My fish from my LFS keeps dying, what could be the cause, Alkalinity, Salinity or something else?

[enb141]

Four hours temperature acclimation? Ye don’t do that again, fifteen-thirty minutes is all you need.

Tank parameters rarely kill fish, bar salinity, it’s not the all that killed all your fish. Slow down, don’t buy massive amounts of fish at once, acclimate them properly (15 minute float, 1 hour drip), quarantine and buy fish that actually fit in the tank (no more powder blue).

What type of damsels are we talking about here? Its likely that they are aggressive and are stressing/ killing your new additions.

Please post a full tank shot, would help massively.

I was doing something so I asked my father to put the fish until I come back to my home.

I know, but the alkalinity was higher in my tank than the LFS.

I usually only do 15 - 30 minute float, 0 second drip, and I never had casualties.

1 Yellowtail Damselfish
1 Azure Damselfish
1 Green Reef Chromis
1 damsel/chromie that I don't know its name.

1 Firefish
2 Clowns
1 Yellow Tang
1 Powder Blue

 

[FishTruck]

I see no coral in your tank. Consider dropping your salinity to 1.019… if the priority is new fish. They can handle a drop in salinity no problem… but increase in salinity too fast is fatal.

Add rock.

once the tank stabilizes… some corals would look nice too… at that point bring the Alk up slowly.

 

[enb141]

Look at the poor clowns hiding up in the right corner!! :"CCC

in the first video

Yes, they stay there pretty much all the time, I know, poor clowns but at least this ones survived, other clowns starved to death, this ones are eating.

 

[zoomonster]

So you are matching the temperature but not the salinity when you acclimate them? There could be a huge difference between what the LFS is running and what you are running your tank at.

Yep a lot of times stores will run very low salinity in fish tanks.

 

[enb141]

I see no coral in your tank. Consider dropping your salinity to 1.019… if the priority is new fish. They can handle a drop in salinity no problem… but increase in salinity too fast is fatal.

Add rock.

once the tank stabilizes… some corals would look nice too… at that point bring the Alk up slowly.

I had about 6 years ago, but all died thanks to dynos.

I won't drop salinity because I already want corals, actually if not were for the covid, I already had corals, also because I screwed up my DIY Calcium Reactor so that also slowed my reef dream.

Why more rock?

This Tank is 3 years old that comes from my 6-7 years old 20 gallon rock and sand.

 

[enb141]

Test the incoming fish SG with your own equipment. Seems like most of the fish I get come in at 1.017.

max .001 change per hour of drip acclimation and not more than .003 per day.

I will test salinity this time for sure.

So you mean, assuming the fish come at 1.017, I should drip them for 2 or 3 days until, they get to 1.024-1.025?

 

[enb141]

Yep a lot of times stores will run very low salinity in fish tanks.

According to my LFS their salinity is 1.024, but I will test this time their salinity.

 

[FishTruck]

I will test salinity this time for sure.

So you mean, assuming the fish come at 1.017, I should drip them for 2 or 3 days until, they get to 1.024-1.025?

Yes. IME, fish that come from my LFS.. or online, that often arrive at 1.017 (or less) require days, not hours, to acclimate to reef SG (1.025). And.. my store either LIES or has a faulty refractometer (or maybe I do). They say it's good to go 1.025.. I test at home and it's 1.017.

For snails and low dollar stuff, I will drip acclimate over 12 or 24 hours. For higher dollar fish... I will figure out a way to do it over a week.

So, like I mentioned in an earlier post. If my tank was yours... and I found out that my incoming fish were all in bags with SG of 1.017 or less... I would just drop my own tank to that.

Then, once you have the tank fully stocked with fish, rocks, and stable... slowly raise it up to reef levels later when you want to add corals.

Or, set up a QT. Match the QT to the incoming fish bag SG... and raise the SG slowly over days.

