HAZY EYED DEAD FISH

[hikari]

Last weekend I introduced a Ritteri Anemone, 2 sebae clowns and 1 royal gramma to my 75 G tank housing 2 tomoto clowns, 1 yellow tang, 1 powder tang, 1 coral beauty, and 1 domino damsel.

Today I have 1 yellow tang, and 1 ritteri anemone still alive. Wondering if anyone can provide any insight. I noticed no issues with the fish...just monday night after work the sebae clowns and the powder tang were dead. Last night the royal gramma, coral beauty and domino damsel were dead. This morning the tomatos were dead and i have just the yellow tang and ritteri anemone left.

No clue as to why this is happening. Please provide suggestions/comments.

 

[Anonymous]

I'm gonna say extreme overstocking. Plus I'm also willing to bet this tank is relatively young. Did you test any water parameters? You need to supply some information before somebody can really help you.

BTW, what kind of lighting do you have?

 

[Anonymous]

I'm gonna say extreme overstocking. Plus I'm also willing to bet this tank is relatively young. Did you test any water parameters? You need to supply some information before somebody can really help you.

BTW, what kind of lighting do you have?

Agreed 100%. Also, are you aware of the survival rate of ritteri anemones? It's abysmally low.

 

[hikari]

Sorry for not providing more info.

Lighting is 3 CP 55W each

75G tank with WetDry, skimmer in sump
Temp at 80, PH at 7

Maybe it was the fact that i converted my wet dry into like a refugium sump. I added sand to the sump area and threw a live rock in there.

Maybe I am trying to reengineer my filtration setup and it is completely wrong...

I'll post a pic of my wetdry a bit later.

Thx

 

[Anonymous]

When adding any live rock, are you making sure it is 100% cured before you add it? You'd be surprised how much die-off can occur from just one rock.

Your pH is low at 7. Natural seawater is about 8.3 to 8.4. The pH of your tank is extremely important to the health of your animals. It's very possible your pH lowered quickly as you added all the extra animals.

You never mentioned how old the system is. I'm asking because if it's a young system then it's possible you were never fully cycled in the first place and the extra livestock sent it over the edge. Of course even in a fully cycled and healthy system, that is way too much livestock for a 75g.

Also, you may lose that anemone as well. Like Sharkky said, the survival rate is low PLUS I wouldn't recommend anemones in any lighting other than metal halide.

---waits for all the stories of "keeping ritteri with NOFL lights for months."

 

[hikari]

My tank has been cyclyed for about 7 months now. Live rock was cured post purchase from LFS for 2 weeks. Rock to the sump was taken from the tank since it was one of the smaller pieces so it was already cured. Is it possible that my sump setup is completely garbage? Please let me know.

 

[Anonymous]

Your sump isn't garbage, but for what it sounds like you want to do with the tank, it won't work at all. A wet-dry filter eventually starts producing higher nitrates. They work great for fish-only systems, but bad bad news for a reef, especially if you're trying to keep a ritteri, which require absolutely pristine water conditions and perfectly balanced water movement (not too much, not too little).

You mention 55W bulbs in your lighting. I'm guessing that's power compact fluorescent, correct? To even consider keeping the ritteri (or any anemone beyond condylactus and a couple of the lower-light bubbletips), you'd need 4 to 6 times that amount of light. I have over 600 watts of light over my 75, and I'm still terrified to try a ritteri. Instead I went with a stichlodactya gigantea (sp). Still a difficult anemone, but not nearly so as the ritteri. And mine is within 5 inches of the water surface.

Please don't take this the wrong way, because all of us in the hobby have been there at one time or another, but I'd return the ritteri to the LFS and get a couple good books instead. Plus if and when you want to add something to the tank, ask for advice on here first.

 

[Anonymous]

Books are a good idea. Books by Tullock, Fenner, Paletta, Sprung, Delbeek are great buys.

 

[SPC]

No clue as to why this is happening. Please provide suggestions/comments.

-No great mystery here, your tank is overstocked and you have (had) some animals in there that should not have been. Please research each animals requirements and basic stocking rules before you purchase. All the information you will need can be found right here on this board, free of charge.
Steve

 

[Anemone]

A question: how much live rock do you have in the tank?

