Heart broken...

[Alfredo De La Fe]

I am absolutely heart broken... I just went to feed my fish and only three came out. Looking closer I found that one of my clowns and my BEAUTIFUL Bartlett's Anthias were dead... The male lyretail anthias, flame angel and mimic tang are nowhere to be found.

Shrimp, clam and corals are all doing fine. What could it have been?

Alfred

 

[prattreef]

Ammonia spike and /or a drop in dissolved oxygen levels are the usual culprits. Did you lose power and not know it?

 

[Alfredo De La Fe]

Not at all... My skimmer is running and so everything else seems to be OK, with the exception of cyano due to feeding my clam. (Trying to nurse it back to health) I have been using ESV phyoplankton, but I also change out my filter sock almost daily.

I don't have a testkit here, but I doubt that ammonia would test at all. (Well, with so many dead fish I can't get at it MAY very well show up tomorrow!)

Alfred

 

[fishman1069]

That sux dude. Sorry for your losses

 

[Geraud]

Velvet outbreak? Have you introduced anything recently?

 

[Domboski]

My first guess would be a dramatic change in water conditions (PH, Ammonia, Oxygen, Temp, etc).

Second guess would be an aggressive disease such as velvet.

To lose so many fish in a short period of time points in one of those two directions. Do you see anything on the fish that are still alive?

 

[Alfredo De La Fe]

Definitely velvet or a very aggressive strain of Ich. The one clown that is alive is "coated" in it, the bangai that died in front of our eyes had cloudy eyes...

I added fish from the MRA black Friday sale. But this was very sudden. The only thing I can think of is that I disturbed my sandbed when I was getting rid of the cyanobacteria bloom and made the water pretty cloudy. This obviously raised the PO4 levels and stressed the fish out.

I plan on changing out the sand ASAP and changing 75% of the water. I won't add fish for at least 6-8 weeks and I may borrow my dad's UV...

Alfred

 

[Domboski]

It's likely velvet. It kills fish pretty quickly.

 

[Alfredo De La Fe]

I have never shed tears over the loss of fish, even when I lost all of my SPS's and fish from a major blackout. It hurt, but I maintained my composure. This time I got pretty choked up, I had seen this as a "come back" story and got attached to the fish I had rather quickly. The clowns had made the RBTA their home and they were paired up nicely... The flame angel was fat, healthy and came out to greet us whenever we went to the tank, the Bartlett (tri-color) Anthias was graceful and also would greet us begging for food...

The tank was thriving and while corals have not had a chance to grow in and the clam I picked up from Dr. Mac at the swap is still struggling, with lot's of TLC it has survived.

The wind has been knocked out of my sails... Trying to get over it and do what I have to do to get things going again. This time it is a lot harder than in times past.

Alfred

 

[Domboski]

I have never shed tears over the loss of fish, even when I lost all of my SPS's and fish from a major blackout. It hurt, but I maintained my composure. This time I got pretty choked up, I had seen this as a "come back" story and got attached to the fish I had rather quickly. The clowns had made the RBTA their home and they were paired up nicely... The flame angel was fat, healthy and came out to greet us whenever we went to the tank, the Bartlett (tri-color) Anthias was graceful and also would greet us begging for food...

The tank was thriving and while corals have not had a chance to grow in and the clam I picked up from Dr. Mac at the swap is still struggling, with lot's of TLC it has survived.

The wind has been knocked out of my sails... Trying to get over it and do what I have to do to get things going again. This time it is a lot harder than in times past.

Alfred

The first thing I would recommend is buying the proper test kits. These systems are sensitive and any change in levels can bring on big problems quickly. You need to monitor water conditions as often as possible. For example, most phytoplankton I've tested has phosphates through the roof and who knows what else in it. If you feed too much you can potentially cause shifts in your water chemistry depending on tank size. If you spiked ammonia even briefly, it would be enough to weaken your fish enough to get overwhelmed by velvet.

 

[Alfredo De La Fe]

I used to have all of the kits, but I have been at this long enough that I know when something is wrong. I realized that PO4 was high and I suspected the phytoplankton.

