My Clownfish and Firefish died

[Ashlee & Ricky]

It sounds like you're gonna be ok, you just got impatient. You're tank is still very young so it's still somewhat unstable and stability is what make a reef tank successful. A few suggestions...

If you want a second clown get one noticeably smaller than the one you currently have. You may also need to put it in a clear plastic box (I forget what these are called) for a while to let them get to know each other while still protecting the new one. I'd also recommend waiting at least a month or two to make sure you have everything else under control (water parameters, cleaning schedule). You'll have to make sure to stay on top of tank cleaning with 3 good sized fish (remember all of these fish will grow! Your watchman may be small now but that won't last).

You may want to switch from just carbon to something like chemipure and change it once a month. It includes both carbon and GFO (for phosphates).

Looking at your picture - take a good look at the green and red coral to the right. There might be a pest anemone right in front. You'll want to nip that in the bud ASAP (go to the hitchhiker thread and search for aptasia for ideas on how to ID and deal with it).

I like your scape. Nice arches.

By a clear plastic box do you mean like a breeding tank thing that has suction cups that stick to the glass so that they stay in the tank water, but are isolated from everyone else? I know I'm not actually using it for breeding, but I don't know what it's actually called either. But anyways, that's what we used for the firefish when he was sick.
And in regards to the pest on the closed brain coral (I think that's what it's called?), we used some "Aiptasia-X" and it hasn't worked yet, but it might be time to do it against. So we also got a peppermint shrimp which is supposed to eat it, but we've had him a week and he hasn't made it over there yet...
Thank you so much! Looking at all of the pictures on here makes me think we need more LR! But I loooove our middle rock because it has so many little caves in it [emoji4]

 

[Ashlee & Ricky]

Looks pretty dang nice! You could add a small non dominate clown in a week or two after the tank settles down but I would definitely not add any more fish. You're maxed out at the pair of clowns and the yellow watchman goby. I see a bigger tank in your future just so you ya know.

Hahaha yes I see a bigger tank in our future too [emoji23]
Just have to give it a year or so at least I think... So we don't kill anymore fish [emoji22]

 

[Ashlee & Ricky]

No, if you put the sponge in RO water, you are killing your nitrifying bacteria that live in the sponge. Squeeze it out in used tank water (i.e., saltwater) so you don't kill these bacteria and to get the detritus out. You may have a sufficient amount of rock to support enough bacteria to biologically filter the tank, but the sponge likely contains a sizable population of bacteria that, if killed, would affect the biological stability of the tank.

Oops!! [emoji51] I made my boyfriend aware of this. Thank you!
I think that a lot of the information my boyfriend has been given by a friend of his at our LFS has been not very good...
Which is one of the main reasons that I joined R2R... So that I can make sure we are getting the correct guidance.
One example is that his friend at the LFS did not advise against him bringing home a starfish after one month... I don't think I even need to mention that the starfish did not make it... After I did some research, I learned that we had no business bringing a starfish home that soon.

 

[Ashlee & Ricky]

