Why did both of my clownfish (my only fish) die suddenly?

[nick t]

I had two clown fish in my new tank for almost a month now. I acquired the fish as quarantined from Dr. Reef. Tank was cycled with live sand, dry rock, Dr. Tim’s bacteria and anmmonia and the only other thing I’ve added since is copepods and phytoplankton from algae barn.

My fish seemed totally fine before I went to bed and the next time I saw them they were laying together dead. Maybe 15 hours later.

My parameters seem almost perfect from what I understand. I’m using the Red Sea master kit.

Salinity 35 ppt
Temp 78f
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 20 (higher than I prefer I thought this was acceptable for a FOWLR?)
Ph 8

I did top off my tank before bed with about 2 gallons of RODI water into my 55 gallon tank. My only suspicion is that my chlorine filter went bad, but I just received chlorine test from BRS today and they indicate my RODI water is chlorine free.

I have a firefish and royal gramma scheduled to be delivered in two weeks from Dr. Reef but I’m not sure if I should put them in this tank unless I figure this out.

I feed frozen LRS Reef Frenzy from a shot glass and turkey baster that I rinse after each use.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Evas_reef]

Sorry to hear this. They were beautiful. My initial thought was the phyto causing an amonia spike if you haven’t got coral stock/tank inhabitants devouring it. But if your levels were taken after they passed, the look ok. Did the addition of RO affect your salinity or were these readings taken after you found them?

Another thought was aggression from the female but you’d expect her to survive..

Just some thoughts. I’m still learning - don’t think the learning stops in this hobby - but I’m sure there are many more experienced reefers who could add to this. Best of luck in finding the issue.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I had two clown fish in my new tank for almost a month now. I acquired the fish as quarantined from Dr. Reef. Tank was cycled with live sand, dry rock, Dr. Tim’s bacteria and anmmonia and the only other thing I’ve added since is copepods and phytoplankton from algae barn.

My fish seemed totally fine before I went to bed and the next time I saw them they were laying together dead. Maybe 15 hours later.

My parameters seem almost perfect from what I understand. I’m using the Red Sea master kit.

Salinity 35 ppt
Temp 78f
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 20 (higher than I prefer I thought this was acceptable for a FOWLR?)
Ph 8

I did top off my tank before bed with about 2 gallons of RODI water into my 55 gallon tank. My only suspicion is that my chlorine filter went bad, but I just received chlorine test from BRS today and they indicate my RODI water is chlorine free.

I have a firefish and royal gramma scheduled to be delivered in two weeks from Dr. Reef but I’m not sure if I should put them in this tank unless I figure this out.

I feed frozen LRS Reef Frenzy from a shot glass and turkey baster that I rinse after each use.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

The clown on the right has inflamed gills and can be from death, gill flukes, fighting, ammonia spike and more. My suspicion is ammonia and oxygen. Regarding Nitrates, while fish can tolerate higher levels, do not make it a goal to run high. 20 or below is acceptable
I would test your RO water source to assure nothing out of the ordinary and also when water was added to tank, was it same temperature or colder?
Prior to discovering this, were fish eating and breathing normal?

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Do you have any flow and surface agitation going on for gas exchange?
Any plastic ornaments in the tank?

 

[Evas_reef]

The clown on the right has inflamed gills and can be from death, gill flukes, fighting, ammonia spike and more. My suspicion is ammonia and oxygen. Regarding Nitrates, while fish can tolerate higher levels, do not make it a goal to run high. 20 or below is acceptable
I would test your RO water source to assure nothing out of the ordinary and also when water was added to tank, was it same temperature or colder?
Prior to discovering this, were fish eating and breathing normal?

Just looked and saw this! I’ve learned something there. Thank you

 

[nick t]

Did the addition of RO affect your salinity or were these readings taken after you found them?

I checked parameters after finding the dead fish. If anything, the RO water brought the salinity back down to 35 ppt.

 

[nick t]

Do you have any flow and surface agitation going on for gas exchange?
Any plastic ornaments in the tank?

Both my power heads and my canister are set to agitate the surface. Maybe I need to increase agitation? No plastic in the tank other than the rim and the tubing for my canister.

 

[nick t]

The clown on the right has inflamed gills and can be from death, gill flukes, fighting, ammonia spike and more. My suspicion is ammonia and oxygen. Regarding Nitrates, while fish can tolerate higher levels, do not make it a goal to run high. 20 or below is acceptable
I would test your RO water source to assure nothing out of the ordinary and also when water was added to tank, was it same temperature or colder?
Prior to discovering this, were fish eating and breathing normal?

I understand the nitrate thing and intend to bring them down. I just meant to share my thinking that nitrates aren’t the issue.

I considered the disease/parasites as well but it does seem very strange they died together.

I tested ammonia, but ammonia or oxygen makes the most sense to me since they died together.

I’ll check parameters on RO water and see what I come up with.