In either case, I actually bought all of the test kits with the exception of ALK, CA and Mg. They did not have good test kits for these. It is amazing how high my PO4 got from feeding phytoplankton for just two weeks! It was a 1.0 last night! This is AFTER I added a bag of chemipure two days before! I am taking my Phosban reactor home tonight, I have Tim coming over soon to do a 30 Gallon water change, change the sand and he will bring ROWA meda for the reactor...

Don't have the RO unit set up at my apartment yet, been using distilled water to replace evaporated water and for small water changes. Cheaper to pay for someone to come do maintenance and a major water change (besides, I need the help and I am too tired to mess with such a major job on my own!)

Alfred

 

[Domboski]

Why are you changing the sand?

 

[Alfredo De La Fe]

It is very old and I had let the system sit for almost two years without lights to let everything die off. Just doing it as a precaution.

Alfred

 

[House of Laughter]

Alfredo,

I have 2 old fish I would like to move on to a larger tank - Jhale's black and gold scopas tang and a Hawaiian tomimi tang. Both are in my system 5 years and I know Jhale had them for at least 3.5 years, if not more.

I want to replace with a teneti or orange shoulder and something else (zebramosa)

if you want to take them, let me know when you'll be ready.

House

 

[Domboski]

It is very old and I had let the system sit for almost two years without lights to let everything die off. Just doing it as a precaution.

Alfred

That should be fun for Tim!

Eric (beerfish) alerted me to the high phosphates in phyto. I couldn't believe it myself.

 

[Alfredo De La Fe]

Thanks house, I will let you know. But this was my 40 breeder, which may be too small.

My 180 needs a LOT of work, figured I would fix my 40 first then get started on all of the upgrades to my 180.

>sigh< Still down from the loss...

Alfred

 

[Bettencourt]

Heartbroke x2

I had a major wipe out yesterday. It took place before my eyes. I had just finished a major clean up, filters, water etc. Even finally tied up some wires. Anyway MY FAULT. It all started when I turned the pumps back on. Within minutes the Chromis, then the Coral Beauty, Kole etc all looked real bad and dies within a half hour. I must not have rinsed the filter (ocean clear) of all residue bleech. Thank god two of use were home. Last ditch effort I made up two 30 gals of salt using straight tap water. Dumped it in within minutes. I had nothing to loose at this point. I have a well so no chlorine. Also, I pulled out the clean Ocean Clean filter, throw the dirty one back in and packed it with charcoal. I also added an air stone and put the skimmer into overdrive. Everything settled down within 3 hrs. and look fine today. All the corals, fish, etc. Have my R/O working overtime now and doing daily water changes. None of this was scientific, just a best guess, can't loose response to the issue.
You mentioned that you change out your filter socks almost daily. How are you cleaning them? Any bleech, washing machine? Just a thought.

 

[Alfredo De La Fe]

I wash them in the washing machine with a lot of clorox, but I dry them out before using.

Some chlorine should not cause such a problem, how big is your tank? I know people that purposefully add drops of chlorine to their skimmer intake to cause them to "kick in".

I saw the ich on the last fish that died. I think the fish got stressed out because I was cleaning the tank and disturbed the sand. Caused a big spike in Phosphate.

Alfred

 

[ducati335i]

I wash them in the washing machine with a lot of clorox, but I dry them out before using.

Some chlorine should not cause such a problem, how big is your tank? I know people that purposefully add drops of chlorine to their skimmer intake to cause them to "kick in".

I saw the ich on the last fish that died. I think the fish got stressed out because I was cleaning the tank and disturbed the sand. Caused a big spike in Phosphate.

Alfred

if you can hypo your tangs.. only way to have ich is if a fish has and its not treated or its introduced,,,
sorry about the fish, that stuff ruins my weeks after all the hard work we put in

 

[mbg75]

Ich or velvet, the tank needs to be fallow for 8 week minimum. Closer to 10 weeks for 99% of no return.

After that point. U might want to qt all fish that go in.