Some fish die in new aquarium

Stelioshah

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Hello, I am not actually "new" to the hobby but this is the second time I am actually starting a new reef tank from zero. I used dry rock and a few pieces of live rock to cycle my tank and a bunch of bio media. I also added a bottle of microbacter7 after 2 months of cycling. At around this time my ammonia dropped to 0 (I did not measure my nitrites) and after waiting for another month and seeing that my nitrates would not go any higher I did a 100% water change to have a totally clean water before introducing fish (so that I avoid some algae issues). The thing is that I used UNCURED dry rock in my setup as I considered that after 3+ months of cycling it would not leach any more stuff in the water. That's what I thought until I measured my nitrates one day after doing the 100% water change and they were at around 30ppm (I used RO/DI water which measured 0ppm of nitrates for the water change). Despite that, my ammonia kept beeing at 0ppm so I added 6 nassarius snails 1 hermit 2 turbos and 1 clown gobby. A week's time later, since everything was alive and moving I decided to add a 6 spot goby and a mespillia globulus (sea urchin). The gobby was the most extremely stressed fish I had ever seen and died just a day and a half after introducing it, along with one of the turbo snails (a bad sign). During all this time my ammonia kept measuring 0ppm so I supposed that the gobby could have jumped hit it's head on the light and died since it was so stressed (I found it in a part of my sump at the back of the tank). 10 days later.. since everything kept staying alive I added 1 blood shrimp 1 royal gramma and diamond watchman goby. The thing that caught me off guard was that just after 1 hour of introducing them the royal gramma had already claimed a cave as its own, chasing the shrimp away and the shrimp was already eating! 2 Days later I found the shrimp eating the dead gramma... I was concerned that my bacteria would not be able to process the new bio load but I suppose that if that was the case the shrimp would go first or at least the sea urchin would lose some of its spikes! This thing has driven me crazy.. I keep measuring 0 ammonia, my nitrates are increasing at a rate of 5ppm-10ppm daily and I keep losing fish in just a few hours after introducing! I am running a skimmer which from not pulling any gunk in just a day after introducing, the new fish filled half the cup!

I am keep doing water changes to keep my nitrates low but I just can't keep up! They are not high enough to be the culprit here (right now at around 30ppm) but I also cannot understand why am I losing some fish or some invertebrates and not all of them! How come that the sea urchin lives with ease even though the fish tank is fairly new and has no algae to be found but some hardy fish keep dying in such a short amount of time! Could this be my nitrites?? I highly doubt it! I started cycling on early Octomber and it now is February! The dry rock? Before introducing the fish I scrapped them with a tooth brush and did another 70% water change... My alkalinity, phosphates, calcium, magnesium, pH are all where they should be..
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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disease. the tank is setup for a good cycle retention, but in 100% violation of all current disease protocols in fish diagnostics per the disease forum. its bad nowadays, you need to be doing their preps.


fallow



qt


things have changed in the last 8 years or so, it wasn't like this back then. it is now.

there are telling details in your description above that nearly pinpoint disease but you have to self direct read Jay's troubleshoots in the fish disease forum to pick them out, and self learn the trending and preps relative to the date of setup, and where you're securing animals.

I have multiple threads handy about fish death in the first eight months of new dry rock setups or mixed dry/live setups. if you follow Jay's disease prep advice on fallow, stocking the tank without fish then fallowing, then adding only qt prepped and or observed fish, your losses drop substantially. your retention increases.
 
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Stelioshah

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I check with a refractometer. My salinity is at 1.025 Alkalinity: 11.3dKH phosphates: 0 calclium: 480ppm magnesium: 1300ppm
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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params didn't cause this, you've set up the same go about 100,000 other cyclers have built. its disease preps in fish, your basic reefing skills already known eliminate param issues, how your setup differs from the stickies in the fish disease forum, and the timing and selectiveness you state in the opening description, is what stands out.


if you skip disease preps most of your fish die within eight months. @ying yang

we ought to ramble together sources and see if we can help him retain fish. can you think of params he currently reports that are toxic

we should try all other suggestions other than disease preps in a sub eight month tank first, and arrive at Jay's forum last option I guess when the last fish is hanging on, or at least before new fish are ever added.
 

ying yang

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Aclimitise issues with salinity ( I.e lfs salinity much lower than yours ) or the likes or diesese comes to my mind when you saying fish dying quick but inverts are all ok
 

ying yang

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Or could be you ordered online and amnonia built up in the shipping bag and ph was low so not toxic but once you opened bag the ph rose and made amnonia more toxic ( you did mention first fish you added was acting so erratic it most stressed fish you seen ) my understanding of amnonia is unless it super high quantity it takes time to kill the fish like hours - 3 days
 

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Fish come from the ocean and are riddled with parasites. Then put them into a new tank without much diversity and fish loss often occurs.

