Unfortunately my first post has to be this

[BrightReefer]

If you have a reef store near you, see if you can buy a chunk of rock from their system to seed your display. Doesn’t need to be overly large.

Or could dose bacteria to eat the ammonia and start the cycle.

Can also dose that prime product while doing the above to keep the ammonia safe from the fish. I dose prime daily in my quarantine system to reduce water change frequency needed.

The tank has been running since December of last year. It is 13.5g fluva evo. Initially, the first pair of clowns I know for certain the cycle went through just watching it and testing the water while it was in fallow I would feed a little bit of fish food every now and then and dosed stability. To keep the cycle going or so I thought.

 

[Kooma]

Ok you have seachem stability? Be sure you keep dosing that.

Grab some seachem prime to help with the ammonia.

In the bucket, do you have any really small pumps that could cavitate to suck air and add bubbles to the water? That can help with gas’s exchange and oxygenating in a pinch.

If it’s oxygen you should see that clown perk up in a few minutes as long as the ammonia hasn’t caused gill damage.

I was just reading your thread trying to see what might be the culprit, but hard to say.

Are you using Rodi water for mixing? You don’t have a well water for example with high lead, iron or copper in it that you are using? I don’t have much tap water for salt mixing experience so not sure what that can cause for issues.

Hopefully the clowns perk up in the bucket, a 5 gallon pail can be their new tank for as long as you need it to be, it would be best to add an air stone though to wherever they are.

 

[Fish Fan]

Many here on R2R do not recommend Seachem Prime as it's be shown to be ineffective at binding or removing ammonia, though it does make an effective dechlor if ever needed. Here's a link discussing the efficacy of Prime and other ammonia removing products:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/a...prime-cloram-x-rongalite-and-friends.1064206/
I hope this helps

 

[BrightReefer]

I have been using distilled water since the start of this tank. Also 1 or less tds.

I just used my mixing wave maker suction to the buttom
Of the pump point up. My little guy has passed. But the other is still going in the bucket

 

[BrightReefer]

Ok you have seachem stability? Be sure you keep dosing that.

Grab some seachem prime to help with the ammonia.

In the bucket, do you have any really small pumps that could cavitate to suck air and add bubbles to the water? That can help with gas’s exchange and oxygenating in a pinch.

If it’s oxygen you should see that clown perk up in a few minutes as long as the ammonia hasn’t caused gill damage.

I was just reading your thread trying to see what might be the culprit, but hard to say.

Are you using Rodi water for mixing? You don’t have a well water for example with high lead, iron or copper in it that you are using? I don’t have much tap water for salt mixing experience so not sure what that can cause for issues.

Hopefully the clowns perk up in the bucket, a 5 gallon pail can be their new tank for as long as you need it to be, it would be best to add an air stone though to wherever they are.

My bigger clown made it through the night in the bucket. Breathing has slowed down it seems. I will do big water change and reintroduce him after. My corals don’t look like they are dying.

 

[Tikki]

Also three fish in that tank is a lot and probably didn't help the situation.

You can read up on leaving the tank fallow to make it safe for the future fish and do quarantine in the meantime. A simple 5 or ten gallon tank from petco or similar will do the job.

Tons of resources on qt online.

I would not dose any iodine, I don’t think it’s likely you have a deficiency and overdosing isn’t good. Take everything LFS folks with a grain of salt and do your research. It’s always best to quarantine but few do. Loss sucks, we’ve all been there.
When you get your new fish and put in quarantine you can just monitor them first but it’s good to have a few medications on hand in case symptoms come along and you need to begin treatment. I would personally recommend Ich X, Metroplex and Prazipro. Cooper Power is the standard for ich but doesn’t treat everything and you’ll need to order a Hanna checker and extra reagents with that one but it’s good to have if you can. Introducing all your fish at the same time can help with aggression stress. You can have the fish running in the quarantine tank at the same time while your other tank remains fallow. Just need a cheap 10 gal aquarium and a hang on back filter and small heater. I use my hob filter with a small bag of ceramic bio beads and a wad of floss. I would get a pvc elbow for fish to hide in and pickup an Seachem ammonia alert badge. You’ll want to keep water on hand for quick water changes if ammonia creeps up in the QT. If you’re using API tests I would suggest getting some Salifert tests or Hanna checkers. They’re generally more reliable than API. If you don’t want to spend too much off the bat maybe prioritize getting one or two to start. Sometimes you can pickup Hanna checkers at a discount off the marketplace or eBay.
Edit- Oops, just noticed this was an older post. It’s definitely odd to see you have ammonia and zero nitrate in an established system. What is your filter like, I’m not familiar with the Fluval system is it an AIO? Do you have live rock? Any pics of your system?

 

[Kooma]

Ok you have seachem stability? Be sure you keep dosing that.

Grab some seachem prime to help with the ammonia.

In the bucket, do you have any really small pumps that could cavitate to suck air and add bubbles to the water? That can help with gas’s exchange and oxygenating in a pinch.

If it’s oxygen you should see that clown perk up in a few minutes as long as the ammonia hasn’t caused gill damage.

I was just reading your thread trying to see what might be the culprit, but hard to say.

Are you using Rodi water for mixing? You don’t have a well water for example with high lead, iron or copper in it that you are using? I don’t have much tap water for salt mixing experience so not sure what that can cause for issues.

Hopefully the clowns perk up in the bucket, a 5 gallon pail can be their new tank for as long as you need it to be, it would be best to add an air stone though to wherever they are.

My bigger clown made it through the night in the bucket. Breathing has slowed down it seems. I will do big water change and reintroduce him after. My corals don’t look like they are dying.

Test your water after the change before you introduce him. Ideally I would dose prime in the tank 30 minutes before you add him back, that will make the water safe for 24 hours. Daily dose prime until you see nitrates on your tests.

