

Do you have any corals in the tank? Are they doing ok?

I have gsp and a toadstool leather coral they are doing good and for fish I’ve tried 2 clown fish that died 1 binguy cardinal, 4 blue chromis that

 

[Humblefish]

I have gsp and a toadstool leather coral they are doing good and for fish I’ve tried 2 clown fish that died 1 binguy cardinal, 4 blue chromis that

If your corals are doing well, this likely rules out a contaminant or some other environmental issue.

However, this does increase the likelihood that you may have a latent fish disease in your aquarium. Velvet would be high up on my suspect list: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/velvet-amyloodinium-ocellatum.217570/

 

[drstardust]

Please get into a practice of quarantining. It will pay off sooo much in the long run, trust me. There is a wealth of information on this forum on how to go about it, and we are happy to answer all questions along the way. Diseases are far too rampant these days to go without it, and stories like yours are common.

Best of luck!

 

[Hemmdog]

Clowns and chromis tend to be major carriers of fish diseases to. So your fish choices aren’t helping lol. Try to set up a little qt, it’s worth it man.

 

[ngoodermuth]

Did the chromis have any red sores on them before they passed? Unfortunately, there have been tons of folks seeing uronema recently, and chromis are the favorite carrier :/ If that is the case, your idea to restart is not far off...

I’m sorry for your troubles, it’s hard to get excited about a new tank when you feel like nothing is surviving....

I’ll +1 that QT is the way to go these days. It’s sad, but it’s more a question of “when” and not “if” you get a fish parasite, and most treatments cannot be done in a reef... so then you get stuck tearing it all apart and QT’ing anyway.