Be sure to check the salinity of the bag of water they are in as well. A fast increase is not good. If the salinity matches then you can rule that out.
 
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Stelioshah

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params didn't cause this, you've set up the same go about 100,000 other cyclers have built. its disease preps in fish, your basic reefing skills already known eliminate param issues, how your setup differs from the stickies in the fish disease forum, and the timing and selectiveness, is what stands out.
The 2 fish that died actually were from 2 different aquarium stores. Where I live I have no lfs and I am forced to order the fish. The store that I ordered the gramma from told me that the gramma they had showed some signs of ich and they brought a new one to send to me (I live in Greece so everything is imported from other countries). I checked the fish and it was clean from ich.. Do you think that I should run a UV sterilizer? I do not currently actually have the option to have a quarantine tank..
 

ying yang

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If only one if 2 fish. A 5 gallon bucket can act as a quarantine tank,just need sone surface agitation and heater if needed and check Amnonia often


If want to go the medicated qt route then read this and will need medicate all current fish and any new fish and run your tank fallow ( read up on what a true fallow means ) and also look up Jay's thread " bio security "

I personally don't qt my fish ,reason being I'm a all in or all out kind of guy and I think I would struggle to keep corals alive while they had a few months observational qt and would need put all cuc through a fishless qt also ( no medications to be used on inverts especially copper )
 

brandon429

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Hey since you’re ordering them why not just order from Dr. Reef or someone who pre quarantines

even if we fallow your tank, which is the right way vs uv, you get to keep all your corals and stuff, only fish are removed for the fallow period. Choose the long version of fallow, not the short one, since we are considering doing things right by today’s best disease read ups

plus you can feed and fatten up corals as you wait, grow them, build the reef up better for pre quarantined fish


you should do a huge frag run, stock up on frags to grow, and fallow there after. The reason you‘re stocking up is so that by fallowing you clean those new frags from disease as best as possible nowadays, and anything wet you add once the fish are back in undoes the chain of command for fallow and quarantine. It’s about keeping disease components starved and non sourced. Right now they’re fed and directly sourced by multiple input vectors + full on symptomatic loss.

you get to spot feed and change water and drive mass into your new corals during the fallow prep period.

refusing fallow nearly guarantees loss of current inhabitants considering recent expression. It doesn’t matter if it’s convenient or not, it’s the swing vote in how long your fish remain for viewing. And especially future added fish, those that will replace these.
 

ying yang

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Jay's bio security thread.

Brandon has great point in that if you must order online then imo probably best to order from someone who qt's their fish ( that's if anyone does in greece)

All information I gave above is on basis you had a diesese/ parasite in your tank but if you seen no evidence or spots/ behaviours/ lack of appetite/swimming into powrr head then the 2 fish that " just died" could possibly be from just being through a stressful ordeal of coming halfway around the world from country to country then you say you got to get a lfs order fish from another country so could be they recently got the fish and you got it from lfs straight away and fish just died as stressed out to much.

Is your tank set up to ne less stressful as possible ?
Overhangs/ underhangs,fish can lose sight if each other/fish can hide in caves/ gaps in rocks/feed live/ fresh food plus all other stuff that's needed ?
 