I think your tank is just to small for all of the fish and coral.. as stated above.. I would definitely do at least a 50 percent water change to rule out ammonia.. and only squeeze out the sponge.. do not rinse the sponge. As K. Steven said your rinsing out your bacteria (that your more than likely just getting it started good) in your tank.. also.. I wouldn’t wait to long to add another clown. Making sure it’s a good bit smaller than the one in the tank. Black and white clowns most of the time are MEAN! At least everyone I have owned.. even attack me! Anyway.. since your wanting to start up one soon.. maybe you could look online for a used tank to kind of get your feel a little better.. I’m sure you will eventually want even bigger.. I had a 30 gallon.. moved to a 40 breeder to a 75 gallon now have a custom 130 gallon that I’m in love with.. sometimes things die with no reason.. but two fish so close together.. their is obviously a problem somewhere.. please get test kits.. ASAP! Never trust anyone’s testing.. only yours.. a refractometer is a must and yes.. READ READ READ!! I learned the hard way that you never rush in this hobby.. before adding fish to your main.. you should always put in a qt tank so you don’t wipe out all of your fish by adding a sick fish. This forum is AMAZING.. I wouldn’t be where I am today if it were not me doing things the wrong way.. finding this forum by googling my problem... and I have never looked back.. SO WELCOME TO R2R!! You will love it.. here you will find lots of help and answers to questions and hopefully you will never need them but Fish Drs.. Google and read questions you may have on here before buying a fish.. changing anything.. such as salt or additives.. how much to feed.. lights.. fish behavior.. any question you could possibly think of is right here.. i agree also with another post about not adding anything else after you add the one clown.. read up on clowns and types that will and won’t get along before making your decision on which clown to purchase to pair with your existing clown.. don’t give up and never feel like it’s your fault.. always know we all had to start somewhere and we all make decisions that may not always work.. so you learn from it and move on.. let us know if you have any other questions if you can’t find your answer here.. so sorry for your loss by the way... have a great day!

PS sorry I’m all over the place with this post.. I got pretty bust in the middle and forgot what I was trying to say.. lol good luck

Do you mean do a 50 percent water change just because of the two fish dying, or do you mean we should do a 50 percent water change weekly instead of a 1/3 weekly which is what we currently do?

Also why do you suggest not waiting long before adding another clown? Another member replied saying that I need to wait at least a month that way everything can balance out again. I'm sure a lot of things in this hobby can be a personal preference, but I would just like to know what your reasoning is. [emoji4]
And yes I have heard that the black clowns can be aggressive, but I really have never seen him show any aggression... But I know a lot happens when nobody's looking too.

Wow you have a 130 gallon?! That's amazing!! I'll definitely get a bigger tank of my own at some point, but I want to wait like a year or so, that way I can eliminate some of the mistakes to be made. Also that gives me time to learn about all of the different fish and corals. There is still SOOOO much to learn and I don't want to kill more fish if I can prevent it.

Do you recommend a certain water testing kit? Or does it not matter?


Thank you so much for your kind words also! It means a lot, because it makes me feel so bad when something happens because I feel like there could have been something we could have done to prevent it. But you are right, sometimes things happen that aren't our fault. But it's still important to find out what happened if possible, which is why I joined R2R, because I was tired of all the mysteries that have happened in our tank lol. And yes I agree with you that two fish dying back to back makes it seem like something is not right... But if it was due to a problem with the water or something, I feel like the firefish wouldn't have had a bunch of little wound-looking things on his body right? Like he looked like he was bullied, and then the orange clown had no wounds, so it definitely makes sense if he died because of something being wrong in the tank.

Anyways, thanks again!!! [emoji173]️

 

[K. Steven]

Oops!! [emoji51] I made my boyfriend aware of this. Thank you!
I think that a lot of the information my boyfriend has been given by a friend of his at our LFS has been not very good...
Which is one of the main reasons that I joined R2R... So that I can make sure we are getting the correct guidance.
One example is that his friend at the LFS did not advise against him bringing home a starfish after one month... I don't think I even need to mention that the starfish did not make it... After I did some research, I learned that we had no business bringing a starfish home that soon.

Take any advice you get from an LFS with a grain of salt. After all, they are trying to sell you stuff and most have a hidden agenda to profit off of the advice they give. When things die, people go back and buy more, sustaining their business.

 

[JoshH]

I see a bigger tank in your future just so you ya know

I think this applies to most of us.... as for test kits, salifert, elos and red sea are all excellent kits to go with, I use red sea myself and love them. Hanna checkers are great as well, a little tricky to learn at first but great once you get the hang of them. If you were looking for a good starter test kit I'd say have a look at the red sea marine care test kit. It was a great starter for me and I moved into the pro kits afterwards and have been very happy since. Also I might be missing it but what water source are you using??

