Two Failures in a week, bad luck? What is your advice.

[Belwell]

Okay so set up my tank a few weeks ago. I used Bio-spira on top of caribsea 'live' rock and sand. Confirmed nitrites, then nitrates. I called the tank cycled and dropped in a watchman goby and two hermit crabs. The goby only last two days. I inspected him after I removed the body from the tank and I saw what I thought MIGHT be ich. Tested parameters, everything standard. Salinity mmmmmmmaybe a little high at 1.0265, but Ammonia 0, PH ~8.2 nitrates about 10 ppm, nitrite 0.

I read up a bit on what I could do to remove the potential ich from the aquarium before I put anything new in the tank and found the advice of raising the temp to 80 F for 48 hours. I checked about the hermits and found once source saying 76-78 and another 3 saying 76-82 so I ran my heater at 80 for about 60 hours just to be sure. They were both fairly active in the tank crawling all over the rock work. On day 2 of extra heat one of the crabs posted up in a crack and didn't move for two days straight. I was checking on him daily and thought I saw movement from him so I left him alone. Today I found what was left of him on the sand bed, looked like his neighbor made a snack of him.

I ran all of my tests again. Salinity again maybe a little high at 1.0265, ammonia 0, nitrates were between 10-20 ppm, PH 8.2ish. I'm going to do a 10-12% water change tonight. I was planning on getting back on the horse and adding a fire fish tomorrow, but I'm a little discouraged now. What would your next steps be? Just bad luck, or did I miss a big step?

Thanks

 

[Clo]

If your goby had ich, it's still in the tank. Do you have photos of the body for the more experience ppl to look at? They can help you prevent another fish death, which will quickly become discouraging if you have multiples in a row.

 

[Belwell]

If your goby had ich, it's still in the tank. Do you have photos of the body for the more experience ppl to look at? They can help you prevent another fish death, which will quickly become discouraging if you have multiples in a row.

Really? I read that ich would be killed by running the tank at 80 degrees + for 48 hours. Is that not the case?

I didn't take any pictures unfortunately. The goby looked totally healthy while he was alive, no ill signs at all. Only after I got a real good look after he died did I see what I thought might be white spots. It was only on one side of him if that helps the diagnosis at all.

 

[Jekyl]

Really? I read that ich would be killed by running the tank at 80 degrees + for 48 hours. Is that not the case?

I didn't take any pictures unfortunately. The goby looked totally healthy while he was alive, no ill signs at all. Only after I got a real good look after he died did I see what I thought might be white spots. It was only on one side of him if that helps the diagnosis at all.

I'm not a disease guy but that temp I don't think kills Ich. If it did people wouldn't be doing 70+ days of running fallow

 

[vtecintegra]

When was the last time your refractometer calibrated, and what was the salinity of the water where the goby came from? I don't up the salinity on a fish more than .001 per 24 hrs. I've bought fish that were at 1.018. Dropping them in 1.026 would not be good.

If disease, I'd guess velvet over ich.

If ich, the standard has been around 76 days with no fish, to eliminate it from the tank. That thought is slowly going away, with 6 weeks at 80 F becoming accepted. That's why it's so important to QT.

Are you feeding the hermits? No telling if they were getting meals where they came from. One may have had no choice but to eat the other. Who knows?

 

[Belwell]

When was the last time your refractometer calibrated, and what was the salinity of the water where the goby came from? I don't up the salinity on a fish more than .001 per 24 hrs. I've bought fish that were at 1.018. Dropping them in 1.026 would not be good.

If disease, I'd guess velvet over ich.

If ich, the standard has been around 76 days with no fish, to eliminate it from the tank. That thought is slowly going away, with 6 weeks at 80 F becoming accepted. That's why it's so important to QT.

Are you feeding the hermits? No telling if they were getting meals where they came from. One may have had no choice but to eat the other. Who knows?

Calibrated it just a few weeks ago. The goby's water was around 1.024, I drip acclimated up to my water over 2 hours. Maybe I went too fast for him, but he seemed fine for the first day or so.

Since there is nothing in the tank but my last hermit can I pull him out use a treatment to remove any potentials left overs?

I put some pellets in the tank for the hermits since I didn't think there was enough for them to snack on in the tank. Haven't really seem them touch them, but who knows.