 

[Welltankgoodness]

Hi, I've been in this hobby for about 8 years, but recently I got a really bad luck when I buy fish, last time all of them died in about 2 days, the last year I bought a few fish, most of them only died by jumping my tank, but since december, the fish that I'm getting, are dying.

My tank is about 3 years old, the only thing that I think is different than before is that I've been adding alkalinity, magnesium, but just twice in about 6 months so do you think alkalinity, salinity or something is killing my new fish?

Hi there- a few pieces of info still need might be:
What size is the tank?
Current livestock?
What fish did you buy that died not from jumping?
Are they dying in QT or DT?
What symptoms, if any?
thanks!!

 

[enb141]

Hi there- a few pieces of info still need might be:
What size is the tank?
Current livestock?
What fish did you buy that died not from jumping?
Are they dying in QT or DT?
What symptoms, if any?
thanks!!

1 meter long, 60 cm height, 45 cm deep

1 Yellowtail Damselfish
1 Azure Damselfish
1 Green Reef Chromis
1 damsel/chromie that I don't know its name.
1 Firefish
2 Clowns
1 Yellow Tang
1 Powder Blue
1 Mandarin
About 6 snails

My fish that died not from jumping where:

1 powder blue (died after 3 weeks)
2 wrasses (Carpenter's Flasher the second was similar to the Carpenter's), both died in less than 24 hours, at two different buying times (2 months of difference)
1 Royal Gramma in less than 24 hours
1 Anthias in less than 24 hours (the other one survived for a few days then jumped)

The powder blue was nice for 2 and a half weeks, then suddenly one day he/she stopped eating and the next day he/she died.

The rest died pretty much in the same way: They were at the bottom of the tank or hiding then in less than 24 hours they died, I didn't see any aggression, my mandarin gets way way more aggression than those fish that died.

I don't have quarantine tank, so they were put directly from LFS's bag to my tank.

 

[Cheese Griller]

1 meter long, 60 cm height, 45 cm deep

1 Yellowtail Damselfish
1 Azure Damselfish
1 Green Reef Chromis
1 damsel/chromie that I don't know its name.
1 Firefish
2 Clowns
1 Yellow Tang
1 Powder Blue
1 Mandarin
About 6 snails

My fish that died not from jumping where:

1 powder blue (died after 3 weeks)
2 wrasses (Carpenter's Flasher the second was similar to the Carpenter's), both died in less than 24 hours, at two different buying times (2 months of difference)
1 Royal Gramma in less than 24 hours
1 Anthias in less than 24 hours (the other one survived for a few days then jumped)

The powder blue was nice for 2 and a half weeks, then suddenly one day he/she stopped eating and the next day he/she died.

The rest died pretty much in the same way: They were at the bottom of the tank or hiding then in less than 24 hours they died, I didn't see any aggression, my mandarin gets way way more aggression than those fish that died.

I don't have quarantine tank, so they were put directly from LFS's bag to my tank.

Is the mandarin a new addition? if so I recommend returning it. Your tank does not have the adequate rock to keep a pod population large enough to sustain it and it will starve to death.

 

[Dave1993]

are you from america if so you have to QT america's fish are crap come live in the UK no need to QT then

 

[zoomonster]

Just one problem with long acclimation... ammonia. I have not fully adapted it, but the trend today is not to do much if any acclimation on shipped fish to avoid stress and ammonia with focus on getting them out of the bag ASAP. Brought home from a fish store is a little different story but still requires some effort to acclimate for a long period of time while avoiding ammonia. As someone mentioned if you use a small QT tank you can get away with taking time to raise salinity assuming it has an active biofilter or you are using some ammonia neutralizing product and testing or using a badge. In reality my fish go straight from bag to container that hangs in tank where they temp acclimate and I start adding tank water to it right away while removing some container water. Usually in a few hours they are in the tank and I have not killed a fish from acclimation. As for jumpers you better face the fact that ANY fish can jump not just wrasses. I have lost a few here and there to jumping before I got tank top perfectly sealed.