 

[AcanthurusRex]

Hahaha yes I see a bigger tank in our future too [emoji23]
Just have to give it a year or so at least I think... So we don't kill anymore fish [emoji22]

If you are not planning on QT then please select your fish very carefully. IMO I would buy ORA fish via Live Aquaria. Most ORA fish are small which fits the tank size. No dottybacks in that system.
It appears that Live Aquaria effectively from drop ships from ORA, the shipping address was on the same street as ORA. No guarantee but the fish most likely will never be mixed with fish other than ORA sourced fish. Captive bred fish are about as disease-free as your going to get.

 

[patfat]

Had the fluval 5g when I started..had 2 clowns a watchmen and fireshrimp with cuc no issues for me..yes I know fish grow and it was a small but things can be done...Not sure if this was covered or not(as I read a few posts here and there) What type of rock are you using from the looks of it not very porous..did you use live sand at the start? I had a friend with the 13.5 and remember how the back compartments looked..has three slots..in one slot I would look at getting a bag of eheim substrat pro or put lava rock in it...just some thing more for biological filtration more places for good bacteria to grow on...try a bottle of good bacteria such as instant ocean bio spear or fritz turbo start to really get a good jump of bacteria going to help with the amount of fish..even throwing a bottle in now will not hurt any thing but will only help..like some people said take what a LFS says with a grain or salt same as every thing said here..also with any system fresh or salt owning an aquarium is a waiting game..changing to many things to fast will crash a tank..if you change some thing wait a few weeks to a couple of months to see things change/take affect...also with water changes I find once a week on a small tank with small amounts tends to be better..then once time goes on you can push it to changing water every two weeks max..don’t get frustrated owning an aquarium and learning is an every going process from beginners to vets..I mean everyday new ideas are coming out that people are still trying/learning on what is successful for them..just one piece of advice is no two tanks are the same..so somethings that work for some don’t always work for others...also remember some fish when looking to buy might look great at the store but could always have issues that are not seen till days weeks after..because most of us have no clue how fish are being shipped/fed/handled from farm to depots to the store..as of now I say best thing is to get some more biological filtration so good bacteria builds ups to handle what ever next fish you put in..Nano tanks are one of harder sides of fish keeping as things can swing drastically and quickly.. where as in a big tank you have time to see problems starting and be able to adjust..it’s like this as of now your tank looks awesome and if you can successfully keep the corals you have going in that small tank with no issues then fish will be no problem when it comes to stocking again...reason I say this corals are living creatures also even though there a different type of species they can still die if they don’t like there new home..

 

[patfat]

Also sorry for the super long post but when I get going there’s no stopping haha!!

 

[Ashlee & Ricky]

I think this applies to most of us.... as for test kits, salifert, elos and red sea are all excellent kits to go with, I use red sea myself and love them. Hanna checkers are great as well, a little tricky to learn at first but great once you get the hang of them. If you were looking for a good starter test kit I'd say have a look at the red sea marine care test kit. It was a great starter for me and I moved into the pro kits afterwards and have been very happy since. Also I might be missing it but what water source are you using??

Sorry for the super late response... I haven't had much time in the past week to get online and respond to these. Plus I wanted to talk to my boyfriend about some of the questions I am asked on here.
I looked up some of those tester kits on Amazon and didn't see any of those brands. So I guess I need to get those somewhere else? I will look online at different sellers, or maybe just get it at our LFS.
As for our water source, my boyfriend buys the saltwater from our LFS.

 

[Pittsford_Pets]

This is barely related I this post, but can you just pick out the aiptasia and throw it out? Instead of getting aiptasia-x

 

[Pittsford_Pets]

If you are not planning on QT then please select your fish very carefully. IMO I would buy ORA fish via Live Aquaria. Most ORA fish are small which fits the tank size. No dottybacks in that system.
It appears that Live Aquaria effectively from drop ships from ORA, the shipping address was on the same street as ORA. No guarantee but the fish most likely will never be mixed with fish other than ORA sourced fish. Captive bred fish are about as disease-free as your going to get.

What does ORA stand for?

 

[4FordFamily]

What does ORA stand for?

