problem with fish dying?! need help stat please!

[Panda500120]

hey guys, so i'm new to the salt water fish scene, and I'm having problems with my fish dying. within the past 3 weeks i've had a long nose butterfly fish, 3 fire goby's, and a cleaner wrasse die. my nitrates were 40ish, but i just tested again after a couple of water changes(approx 20% each time in a span of 3 days) and my nitrates and ammonia levels are both at 0. i feed my fish brine shrimp 2 times a day.(each feeding i feed them a small amt.)

am i over feeding? disease? shock? what's going on? as of right now i have a pipe fish that's doing fine, a maroon clown doing find, and 2 osc. clowns(questionable? at night they like to hang out behind my power head is this normal behavior?)

please please please help me.



other tank mates include a pepper mint shrimp, cleaner shrimp, 2 turbo snails, and corals. i have 2 LED lights, a circulator, and power head.

 

[Panda500120]

oh and also a seaclone 100 protein skimmer

 

[Squishie89]

I know you say your ammonia is at 0 now, what was it before? Fish are very sensitive to ammonia. What are your other water params? Like salinity, pH and phosphate? How old is the tank, and did it fully cycle? How much live rock do you have?
Clowns are weird and will sleep where they sleep. One of mine sleeps at the top corner of the aquarium, his mate wanders around as if sleep swimming.

 

[Panda500120]

my ammonia has always been at 0 (i added my fish once the ammonia cycle was complete) the tank is approx. 3 weeks old now) I am unsure of my other water params because i don't have the money right now to purchase the test kits. i do weekly water changes about 10% per week(with the exception of this week i did more because the nitrate level was about 40 and my skimmer was breaking in(just finished breaking in and is now working). my corals seem to be healthy and booming, so i was wondering what was wrong with my fish or what i was doing wrong?

 

[Squishie89]

That is a lot of fish for such a little amount of time. I am not sure how you were keeping your ammonia at 0. Were you using some sort of ammonia binding product?
I strongly suggest to stop buying fish, and start buying test kits. Or find a LFS that can test your water, even if they charge you a small fee, you need to know these numbers, especially in a reef tank. You should still buy your own kits, but if the LFS can help you out until then, then do that.
How much live rock do you have and how big is the tank?

 

[MelissaKathryn]

I agree with squishie. How big is your tank and how much live rock do you have? are you using a refugium? How do you "filter"? For the tank to be less than a month old with so many fish AND corals is.. well.. I've never heard of it. :-/

We had our 55 gallon with close to 100 lbs of live rock and live aragonite sand in the tank with no lights whatsoever for a month or two, then added our "clean up crew" of sand sifting snails, crabs, and other hermit crabs. A few weeks after that, we added clownfish, then a week later we added two chromis. Finally, we slowly started adding light even AFTER that, in small increments as to avoid an algae boom, or throw the biological filter out of whack with too much light and too much algae.

The biological filter is a very delicate balancing act in your tank. You have to make small changes slowly, or else you get random spikes in test levels. ESPECIALLY for a reef tank. We only started adding corals at around the 5 month mark. I don't know if that puts anything into perspective, but that was actually moving much faster with the tank than my boyfriend even wanted to move. But having a good test kit would help a lot! It is not like having a freshwater tank in that no matter how much you spend, you can't get everything in there right away.. You risk losing fish and other living organisms. It is SUCH a hard thing to learn! Please don't get discouraged and want to quit the hobby!

But also, your LFS may be being a bit unethical or dishonest with you if they have your water samples and keeps selling you fish!

 

[Reefer_Go_Home]

From all my research, pipe fish are very difficult to care for. Im surprised that the little guy is still alive in such a new tank.


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[Panda500120]

so now an update, i have approx 22 lbs of liverock for a 27 gal. tank, also one of my clowns died, my wrasse, died, and my pipefish died....it looks to me like there are white dots and some sort of fungus growing on my other clown. what can i do to save my other fish?

is there something wrong wiht my water?

