Fish keep dying

[Jay Hemdal]

Yes I’ve got a sump with skimmer and then it flows into a sponge with a sort of waterfall affect so I couldn’t imagine the 02 being low. What about all this being a weird coincidence? The 3 fish were new additions and then the firefish was 1.5 years old, sake with the barnacle blenny and I know they aren’t long lived fish. If another long term additions dies then yes I will take action

Yes, there are certainly coincidental fish losses - a group of fish die for different reasons in a short time span, and it can become confusing to see if the losses were related or not.

In this case though, the adding of new fish and the rapid breathing seen leads me to think a disease issue, most likely velvet (Amyloodinium). Could be flukes as well.....

Jay

 

[Baronen]

Yes, there are certainly coincidental fish losses - a group of fish die for different reasons in a short time span, and it can become confusing to see if the losses were related or not.

In this case though, the adding of new fish and the rapid breathing seen leads me to think a disease issue, most likely velvet (Amyloodinium). Could be flukes as well.....

Jay

what about dosing nitrate and phosphate rapidly? I did a double dose in the night and the morning of the two established fish died? Could that have messed up some chemical pathways that led to less o2 or more ammonia or something? Things seem fine. Leopard wrasse and tang (the two sensitive fish left) are eating and acting normally. All other fish and inverts are normal and I never truly saw an objective symptom of velvet or brook. Obviously not going to add fish for a while and will qt fish from here on out.

 

[Baronen]

Gonna bump this because weird things keep happening and I think I may have a culprit. A few months ago I added a heavily quarantined Anthias. My tomini tang always bullies new arrivals and it kinda stirs him up. The second to last fish I added was a black leopard wrasse which had been established for quite some time and even ate pellets. Extremely healthy fish.
The tang would chase the Anthias and it ended up hiding for a few weeks but in between that period the leopard wrasse died unexpectedly.
Now recently, I added another (healthy) leopard wrasse, and it’s getting heavily bullied by the tomini. It’s eating and doing fine otherwise. To help with the new addition I moved a lot of rocks around. The tang seemed pretty upset by this and was kinda quickly darting from rock to rock. Everything ate just fine last night but this morning I woke up to a dead flasher wrasse and the anthias dead. They both were stuck up into rocks to the point where I couldn’t even retrieve the bodies.

No signs of anything before death and very hard to diagnose anything post mortem. One thing I noticed was the day after the black leopard died, my Pygmy wrasse had some white abrasions on its sides (bites from the tang?)

Is this all from a bully tang?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Gonna bump this because weird things keep happening and I think I may have a culprit. A few months ago I added a heavily quarantined Anthias. My tomini tang always bullies new arrivals and it kinda stirs him up. The second to last fish I added was a black leopard wrasse which had been established for quite some time and even ate pellets. Extremely healthy fish.
The tang would chase the Anthias and it ended up hiding for a few weeks but in between that period the leopard wrasse died unexpectedly.
Now recently, I added another (healthy) leopard wrasse, and it’s getting heavily bullied by the tomini. It’s eating and doing fine otherwise. To help with the new addition I moved a lot of rocks around. The tang seemed pretty upset by this and was kinda quickly darting from rock to rock. Everything ate just fine last night but this morning I woke up to a dead flasher wrasse and the anthias dead. They both were stuck up into rocks to the point where I couldn’t even retrieve the bodies.

No signs of anything before death and very hard to diagnose anything post mortem. One thing I noticed was the day after the black leopard died, my Pygmy wrasse had some white abrasions on its sides (bites from the tang?)

Is this all from a bully tang?

If a bully is killing other fish, you will always see fin or scale damage. With flukes, you may also see that sort of damage, but the fin damage will be minor, and not sharp "shredded" fins. Not finding the lost fish makes it difficult to say though.

 

[Baronen]

If a bully is killing other fish, you will always see fin or scale damage. With flukes, you may also see that sort of damage, but the fin damage will be minor, and not sharp "shredded" fins. Not finding the lost fish makes it difficult to say though.

I have no idea what’s goin on. I now think my yasha goby is dead as well because he didn’t come out for dinner and he is always a pig. This has been the most frustrating tank ever

 

[Baronen]

Should I just give the remaining fish away and start over? I love this hobby but really hate when things die. Especially when they are eating and doing well and then the randomly die over night. I had lost a total of 1 fish in 4 years with my two previous nanos and now I’ve lost like 12 in 5 months with this new tank

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Should I just give the remaining fish away and start over? I love this hobby but really hate when things die. Especially when they are eating and doing well and then the randomly die over night. I had lost a total of 1 fish in 4 years with my two previous nanos and now I’ve lost like 12 in 5 months with this new tank

Sorry - not sure what to tell you. We all lose fish, I’ve had losses in shipments that hit 70%. Buying tank raised and pre quarantined fish helps a lot. Quarantine you own fish is also a good idea. Buying fish from quality sources is vital.

 

[Medonna23]

so how do they get brook? i also keep losing fish. over night.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

so how do they get brook? i also keep losing fish. over night.

Losing fish overnight is not from a disease in your tank, those all take a few days to weeks to develop. Fish that die overnight is always due to a problem with either the quality of the fish to begin with, or some issue with acclimation. Many LFS hold their fish at low salinity. Acclimating those to full salinity, even if done slowly, can cause stress and fish loss. It is best to ask the store what the salinity is, and be sure that you will not be putting them through a large rise. Here is an article I posted about that:

Acclimation Methods

Acclimating Animals to Aquariums Jay F. Hemdal c.2020 Introduction to acclimation techniques Most beginning aquarists hear that they must “acclimate” any new animals they add to their aquarium. Acclimation (sometimes termed...

www.reef2reef.com

Jay