Oceans, Reefs, and Aquariums — it’s a company. ORA has several of their own fish such as captive-bred specimens and are a well respected participant in captive-bred marine fish.

 

[JoshH]

Sorry for the super late response... I haven't had much time in the past week to get online and respond to these. Plus I wanted to talk to my boyfriend about some of the questions I am asked on here.
I looked up some of those tester kits on Amazon and didn't see any of those brands. So I guess I need to get those somewhere else? I will look online at different sellers, or maybe just get it at our LFS.
As for our water source, my boyfriend buys the saltwater from our LFS.

Bulkreefsupply.com or any other online store will carry all those brands I mentioned earlier. Probably cheaper online TBH but always a fan of supporting a LFS. If you're looking into being in this hobby long term it might be worth it to invest in an rodi system. Not only is it far cheaper in the long run, you know what's in your water as you're the one who mixes it. Also you know for a fact you're starting with true 0 TDS water before mixing. Just a thought worth looking into

 

[Ashlee & Ricky]

This is barely related I this post, but can you just pick out the aiptasia and throw it out? Instead of getting aiptasia-x

I'm not really the person to reply to this because I'm obviously very new, so hopefully someone else will give you a better answer, but I don't think you can just pick it out. Because it retracts and completely closes up when you try to go near it.
We put the aiptasia-x on it once, and it like closed up and you couldn't see it anymore, and then it showed back up, so about a week or two later we did it again (which was 2 days ago) and I don't see it anymore. But I'm not sure if it's going to come back or not. I will post an update if it does show back up.
But before we treated it again two days ago, we noticed another one growing on the other side of that same coral. So we treated that one too and that one hasn't showed back up again yet either.

 

[Ashlee & Ricky]

Bulkreefsupply.com or any other online store will carry all those brands I mentioned earlier. Probably cheaper online TBH but always a fan of supporting a LFS. If you're looking into being in this hobby long term it might be worth it to invest in an rodi system. Not only is it far cheaper in the long run, you know what's in your water as you're the one who mixes it. Also you know for a fact you're starting with true 0 TDS water before mixing. Just a thought worth looking into

Okay thank you!
I'm a big online shopper but I do understand supporting a LFS.
I would assume that the rodi system takes a lot of space? We are currently in a condo with not a lot of storage space, but we plan on getting a house in the next couple of years and I will definitely prefer to mix our own water.

 

[Ashlee & Ricky]

Had the fluval 5g when I started..had 2 clowns a watchmen and fireshrimp with cuc no issues for me..yes I know fish grow and it was a small but things can be done...Not sure if this was covered or not(as I read a few posts here and there) What type of rock are you using from the looks of it not very porous..did you use live sand at the start? I had a friend with the 13.5 and remember how the back compartments looked..has three slots..in one slot I would look at getting a bag of eheim substrat pro or put lava rock in it...just some thing more for biological filtration more places for good bacteria to grow on...try a bottle of good bacteria such as instant ocean bio spear or fritz turbo start to really get a good jump of bacteria going to help with the amount of fish..even throwing a bottle in now will not hurt any thing but will only help..like some people said take what a LFS says with a grain or salt same as every thing said here..also with any system fresh or salt owning an aquarium is a waiting game..changing to many things to fast will crash a tank..if you change some thing wait a few weeks to a couple of months to see things change/take affect...also with water changes I find once a week on a small tank with small amounts tends to be better..then once time goes on you can push it to changing water every two weeks max..don’t get frustrated owning an aquarium and learning is an every going process from beginners to vets..I mean everyday new ideas are coming out that people are still trying/learning on what is successful for them..just one piece of advice is no two tanks are the same..so somethings that work for some don’t always work for others...also remember some fish when looking to buy might look great at the store but could always have issues that are not seen till days weeks after..because most of us have no clue how fish are being shipped/fed/handled from farm to depots to the store..as of now I say best thing is to get some more biological filtration so good bacteria builds ups to handle what ever next fish you put in..Nano tanks are one of harder sides of fish keeping as things can swing drastically and quickly.. where as in a big tank you have time to see problems starting and be able to adjust..it’s like this as of now your tank looks awesome and if you can successfully keep the corals you have going in that small tank with no issues then fish will be no problem when it comes to stocking again...reason I say this corals are living creatures also even though there a different type of species they can still die if they don’t like there new home..

