My fish keep dying!

Mitch_

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Hello, this is my first time on this forum and I need help. In the last 2 months I've been setting up my 15 gallon saltwater fish tank. A few weeks back I introduced my clown fish and the majority of my CUC when all the chemistry levels in the tank were correct. A week after I introduced a cleaner shrimp and another clown fish (it was smaller than my current one and they paired almost instantly. The next week I finally finished off my tank with a chalk goby, however, that night my smallest clown died, my cleaner shrimp died and my goby died and im unsure why. I ran chemistry tests and ammonia was 0 and so was my nitrites. My salinity was at 1.23 and that's how it's been since the tank was setup. Yesterday, I bought another clown as my current one looked upset and depressed. When they finally found each other they seemed to get along, they ate together and there was no fighting. However, when I came down today in the morning my new clown died. Yet again I ran some tests and all my water was perfect. Can anyone help me with this, I've attached photos below of my clown from 5 mins ago (this clown is the from that I first got). Also I've not seen any losses with my any of my clean up crew, macro algae or corals so I don't believe my water is the problem. I feed my fish 2-3 times a day with my CUC getting algae wafers and my clowns getting a mix of pellets, flakes and frozen food. Its now been 7 hours since the photo and my clown hasn't eaten but is currently swimming in one place.

IMG_1197.jpeg IMG_1195.jpeg IMG_1194.jpeg
 

Rocks reef

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What are you parameters?
Also, you should be checking nitrates, not nitrites.
From the pics, it looks like some type of black algae growing??
 

jcrusher556

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Hello, this is my first time on this forum and I need help. In the last 2 months I've been setting up my 15 gallon saltwater fish tank. A few weeks back I introduced my clown fish and the majority of my CUC when all the chemistry levels in the tank were correct. A week after I introduced a cleaner shrimp and another clown fish (it was smaller than my current one and they paired almost instantly. The next week I finally finished off my tank with a chalk goby, however, that night my smallest clown died, my cleaner shrimp died and my goby died and im unsure why. I ran chemistry tests and ammonia was 0 and so was my nitrites. My salinity was at 1.23 and that's how it's been since the tank was setup. Yesterday, I bought another clown as my current one looked upset and depressed. When they finally found each other they seemed to get along, they ate together and there was no fighting. However, when I came down today in the morning my new clown died. Yet again I ran some tests and all my water was perfect. Can anyone help me with this, I've attached photos below of my clown from 5 mins ago (this clown is the from that I first got). Also I've not seen any losses with my any of my clean up crew, macro algae or corals so I don't believe my water is the problem. I feed my fish 2-3 times a day with my CUC getting algae wafers and my clowns getting a mix of pellets, flakes and frozen food. Its now been 7 hours since the photo and my clown hasn't eaten but is currently swimming in one place.

IMG_1197.jpeg IMG_1195.jpeg IMG_1194.jpeg
Judging by the pictures to a full sweep of tests. Or maybe your tests are old and need to be replaced. Looks almost like black algae in there. Take a picture of the entire tank so we can see more, it might by help as well.
 

Diver_Girl

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FWIW, I want to add my experience with a small tank and all my fish dying. One of my tanks is 13.5g and I had a problem with every fish I put in there dying too. Parameters were all in check for a fowlr system. Did regular water changes. CUC seemed perfectly fine, it was just the fish dying. This went on for more than a year and I never added more than 2 small fish. The tank came as a complete kit including pump and filtration, so it didn’t occur to me at first that I needed to add any equipment. I started wondering if it might be an aeration issue. I had the return agitating the surface as much as it could, but with the tiny pump that came with it, I don’t think it was enough to adequately aerate the water. I added an air stone/bubbler about 2 years ago and have been able to keep 2 clowns and all my CUC alive since then. I could be totally wrong about why my fish weren’t surviving before that, but the addition of the air stone seems to have immediately fixed the issue so I’m sticking with that theory. My lfs has the same tank on display with 2 large clownfish, and they couldn’t explain what was going on because they weren’t having that problem…but they had added a protein skimmer to theirs, which was probably providing additional aeration. Just throwing that out there as another thing to consider. Good luck!
 

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