Please help - Losing fish and no idea why.

[NewRobert]

Hi all,

I'd appreciate some advice here. In February this year, I got my tank back up and running after moving. For the time being most of my rock was in a temporary holding tank.

For the last two months I have been trying to add some tangs and clowns, but I have lost 6 clowns already and 1 tang now and I have no idea why.

We have had some power failures (local government problem - power goes off for 2-3 hours at a time once or twice a day) but there hasn't been very wide temperature swings. My return pumps have always been on backup-power. I have now (today) installed a 5.5kwh lithium battery backed solar inverter to exclude this as a possible cause.

My parameters:

Ammonia: 0
No2: 0
No3: 4
kH: 7.5
PO4: 0

Salinity is 1.026 / 35ppt

The display is about 375l (100gal). I do a 100l water change once a week (25gal). My STC1000 temperature controller is set to heat when temperature goes 0.5 degrees (C) below 25C (77F) and the chiller kicks in at 25.7 degrees (C) (78.26F).

I am not dosing anything or adding any additives at the moment as I don't know what to do. My RO/DI water is still 0 TDS. I mix in a 240l trash can downstairs and pump the water up. I have banned housekeeping from spraying anything in my office where the tank is standing except squirt some laminate cleaner on the floor once a week. The glass and canopy stays closed always except when I feed.

I run seachem Phosguard in 1 re-actor and seachem carbon in another which I change once every 3 weeks or so. And I have a bubble magus curve 3.5 protein skimmer.

I have 2 return pumps, one goes through my 54w UV and the other goes through the chiller unit.

1. I bought two clowns, one died first, then the next.
2. I replaced these with another two, and one more died
3. I got a another to replace the one that died and then the other one died
4. Then I got another to replace that one and the previous one died again
5. Today the last one died (he wasn't eating well since the day I got him).

The blue regal tangs I had made it a long time (I got them in May), but one of their noses turned a little white. Today I lost one of them.

What I currently I still have left:

1 x Diamond Goby
2 x Banggai Cardinals
1 x Chromis

Other Livestock:

1 x sea urchin
3 x snails
3 x cleaner shrimp
2 x blood red fire shrimp
1 x anemone

I have 2 wavemakers, a Jebao MLW-20 and Jebao MLW-30. They're both on "Random" modes. On advice of a friend I have turned them down to 70% of their power.

Lights is a 6-tube T5 unit. Blues come on at 14:00, Whites at 15:00. Whites switch off at 23:00 blues switch off at 24:00. Frequently the room lights are on before this but not always.

I feed the frozen (Ocean Nutrition) foods once a day (at night). I will feed half a block of Brine Shrimp or half a block of Mysis normally. Tried adding garlic to the food to get the clown that didn't eat to eat but it didn't work. LFS recommended bio viv HUFA when the blue tang's nose went white which I mixed with the food. For the food I normally defrost in a shotglass, mix it with a little water from the tank and pour down in front of the wavemaker to disperse.

I have also added a titanium grounding pin to the sump on advice from LFS.

The blue regal tang I have left's nose is still a little white. The clown was alive but swimming frantically this late-morning before I left for work, but when I came back he was disappeared. The blue regal's body's was behind a rock on the sand but when I went to fetch a net to get him out the shrimp dragged him somewhere to finish off. The other bodies were never found (just 1 skeleton). Nothing in the overflow at all.

All the fish came from my LFS who are marine specialists and I don't normally have problems. They look after their livestock and those clowns were in their tanks for weeks without issue.

All fish were drip-acclimated for 1 hour (no quarantine as there isn't much in the tank yet - but I am considering setting up a QT system now).

When I got the tangs I did 4 days of metroplex+focus on advice from LFS. My other tank (which has only got a damsel and regal tang in) is fine - water change for that tank comes from the same system.

If you can please help. I just downsized my 3 tropical tanks to 1 tropical tank which proceeded to crack while trying to deal with all the marine tank loss. I am struggling a little bit to see the light at the end of this tunnel.

Thank you in advance (sorry for the long text - just wasn't sure what was important and what not).

This is a photo of my tank taken just now:

This is a video of my clown that died while I was away today's behaviour this morning:

 

[NewRobert]

Pictures taken of my remaining tang:

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

You described how the one clown acted before it died but was there any other telltale behavior from the other fish? (Besides the clown not eating)?

 

[Cell]

#fishmedic

#MODS can this get moved to disease forum?

 

[NewRobert]

You described how the one clown acted before it died but was there any other telltale behavior from the other fish? (Besides the clown not eating)?

Not at all. Other clowns and tang's behaviour were completely normaly. Swimming around the tank, not being chased by any others or any aggressive behaviour from anyone else in the tank. They were also not on the bottom or corners or hiding at the top except when the lights were off and I assume they were just resting. The other clowns were smaller than this last one though.

 

[Sharkbait19]

Any swimming into the flow?
The clowns (and tang) seem very pale, not sure if that’s lighting or the fish.

 

[Cell]

Tang is very pale. If it's swimming in front of a powerhead, it may be velvet. I think flukes can cause paleness as well. A FW dip would be recommended for flukes and copper for velvet. More knowledgeable help should arrive shortly.

 

[NewRobert]

Any swimming into the flow?
The clowns (and tang) seem very pale, not sure if that’s lighting or the fish.

This clown was this pale when I got him from day 1. He was only in my tank for a week.

The others were not like that, they were much more brighter/vivid/whatever the word is.

They didn't swim directly facing the flow that much, but would sometimes go up into the flow stream and come back in it again.

This is a video of the one that was left after the deaths started:

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Well, I can't tell you exactly what is going on here, but it probably is NOT water/environment related, as the invertebrates are doing well.

The pale snout on the hepatus is commonly seen, called epithelial thinning, nobody really knows the cause, but it may be diet related.

The clown is very pale and breathing fast. That means anemia and/or gill disease.

I think you should stop adding fish for some time to see if things settle down, and then if you want to try more clownfish, run them through a full quarantine process:

Current Quarantine Protocol

2023 Quarantine Procedures Jay Hemdal David Scarborough Protozoans (Cryptocaryon/ich, Amyloodinium/velvet) and Metazoan trematodes/flukes are by far the most common parasites found on newly acquired fish. A carefully managed quarantine process can effectively eliminate these parasites before...

www.reef2reef.com

Jay

 

[vetteguy53081]

How are you acclimating and for how long?
I realize you are in a different country- With Very low nitrate and zero ammonia, what test kits are you using ?
For the little time fish were alive. . Were they eating and what were you feeding them ?

 

[MnFish1]

best wishes thanks for the detailed history. almost tooo detailed. nothing to add