 

[Panda500120]

it looks like they have ich

 

[Dana]

do you have pics of your fish?
you like to rush into things huh? 3 weeks is not nearly enough time to stock a tank the way you have. its no wonder theyre all dying

 

[T.W.]

do you have pics of your fish?
you like to rush into things huh? 3 weeks is not nearly enough time to stock a tank the way you have. its no wonder theyre all dying

Not to stir the pot here but can we not turn this forum into what all the other ones are like where we just blast people for making mistakes? People make mistakes but there's no need to hammer people and make them feel worse than they probably already do! Just answer their question, help or move on.

Just my .02

 

[Panda500120]

no i don't have pictures but the fish had white specs on them almost as if they had salt on their skin. and thank you tw. that's much appreciated. i called my lfs and he said that it is most likely ich, and that i need to treat it right away is this accurate?

 

[blackx-runner]

Sounds like you just learned the lesson of saltwater the hard way. Unfortunate, but it happens to a lot of people. In the excitement of a new tank things get rush and tanks aren't in proper order for the livestock being dumped in. I was in a similar boat when I first started. Although I didn't buy quite as many fish as you did. I still lost the first few.
Take this time to learn about proper procedure for setting up and stocking an aquarium. Also check out quarantine procedures. You will have much better luck in this hobby if you take things extremely slow. When you think you are ready for fish, wait 3 more weeks, then just add 1 or 2. Then wait several more weeks before adding another fish. Once you have a very healthy and established system then adding livestock can happen more frequently.

Be careful how you treat the ich. Copper medication, the most effective treatment, will kill all your corals and inverts in your main tank. Also rendering all your live rock pretty much garbage. Treatment should happen in a separate hospital tank. With dedicated equipment that won't get transferred to the main tank and risk introducing copper. If your going to treat what you have left I would leave the display fallow for 6-8 weeks so there are no more ich parasites in that tank.

 

[Dana]

Yes you should treat. Do you have a quarantine tank? If you have corals and invertebrates you do not want to treat your display tank

 

[Panda500120]

so.......update......everything died...... yes....i learned the hard way....and i hate myself for it..........i killed so many fish..... :[ should i leave my display tank fishless those 6-8 weeks?

 

[Dana]

Yes. No fish

 

[Panda500120]

alright, how can i exterminate the ich from the tank? do i need to add ich attack or any reef safe ich treatments, or will those 6-8 weeks remove the ich(with regular water changes of course)

 

[Mike J.]

Agree whole heartedly. I'd also point out that it seems to me the LFS that's selling butterflyfish and pipefish to a person with a 3 week old tank is unscrupulous and has no regard for the fishes welfare.

Not to stir the pot here but can we not turn this forum into what all the other ones are like where we just blast people for making mistakes? People make mistakes but there's no need to hammer people and make them feel worse than they probably already do! Just answer their question, help or move on.

Just my .02

 

[Rikerbear]

Not to stir the pot here but can we not turn this forum into what all the other ones are like where we just blast people for making mistakes? People make mistakes but there's no need to hammer people and make them feel worse than they probably already do! Just answer their question, help or move on.

+100!!!
Your fish are dying because you have to many of them in a such a new tank......
The new ich problem is most likely from the stress on the fish from what must be ammonia and or nitrite spikes.
Treating ich can be hard to do in your main tank. Copper based medication will kill all inverts, corals, etc. I would suggest removing the fish you have left, set up a small quarantine tank to treat the fish in.
It takes a minimum of 6 week in copper to 'cure' ich......and the tank should go 8 weeks with no fish in it to clear it of any remaining infestation that may be lurking, waiting for new fish to attach to.
My guess is your remaining fish are gonners, but I wish you lots of luck just the same.
And SHAME on your LFS for not guiding you better. I hate the ones that just want to make sales and cold care less about the health of the system or the critters. :mad2:

 

[Dana]

alright, how can i exterminate the ich from the tank? do i need to add ich attack or any reef safe ich treatments, or will those 6-8 weeks remove the ich(with regular water changes of course)

the ich will eventually die off without a host (fish). so give it a couple of months and then you should be good. do not use any ich treatment in your display tank. most of them contain copper which is bad for crabs and shrimp etc… once you have copper in your system it almost if not completely impossible to remove totally.