I ask because it appears you reduced your filtration capacity (removed the media from the wet/dry) at roughly the same time as you added significantly to the bioload. If your tank was near its biological "carrying capacity," you may well have overwhelmed its biofiltration ability, leading to an ammonia spike (and subsequent fish deaths).

Also, I'm betting that pH reading (7) is wrong. That pH is low enough to kill the anemone and severely stress the fish all by itself.

As far as whether the live rock was cured or not, curing for two weeks in your tank doesn't necessarily equate to fully cured. An awful lot of die off can still exist within and on the rock, and two weeks would just about put it at the "high nitrite" stage of curing (ie, the nitrite-consuming bacteria haven't caught up with the nitrite production of the ammonia-consuming bacteria). you really should have taken ammonia and nitrite readings while all of this was going on. Although the removal of the majority of the bioload may have straightened out any imbalance, I'd still take readings and see what you get.

And, as others have said, 165 watts of PC lighting over a 75 gallon tank is not sufficient for most anemones....you'll have trouble with most photosynthetic corals at this level of lighting as well, and clownfish hosting anemones require as much lighting as higher-light corals.

Finally, you added two more clownfish to a tank that already had a resident pair of tomato clowns. Tomato clowns are not the friendliest fo clowns, so you probably created a great deal of stress there (along with everything else that was going on), and stress really opens the door for disease.

Good luck,

Kevin

 

[hikari]

I had about 11 lbs of live rock in the tank before. Then I cured an addtl. 11 lbs for 2 weeks in a separate tank with 2 water changes per week. Then I gave the rocks a rinse and put them in the display tank.

7 PH...how do I raise this? My fish have survived for 6 months in this ph zone...please advise if I should supplement this for higher PH. I had 2 haitian anemone in the tank and they seem to be doing great!

The LFS guys had told me I would be semi ok with 165 watts over my tank...granted I had the anemone 10 inches away from the lights thru a glass tank cover.

The new sebae clowns took to the anemone almost immediately, while the tomatos stayed by their little cave...I only noticed aggression at the very beginning when they first met.

So far I am very sad this happened. I will never overstock my tank again. I hate it when fish don't survive. I am taking the Ritteri back to the LFS until I can figure this all out.

Thanks!

 

[Anemone]

It sounds like you overwhelmed your biological filtration. 11 pounds of cured rock and 11 pounds of 1/2 cured rock won't provide enough surface area for an overstocked 75 gallon tank. Sorry you had to learn the hard way.

Kevin

 

[Anonymous]

What are you measuring your pH with anyway? There is no way your tank could even exist at pH 7.

In a 75 gallon aquarium you would need at least 35-40 pounds of rock to even think about handling the prior load, and what you added simply overwhelmed it. I would suggest you go buy some quality test kits before you do anything else.

 

[hikari]

I am ordering test kits as I type. Thank you for your valuable suggestions. I attempted to return my Ritteri Anemone to the store today but they just said that the anemone generally takes a bit of time to get accustomed to the tank and that not eating is normal. This was after I asked if they would take it back for store credit or house it until I can figure out what's up with my tank so it doesn't die. 2 words they gave me..."Good luck!". Kinda pissed. I don't think I can ever buy from them again... (For those of you in NYC...its NW Aquariums---they obviously don't care much for the sake of the wildlife they sell)

 

[Anonymous]

Hikari, please offer the anemone to other reefers with suitable tanks in your area. Go to the marketplace forum here and post it up.

 

[LeoR]

"hikari" made a mistake by rushing and trusting his LFS.
Let's not compound the error.

A 75g tank with a sand bed does not need "35-40 lbs of high quality rock". All this rock would do is drain his wallet.

Sand bed provides many times more surface than hundreds of pounds of rock ever could provide.
So, he's already got enough rock.
And his rock is probably already high-quality -- all that matters is that rock is porous, everything else is cosmetics.

LeoR

 

[Terry B]

The quickest way to wipe out an established tank is a failure to properly quarantine. Every time you skip quarantine you run the risk of bringing in a contagious parasite such as Amyloodinium which can wipe out the fish in days.
Terry B