Sorry for the late response!
Wow that's impressive that you had that many fish in such a tiny tank with no problems! I always see pics online of tiny tanks with several little fish and they look awesome but after hearing from so many people on here that you can't have that many fish in a small tank, I always wonder how those people make it work.

As for our LR, one of them is pretty porous actually- the one in the middle. I don't know enough to tell you exactly what kind of live rock any of our rocks are though. I didn't know that the type of rock meant much though, as long as it is live rock right? But I recently learned that there are different kinds of LR, all of which provide different things for the water, but that's really all I know. I'm not sure how to identify the ones we have though, and my boyfriend doesn't remember either. Is it important to have porous rocks? Our one porous rock is definitely my favorite, but other than the fact that it looks really nice and provides little caves for our watchman to go in, what else makes it important to the tank to be porous?

And yes you are correct that our tank has three compartments on the side. I have heard of people putting certain things in them to help the tank. I told my boyfriend your suggestion (because at the end of the day- he is the one who makes the decisions on what to do since it's technically his tank) and he says that we are good on the amount of good bacteria. But is this something that the water tester kits will tell us? I'm looking into getting one this week.

But as you mentioned waiting to make any more changes to the tank, we are definitely going to do that. It's already been three and a half weeks since our two fish died and all we've done since then is rearrange a couple of the corals. We probably will add another fish in a couple weeks, but as of now it is still just the watchman and clownfish.

As for the corals, knock on wood, but we have been pretty lucky with all of them so far. We have a torch coral that was two separate ones attached to a branch thing and one of them died, but that is the only issue we've had with our corals.

Thank you again for all of the great information! And for taking your time out to help and give your advice!

 

[Ashlee & Ricky]

If you are not planning on QT then please select your fish very carefully. IMO I would buy ORA fish via Live Aquaria. Most ORA fish are small which fits the tank size. No dottybacks in that system.
It appears that Live Aquaria effectively from drop ships from ORA, the shipping address was on the same street as ORA. No guarantee but the fish most likely will never be mixed with fish other than ORA sourced fish. Captive bred fish are about as disease-free as your going to get.

I will look into this, thank you!
When you QT, don't you have to have a completely separate tank already established and healthy for a fish to put in it?
Do you just keep the separate tank always running and ready in case you need it?
Sorry, I know this is kind of basic knowledge, but we all learn it somewhere and I haven't been completely educated on this part yet lol.

 

[JoshH]

Okay thank you!
I'm a big online shopper but I do understand supporting a LFS.
I would assume that the rodi system takes a lot of space? We are currently in a condo with not a lot of storage space, but we plan on getting a house in the next couple of years and I will definitely prefer to mix our own water.

Don't need a whole lot of space, just need a little creativity..

And to answer your QT question, no need to have a constantly running QT. Seeding some filter foam pads in your DT or using bottled bacteria are both great ways to get a QT started quickly. If you head on over to the fish and disease thread section you will find a few really good threads on how to set up QT tanks.

 

[Ashlee & Ricky]

Don't need a whole lot of space, just need a little creativity..

And to answer your QT question, no need to have a constantly running QT. Seeding some filter foam pads in your DT or using bottled bacteria are both great ways to get a QT started quickly. If you head on over to the fish and disease thread section you will find a few really good threads on how to set up QT tanks.

Oh wow nice! I was picturing like a huge bucket thing. I saw a video once of a guy mixing his own salt water but he didn’t have a small thing like that. Very nice!

And thanks for the info on the QT tank. When you use bottled bacteria in a QT tank, how quickly can you put a fish in it? The same day?
I will go check out the fish and disease thread section too.