I think reading salinity is a problem too. I finally broke down and bought a glass hydrometer (arriving today actually) because something just wasn't right. Apex probe has almost never been right, even calibrated, and I was suspect of my refractometer that either it was now bad, or the calibration solution was bad. I even tried an old swing arm and all 3 were radically different.

 

[enb141]

Is the mandarin a new addition? if so I recommend returning it. Your tank does not have the adequate rock to keep a pod population large enough to sustain it and it will starve to death.

My mandarin has 6 months, I bought it because I have an infestation of planaria (the pod sized tiny ones), I know a 6 line killer wrasse can do the job but those monsters are so aggressive so decided to pick a mandarin instead, and she's doing fine for 6 months.

 

[enb141]

are you from america if so you have to QT america's fish are crap come live in the UK no need to QT then

American continent yes, America aka USA no, I'm from central america.

I bought fish before, for other LFS, even this one, and I didn't have issues before (just minor casualties or jumping fish) but my concern was when my second last batch of fish, almost all of them died overnight, and the last batch a wrasse died but the powder blue survived.

 

[enb141]

Just one problem with long acclimation... ammonia. I have not fully adapted it, but the trend today is not to do much if any acclimation on shipped fish to avoid stress and ammonia with focus on getting them out of the bag ASAP. Brought home from a fish store is a little different story but still requires some effort to acclimate for a long period of time while avoiding ammonia. As someone mentioned if you use a small QT tank you can get away with taking time to raise salinity assuming it has an active biofilter or you are using some ammonia neutralizing product and testing or using a badge. In reality my fish go straight from bag to container that hangs in tank where they temp acclimate and I start adding tank water to it right away while removing some container water. Usually in a few hours they are in the tank and I have not killed a fish from acclimation. As for jumpers you better face the fact that ANY fish can jump not just wrasses. I have lost a few here and there to jumping before I got tank top perfectly sealed.

I think reading salinity is a problem too. I finally broke down and bought a glass hydrometer (arriving today actually) because something just wasn't right. Apex probe has almost never been right, even calibrated, and I was suspect of my refractometer that either it was now bad, or the calibration solution was bad. I even tried an old swing arm and all 3 were radically different.

What I've been doing all the time was to take the bag and put it for about 30 minutes on top of the tank to get the temperature, then take off the fish and put it directly to the tank (no drip water from the tank to the bag). I did this with different LFS and as I've been saying, I had pretty much 0 casualties, just minor jumpers or fish that didn't want to eat because they didn't like the food I've been providing to them, but that's another story.

About salinity, yes that's a problem, I did the salt mix instructions that were supposed to give me 1.025 salinity, but when I was testing it I got 1.024 using a refractometer with calibrated drops that have 1.026.

 

[Cheese Griller]

My mandarin has 6 months, I bought it because I have an infestation of planaria (the pod sized tiny ones), I know a 6 line killer wrasse can do the job but those monsters are so aggressive so decided to pick a mandarin instead, and she's doing fine for 6 months.

Glad to hear it is still doing well. Would still recommend getting more rock to make sure she has enough pods and give your other fish more territory

 

[MaxM]

They fish currently have doesn't have any disease, they are in pretty good conditions.

Fish can be immune carriers of diseases like velvet. They don't show disease but still grow enough disease organism to infect other fish.

 

[enb141]

Fish can be immune carriers of diseases like velvet. They don't show disease but still grow enough disease organism to infect other fish.

Yes, but not for making other fish to die overnight

 

[enb141]

A little update, I got a new group of fish.

About a week or two after my last wrasse died, I bought a group of 11 mollies, 5 died in a few days due to acclamation but the rest are up and thriving.

A few days ago, I got 3 Damsels Azurre, 1 Hector Goby and another Wrasse, plus 4 snails and 1 crab.

At current day, 0 casualties, maybe the snails are not going to make it because they are not moving, but all the fish are fine (all previous ones and recent acquired ones)

The only thing that I did was to increase the Magnesium from ~1050 to ~1350, maybe the addition of my two tanks reduced the harassment.