I've been in the hobby for a little over a year now, and I've had a revolving door of clownfish ever since.
I started off leaving a Petco with a tank, sand, live rock, salt, a dottyback, and an oscellaris clownfish. Boy, was I in for a ride.
A few months later I bought a second clown to pair, an orange storm. The oscellaris ruthlessly beat up my new orange storm so I brought oscellaris to my LFS and purchased a different, smaller oscellaris. These two paired and even spawned in my tank. Then it split open and all the fish went into a new tank. A month later the oscellaris died inexplicably. I thought he stopped eating from the stress of the tank split. I bought Wyoming white that ruthlessly attacked by an orange storm, so it got brought back. I purchased a tiny snowflake clown that I loved. He grew for the next four months until two days ago he inexplicably died too. It's unbelievably frustrating to only see a pet I bonded with die, but watching a beginner fish die in a tank filled with happy SPS corals that are growing and flourishing made it even worse. I went to my LFS and got a small oscellaris and impulsively put him in my DT (instead of my usual 2-month quarantine, couldn't explain why). Now he's pacing the tank eradically and not eating. Here's a video:
I tested the water parameters 3 days before the death and on the day of death. They were the same both days:
Alk - 8.9 dkH
Magnesium - 1380 ppm
Calcium 420 ppm
Phosphate - undetectable, but using salifert kit so I’m skeptical
Nitrate - 10 ppm
Salinity 1.026
pH - 8.15
Temp - 79 degrees F
Any ideas what I could be doing wrong? Besides the fish my dottyback killed, I've never had any other fish die on me and I'm at a loss of what to do. I'm wondering if I should bring both clowns to the LFS and get a new pair all together (and going through QT) as adding them one at a time is not working for me. TIA
I started off leaving a Petco with a tank, sand, live rock, salt, a dottyback, and an oscellaris clownfish. Boy, was I in for a ride.
A few months later I bought a second clown to pair, an orange storm. The oscellaris ruthlessly beat up my new orange storm so I brought oscellaris to my LFS and purchased a different, smaller oscellaris. These two paired and even spawned in my tank. Then it split open and all the fish went into a new tank. A month later the oscellaris died inexplicably. I thought he stopped eating from the stress of the tank split. I bought Wyoming white that ruthlessly attacked by an orange storm, so it got brought back. I purchased a tiny snowflake clown that I loved. He grew for the next four months until two days ago he inexplicably died too. It's unbelievably frustrating to only see a pet I bonded with die, but watching a beginner fish die in a tank filled with happy SPS corals that are growing and flourishing made it even worse. I went to my LFS and got a small oscellaris and impulsively put him in my DT (instead of my usual 2-month quarantine, couldn't explain why). Now he's pacing the tank eradically and not eating. Here's a video:
I tested the water parameters 3 days before the death and on the day of death. They were the same both days:
Alk - 8.9 dkH
Magnesium - 1380 ppm
Calcium 420 ppm
Phosphate - undetectable, but using salifert kit so I’m skeptical
Nitrate - 10 ppm
Salinity 1.026
pH - 8.15
Temp - 79 degrees F
Any ideas what I could be doing wrong? Besides the fish my dottyback killed, I've never had any other fish die on me and I'm at a loss of what to do. I'm wondering if I should bring both clowns to the LFS and get a new pair all together (and going through QT) as adding them one at a time is not working for me. TIA