Several fish died...depressed

[MattPG]

sorry. Feels bad man.

It’s so hard to say…did you just lose the foxface or other fish too? You only mention finding that one? Foxface IME are skittish. A 75g feels a bit cramped and it may have been stress got to them- especially after a cleaning. These fish can be less hardy than some others like clowns, gobies, etc.

There are certain individuals here who will absolutely immediately jump in with “oh, your fish died? It’s because you didn’t follow this 45 step, 60 days acclimation guide I wrote.” I don’t think they’re wrong, however….

I’m not sure that’s practical for the average aquarist running an enthusiast-sized tank with space limitations. I also have a local store that is reputable and quarantines their fish for you in a professional and tested manner. You pay a premium in exchange for not doing it yourself. There are also online stores with great reputations that quarantine for you.

Illness can exist in your tank, just like in the air around you. Not every cold you catch will present with symptoms. The same can go for fish. My toddler coughs in my face when I’m well rested and not stressed? Might be fine. Does it after I got zero sleep the night before and I may spike a fever.

I will throw out an alternate cause- a Eunicid Worm or other predatory pest. I have personally had one that was big enough to take down a foxface hide in a 29g biocube (but no, I did not have a foxface in a biocube) I also lost some fish and my clowns were acting terrified.

A red light over the tank and a cheap time lapse camera running overnight caught him in the act. A little piece of shrimp rubberbanded on a rock to lure him out worked too. Although I had to tear down the tank to get it out and it fought me tooth and nail.

Sorry for your loss. It happens. Thank you for taking the time to try and understand why. That’s the important part.

Thanks for taking the time to respond. I did use dry rock when I set up the tank wanting to avoid hitch hikers. Also, I lost the fox face, both banggi cardinals and the gobi. All over one day. Two clowns remain.

 

[MattPG]

Fish Disease Treatment and Diagnosis

A forum for discussing treatment and diagnosing saltwater reef fish.

www.reef2reef.com

for sure the best way is a mini course investigation into presentation patterns there, and remedies Jay does in pattern

I did this and enjoyed it. one night over coffee pull up the ipad at home and begin there above reading the first help thread post. notice the response patterns there and go to the next post in line. do a few pages worth, the stickies at the top of this forum have all the info but now they're up to fifteen stickies lol I think you get more out of watching presentation patterns and resolve patterns from Jay, he runs an aquatics zoo/high level fish vet in my opinion. watch him work

look for hidden gems in their data like this: take each new help thread poster for any given page on the disease forum

click their avatar

click find all threads

go to thread #1, or post #1, right there is a date and time and usually a mention of how old someone's tank is/when it started

what's the pattern among 2-3 pages in the disease forum for tank age? (under 8 mos)

and as a sub-pattern noted, what's the rate of disease onset for tanks older than eight months, but recently adding fish store wet items with no fallow (high enough to make them present all over that forum, actual % risk tbd)

that kind of data mining is fun, and the specific hedge to you losing fish upon restocking. you have to run your best game at it, this hobby is not easy for sure it's elite to be able to keep mixed reef species. in the 90s it was the hardware that limited us, cost exclusion to owning reef tanks and disease was low

now its opposite, equipment is cheap/ish/turnkey and now fish themselves are $$ and disease is just filthy rampant in unimaginable ways within the hobby, that's the change curve you've got to stay ahead in reefing now.

there is no book or forum on the internet that will beat self guided discovery there, or at humblefish forums. those two places, best disease interception training in all of reefing.

WOW, awesome ideas. I appreciate it and will follow up.