Was the one lying in the sand in your video the one in the bucket?

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

The tank has been running since December of last year. It is 13.5g fluva evo. Initially, the first pair of clowns I know for certain the cycle went through just watching it and testing the water while it was in fallow I would feed a little bit of fish food every now and then and dosed stability. To keep the cycle going or so I thought.

This is not a water quality issue - the snails would have shown some signs if it were.

The issue stems from the fish themselves - they have developed some disease. The three possibility are: gill flukes, velvet or coccidia. The latter has no treatment.

Do you know if these were wild caught? Try to avoid all wild caught clownfish, they have many more disease issues than captive raised ones do.

Sorry, but I’m not confident that you’ll be able to save these fish, but having a quarantine tank for new fish going forward is a good idea.

 

[BrightReefer]

Test your water after the change before you introduce him. Ideally I would dose prime in the tank 30 minutes before you add him back, that will make the water safe for 24 hours. Daily dose prime until you see nitrates on your tests.

Was the one lying in the sand in your video the one in the bucket?

I put them both in the bucket, but the one on the sand died with in hour of being there. the other one is still going when I left for work today. I have air stone pump coming today. Wave maker is pumping water up and splashing in the bucket so I think that’s ok for now

 

[BrightReefer]

This is not a water quality issue - the snails would have shown some signs if it were.

The issue stems from the fish themselves - they have developed some disease. The three possibility are: gill flukes, velvet or coccidia. The latter has no treatment.

Do you know if these were wild caught? Try to avoid all wild caught clownfish, they have many more disease issues than captive raised ones do.

Sorry, but I’m not confident that you’ll be able to save these fish, but having a quarantine tank for new fish going forward is a good idea.

They were captive bread. Is it possible my corals that I bought a week ago brought something in.

 

[BrightReefer]

I will get pictures when I get home.
The rock is that purple Carib sea life rock, it’s been in since Dec 2024. But for the first 2 to 3 months, I was putting stability and priming every day documented my water parameters. I watched my ammonia, Come up nitrites come up, then drop down to nitrates rising. Then my originally 3 fish when to crap.

The Royal gramma was wild caught. So my learning part was that and to much fish. I won’t put more than two fish in this tank now.

This time I feel like I haven’t learnt…. Yet…

aio chamber 1 has filter floss( I change 1-2 times a week), purigen, a pack of bio media. I purchased some more matrix last night.

Chamber 2 just a heater and my ammonia seachem card. (I use this to monitor but still test nitrate and ammonia weekly. Oddly enough since the fallow of the tank I never see nitrates but I change 2 gallons every week. I also feed my fish way less since the 2 new fish

Chamber 3 return pump, ato.

My coral were still closed from lights being off all night . I leave really early so I don’t usually see the tank with lights until i come home from work. One snail went missing weeks ago, can’t find him. The snails I still have seem to be ok at this point.

End of my chatter box

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

They were captive bread. Is it possible my corals that I bought a week ago brought something in.

Another common mode of disease transmission for captive raised fish is when they are sold to a store and then mixed with other, wild caught fish. This has the potential to cause an infection in the previously "safe" captive raised fish. Adding corals to a tank, those that came from a system with active disease can also cause disease in fish, through resting stages of the parasites being carried into your tank on the corals, but that is slightly less of a risk.

 

[MnFish1]

Well here’s an update i fallowed the tank from March to Aug 2. Snails were ok and I didn’t change the water More then a hand full of times.

Aug 2 i picked up 2 new clowns. The store had them in stock for almost a
Month. They have been going ok until today.

Breathing heavy lethargic , a few hour later the small one is laying on the sand now. I just did approximately 20% water change on Sunday.

Just over a week ago I added 4 coral mushroom, acan, zoa, and Duncan.

Temps 78f
Salinity 1.025sg
Ammonia 0.25 and the seachem ammonia card is 0
Nitrate 0 confirmed with 2 different tests
Nitrite 0
Phos 0 , but is api kit but for what it’s worth.

I just can’t win and I want to learn.
I’m mixing more water up now

I doubt that was the problem - the problem is that there is a disease in your tank - likely from the added livestock

 

[BrightReefer]

Well here’s an update i fallowed the tank from March to Aug 2. Snails were ok and I didn’t change the water More then a hand full of times.

Aug 2 i picked up 2 new clowns. The store had them in stock for almost a
Month. They have been going ok until today.

Breathing heavy lethargic , a few hour later the small one is laying on the sand now. I just did approximately 20% water change on Sunday.

Just over a week ago I added 4 coral mushroom, acan, zoa, and Duncan.

Temps 78f
Salinity 1.025sg
Ammonia 0.25 and the seachem ammonia card is 0
Nitrate 0 confirmed with 2 different tests
Nitrite 0
Phos 0 , but is api kit but for what it’s worth.

I just can’t win and I want to learn.
I’m mixing more water up now

So my smaller fish died, but the other one has recovered in a qt bucket. maybe my test kits are junk? Only live stock that has been added was coral in the last week… other then the clowns I got. About a month ago. I guess if it was water quality my coral and snails would be dead. You suggest to keep him in the busker? My last fallow is it possible my cycle crashed being void of coral and fish? Dipping coral isn’t enough. If you got articles to suggest I’m all to learn!

 

[MnFish1]

If you're kits are ok - and parameters ok, all good

It could be that it was An acclimation issue - but I would follow the recommendations below:
There are so many things that could be going going on here - whether it was a disease from a prior fish or brooklynella from the new fish - Its just impossible. If it were me - I would remove all fish from the tank - I would treat them with copper/prazipro protocol as noted above in the disease section - and then I would re-add fish after a 6 week fallow period. Making sure any new fish were treated with the same quarantine protocol