Thanks for your help

 

[MnFish1]

I had two clown fish in my new tank for almost a month now. I acquired the fish as quarantined from Dr. Reef. Tank was cycled with live sand, dry rock, Dr. Tim’s bacteria and anmmonia and the only other thing I’ve added since is copepods and phytoplankton from algae barn.

My fish seemed totally fine before I went to bed and the next time I saw them they were laying together dead. Maybe 15 hours later.

My parameters seem almost perfect from what I understand. I’m using the Red Sea master kit.

Salinity 35 ppt
Temp 78f
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 20 (higher than I prefer I thought this was acceptable for a FOWLR?)
Ph 8

I did top off my tank before bed with about 2 gallons of RODI water into my 55 gallon tank. My only suspicion is that my chlorine filter went bad, but I just received chlorine test from BRS today and they indicate my RODI water is chlorine free.

I have a firefish and royal gramma scheduled to be delivered in two weeks from Dr. Reef but I’m not sure if I should put them in this tank unless I figure this out.

I feed frozen LRS Reef Frenzy from a shot glass and turkey baster that I rinse after each use.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

So - just to recap you had 2 healthy fish - overnight they died. With no new additions. The fish had been in your tank for a month. They were quarantined previously by @Dr. Reef. This suggests - unless the QT was not effective - that its something in your tank. I.e. a toxin. Low O2, High ammonia (something dead) - or another external issue (sprays, etc) - though I don't believe personally that thats likely. IMH - the water change should be a non-issue - you can check it for chlorine - but 2 gallons in 55 gallons should not be a large amount - unless your RODI is really messed up.

Disease would be weird to cause this - a month later without a stressor - did you add other fish, etc - that were not QT'd - within the month? Do you have any other fish, etc - that are doing ok (inverts, fish, etc) - that would mitigate against ammonia (to a degree)

 

[nick t]

So - just to recap you had 2 healthy fish - overnight they died. With no new additions. The fish had been in your tank for a month. They were quarantined previously by @Dr. Reef. This suggests - unless the QT was not effective - that its something in your tank. I.e. a toxin. Low O2, High ammonia (something dead) - or another external issue (sprays, etc) - though I don't believe personally that thats likely. IMH - the water change should be a non-issue - you can check it for chlorine - but 2 gallons in 55 gallons should not be a large amount - unless your RODI is really messed up.

Disease would be weird to cause this - a month later without a stressor - did you add other fish, etc - that were not QT'd - within the month? Do you have any other fish, etc - that are doing ok (inverts, fish, etc) - that would mitigate against ammonia (to a degree)

These were the only two living things in the tank besides copepods and nitrifying bacteria

 

[Porcupine Reefer]

Was your water heated? Because its possible that fish could get shocked by temperature changes if you put straight cold water into the aquarium.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

These were the only two living things in the tank besides copepods and nitrifying bacteria

This is KEY, and was the question I was going to ask - in virtually every case, when all the fish die, but the invertebrates are all fine, the issue was a fish disease, and that is an important diagnostic tool. Trouble is, in this case, you didn't have any invertebrates in the tank, so you cannot rule out some water quality issue.

Jay

 

[To(meany)Tang]

I checked parameters after finding the dead fish. If anything, the RO water brought the salinity back down to 35 ppt.

Back down? Did you have a salinity spike? Maybe I'm misreading

 

[smootie]

The sudden death of both fish makes me wonder if a poison of some kind was introduced to the tank or the area near the tank, maybe an aerosol or spray of some kind. I recently read a forum post about how someone killed most of the the fish in their tank because the glass spray they had used for years (without any problems) had been reformulated.

It's seems really unlikely to me that a sudden drop in temp or salinity from the top-off RO water would kill the clownfish. Two gallons, even if the water was much hotter or colder than the rest of the water in the tank, would not change the temp enough to be lethal. And adding the RO water would decrease the salinity slightly, which would also not kill healthy fish (it's a suddent increase in salinity that causes issues).

 

[MnFish1]

These were the only two living things in the tank besides copepods and nitrifying bacteria

IMHO - something happened in your tank - unclear what - that caused a problem - I guess I always go back to the most recent change - which was the water you added. It's really unclear to me what toxin you could have added (2 gallons to 55) - that would do this - but it's the only thing I can think of. Unless there was some disease brewing and coincidentally both fish died

 

[jabberwock]

Full tank shot may be helpful.

 

[kevgib67]

Sorry to hear, losing your first two fish sucks. I hope you can rectify the problem before the next ones arrive.

 

[MnFish1]

Was your water heated? Because its possible that fish could get shocked by temperature changes if you put straight cold water into the aquarium.

Not 2 gallons in 55 IMHO - would make no difference

 

[MnFish1]

By the way - did you ever have any other fish in the tank that died - before the clowns - that could have left a disease>

 

[nick t]

This is KEY, and was the question I was going to ask - in virtually every case, when all the fish die, but the invertebrates are all fine, the issue was a fish disease, and that is an important diagnostic tool. Trouble is, in this case, you didn't have any invertebrates in the tank, so you cannot rule out some water quality issue.

Jay

I understand. Trouble is, where do I go now?

Thanks