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- Jun 4, 2019
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I'm frustrated. Also hopeless and helpless. No matter what I do or how careful I am, I cannot get new fish to stay alive in my tank. I have a great LFS that performs copper treatments and keeps everything in hyposalinity, but it doesn't matter if I QT or not, nothing new lives, and I'm out of ideas and sanity.
I've got good, steady parameters and make my own water:
A few hours before the angel died. No external signs of disease, aggression, etc. It had eaten fine the day before. Just.... died.
The day the angel died, got a yellow goby that had been in the store ~3 weeks. It lasted in my tank 3 days, in the acclimation box. I'm at the end of my rope and intensely distressed about this. I tried using the fancy new acclimation box to help ease them in, I always set my acclimation lights, but I never see anything wrong until... they're just dead. I float bags with new fish for temp, then drip acclimate ~45 minutes before adding to the tank (particularly needed because of the hyposalinity of the LFS).
I'm literally losing sleep and seriously contemplating quitting the hobby. I'm extremely careful about things being on point and taking everything slow, making sure there wouldn't be compatibility or aggression issues, steady parameters, clean out algae, but nothing I do seems to matter, and all I'm doing is wasting money at this point. 2 fish stores have tested my water and found the same parameters, the few corals I have are all doing quite well, and, like I mentioned, there's no sign of aggression or disease on the deceased fish. I cannot figure this out. A hitchhiker that I can't see? The nem stinging new folk? I just don't know. Any help/advice would be very appreciated and of course I can give more info if needed.
I've got good, steady parameters and make my own water:
- Nitrate - ~10-20
- Nitrite - 0
- Ammonia - 0
- pH - ~8.2
- dKH - 8-9
- Phosphate - 0-0.25
- Calcium - ~480
- Salinity - 1.025/26
A few hours before the angel died. No external signs of disease, aggression, etc. It had eaten fine the day before. Just.... died.
The day the angel died, got a yellow goby that had been in the store ~3 weeks. It lasted in my tank 3 days, in the acclimation box. I'm at the end of my rope and intensely distressed about this. I tried using the fancy new acclimation box to help ease them in, I always set my acclimation lights, but I never see anything wrong until... they're just dead. I float bags with new fish for temp, then drip acclimate ~45 minutes before adding to the tank (particularly needed because of the hyposalinity of the LFS).
I'm literally losing sleep and seriously contemplating quitting the hobby. I'm extremely careful about things being on point and taking everything slow, making sure there wouldn't be compatibility or aggression issues, steady parameters, clean out algae, but nothing I do seems to matter, and all I'm doing is wasting money at this point. 2 fish stores have tested my water and found the same parameters, the few corals I have are all doing quite well, and, like I mentioned, there's no sign of aggression or disease on the deceased fish. I cannot figure this out. A hitchhiker that I can't see? The nem stinging new folk? I just don't know. Any help/advice would be very appreciated and of course I can give more info if needed.