Identification? Came home to dead fish

[Sarabeth3412]

I’ve had these two baby clowns and the jawfish for a week this past Tuesday. The clowns have been eating like hogs and swimming with no signs of stress, or any issues. The jawfish has been swimming and hiding out as they do, but he hasn’t ate, he’d was continuing to blow food back out of his mouth. I had a container of sand, and plenty of places that he hid in during quarantine. We were afraid he may starve so when I got home from work we were going to acclimate him to the other tank, but instead when I got home they were all dead. We can sort of see white areas on the clowns but not sure if this was the issue. The clowns came from Live Aquaria and the jawfish came from a LFS, which I should have known better to quarantine them together but we all live and learn. We think it was the jaw fish as he wasn’t eating and was scratching up against things, but I wanted to see if any more experienced reefers could help identify what may have happened. They were all completely fine at 9am, but at 4pm they weren’t. This is our first dead fish experience. I have to research on how to clean the tank properly too to prepare for new fish. What could kill them this fast?! Thanks in advanced for all the help.

 

[JumboShrimp]

I'll start with ruling things out, other people will follow: Any way they were deprived of sufficient oxygen? (e.g., Do you have power heads to break the surface?) Sorry for your loss!

 

[dvgyfresh]

Sorry about yr losses , possibly jawfish was sick then passed and caused a ammonia spike then killing the two clowns? Is the quarantine cycled with live rock?

 

[Sarabeth3412]

I'll start with ruling things out, other people will follow: Any way they were deprived of sufficient oxygen? (e.g., Do you have power heads to break the surface?) Sorry for your loss!

thank you. Yes I have a HOB filter with carbon, power head, bubbler, all in it. Successfully QT 8 fish in it. I checked the temp and ammonia in it all good. The pH was 7.6 though which I’m not sure if that would cause anything. But again, that’s a normal pH that I had for the other previous 8 fish.

 

[Sarabeth3412]

Sorry about yr losses , possibly jawfish was sick then passed and caused a ammonia spike then killing the two clowns? Is the quarantine cycled with live rock?

thank you. Is it possible that the ammonia spiked and went back down after a few hours? Asking as idk and I just checked it and it’s reading 0. And I cycled it with bio bricks. We did a 50% water change over this past weekend too.

 

[dvgyfresh]

thank you. Is it possible that the ammonia spiked and went back down after a few hours? Asking as idk and I just checked it and it’s reading 0. And I cycled it with bio bricks. We did a 50% water change over this past weekend too.

It’s entirely possible , I’ve had something similar happen to me. One fish died in a bucket during tank transfer (had rock / power head and heater ) and caused alll the fish to die, granted I had 6 small fish in like 10 gallons of water