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Stelioshah

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Hey since you’re ordering them why not just order from Dr. Reef or someone who pre quarantines

even if we fallow your tank, which is the right way vs uv, you get to keep all your corals and stuff, only fish are removed for the fallow period. Choose the long version of fallow, not the short one, since we are considering doing things right by today’s best disease read ups

plus you can feed and fatten up corals as you wait, grow them, build the reef up better for pre quarantined fish


you should do a huge frag run, stock up on frags to grow, and fallow there after. The reason you‘re stocking up is so that by fallowing you clean those new frags from disease as best as possible nowadays, and anything wet you add once the fish are back in undoes the chain of command for fallow and quarantine. It’s about keeping disease components starved and non sourced. Right now they’re fed and directly sourced by multiple input vectors + full on symptomatic loss.

you get to spot feed and change water and drive mass into your new corals during the fallow prep period.

refusing fallow nearly guarantees loss of current inhabitants considering recent expression. It doesn’t matter if it’s convenient or not, it’s the swing vote in how long your fish remain for viewing. And especially future added fish, those that will replace these.
I hope that you guys are correct because the fish from beeing moving and lively end up dead really fast almost suddenly.. I have never actually tried buying fish from abroad but I might consider this.. I still have some doubts that it is something from my uncured rocks though... For the moment I have not added any corals because I was afraid they'd all die that's why I tried adding fish first. I hope the rest of the fish stay alive..
 

brandon429

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There have been bad acclimation posts at times, floating the bag too long after opening but you’re describing at least a few weeks living between losses or do they die within 1-2 days after releasing?


the fact sensitive blood shrimp are present is a big deal tiny clue in param troubleshoots for the tank, and a big factor in narrowing down the loss scope to transmissible disease

open corals and normal open/ close of them also contributes to isolating disease vs param causes
 
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Stelioshah

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Jay's bio security thread.

Brandon has great point in that if you must order online then imo probably best to order from someone who qt's their fish ( that's if anyone does in greece)

All information I gave above is on basis you had a diesese/ parasite in your tank but if you seen no evidence or spots/ behaviours/ lack of appetite/swimming into powrr head then the 2 fish that " just died" could possibly be from just being through a stressful ordeal of coming halfway around the world from country to country then you say you got to get a lfs order fish from another country so could be they recently got the fish and you got it from lfs straight away and fish just died as stressed out to much.

Is your tank set up to ne less stressful as possible ?
Overhangs/ underhangs,fish can lose sight if each other/fish can hide in caves/ gaps in rocks/feed live/ fresh food plus all other stuff that's needed ?
My tank is not actually that huge ~45 gallon it has 2 small caves and I have glued the rocks an arch like shape so there are overhangs and underhangs and caves (the goby has already dug a new cave like hole as well). I forgot to mention that yes I have already added some copepods but I probably need to add some more because I can't find any.. I will consider ordering directly from abroad
 

ying yang

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I hope that you guys are correct because the fish from beeing moving and lively end up dead really fast almost suddenly.. I have never actually tried buying fish from abroad but I might consider this.. I still have some doubts that it is something from my uncured rocks though... For the moment I have not added any corals because I was afraid they'd all die that's why I tried adding fish first. I hope the rest of the fish stay alive..
Doubtfully something leaching out your rocks and killing your fish so quick but maybe a full tank picture will help and show others the type of the rocks you using . @Jay Hemdal is resident expert
 
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Stelioshah

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There have been bad acclimation posts at times, floating the bag too long after opening but you’re describing at least a few weeks living between losses or do they die within 1-2 days after releasing?


the fact sensitive blood shrimp are present is a big deal tiny clue in param troubleshoots for the tank, and a big factor in narrowing down the loss scope to transmissible disease

open corals and normal open/ close of them also contributes to isolating disease vs param causes
The 6 spot goby died just a day after releasing but was extremely stressed my clown goby has been alive for at least 2 weeks, the urching for something like 10 days. I added the blood shrimp the gramma and the other gobby 3 days ago. So the shrimp could just be alive by chance! It is eating everything i throw in the tank though so I am hopeful!
 

ying yang

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There have been bad acclimation posts at times, floating the bag too long after opening but you’re describing at least a few weeks living between losses or do they die within 1-2 days after releasing?


the fact sensitive blood shrimp are present is a big deal tiny clue in param troubleshoots for the tank, and a big factor in narrowing down the loss scope to transmissible disease

open corals and normal open/ close of them also contributes to isolating disease vs param causes
In first post he says one fish died after 1.5 days and second fish was found dead after 2 days with a shrimp eating it so something killing them fast
 
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Stelioshah

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Doubtfully something leaching out your rocks and killing your fish so quick but maybe a full tank picture will help and show others the type of the rocks you using . @Jay Hemdal is resident expert
I can actually see some dead debris on the rock (some dead algae) and some white slug like stuff coat some of the rocks and the sandbed from time to time but I have actually almost totally removed the white slug..
 
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