7 dead fish in a week, perfect paramaters, NO CLUES! HELP!

[Jasonny5895]

like 6 fish dead so far (3 tangs, psudochromis,blenny, small clown), one appears sick now. There are 3 survivors. All my paramaters are perfect (ammonia 0, nitrate and nitrite 0), ph 8.2 salinity 1.021. I have temp stabalized at 78. I have a uv sterilizer hooked up and a chiller. WHAT ARE SOME POSSIBILITIES for this catastropy.

possibilities: I recently added a large tonga branch rock, mushroom rock and a gree carpet anemone (all from some one who was disassembling there tank, dont usually add som much at once.

a long with this addition I added a chiller dropping temp 4-6 degrees overnight.

 

[scarf_ace1981]

a mantis in one of the new rocks??

i would get some new test kits. somethings not right.

stray current??maybe when the heater comes on??

 

[meschaefer]

What size tank?

How long did you have each of the deceased fish?

 

[Jasonny5895]

besides the powder tang which was only a month old and i think brought a little ich in, the rest were at least a year old. The tank is a 110 x-high, which has been set up for about 3mos. It was an upgrade from my 55. I testes with 2 seperate kits (instant ocean and aquarium pharmaceuticals).

Its not a mantis because I saw a little peculiar behavior in the yellow tang the night before and all the bodys were recovered and layed to rest (toilet). There was a tiny bit of ich i was treating with cleaner shrimp and garlic soakd food as well uv sterilizer. The fish were eating like pigs every day.

 

[Jasonny5895]

And as I look in it now, my coral has never looked better, everything is just so full and colorful, no signs of closing up at all

 

[nycitaliano9]

sorry dude

 

[joseney21]

was it six or seven fish that died?? sounds fishy already. what are the rest of your parameters?? a little more about the rest of your equipment might help. I would say your SG if a little low, but if everything is used to this, especially the fish, than it shouldn't have been the problem.

 

[deelucky]

i would really backtrack in this situation.i mean not to seem rude but one day you post about 5 dead fish then you post about an achilles tang.almost as if you didnt care.anyway if you nedd help stay focused on your main goal and thats to find and correct this problem before you even think about adding any fish.lets start with what you belive to be ick and maybe the reason why you lost 6 fish.even though i believe that you would have noticed the ick problem before it claimed the lives of your fish so quick.what should be done right now is remove the for you have that are left and qt so that you could treat with medication.eg:copper.(in qt only not in the main tank!)once you have qt'ed the remaining fish leave your tank fishless for what i believe to be 8 weeks?this should atleast give your tank time to rid itself from the parasite.again please leave your tank fishless for the amount of time stated...IF ANYONE FEELS THAT THIS IS IN CORRECT PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ADD ON.THNX.​

 

[mgchan]

Did you notice any unusual behavior before finding them dead? Could their death be due to the lack of oxygen?

 

[dzuckerm]

Yeah I agree with mchan. A friend just lost a couple of fish for unknown reasons...and when I examined his tank I was struck by how little water movement he had. Plus he had his skimmer off for three days...which also acts to aerate the water. But then again, if the oxygen was low ur corals wouldnt look too good

Doug

 

[headlessblade]

if one of your fishes have ick your whole tank is infected... the treatments for ick, treat the water, not the fish itself so maybe it was ick (i dont know how u wont see it on the other fishes maybe it was over looked) look up icks life cycle there not always on the fish (stress might of been a factor since u just added to your tank)... sorry for the loss dude

 

[ellebelle]

From what you've said, it doesn't sound like ich killed the fish. I mean, yes, if you want to get the ich out of your tank, by all means follow the advice given by deelucky. But personally, I'm not convinced that is going to solve your problem. After all, if it's something else about your water, you could quarantine the fish for 8 weeks, cure them of ich, kill the rest of the ich on your tank, and still have the remaining fish die from some other cause.

Some questions to answer that might help:

Do you have a grounding probe? Someone earlier suggested that it might be a stray current in the water.

Is there someone near you that has better grade test kits? Maybe a totally independent test of your water would reveal something you've previously missed.

Are there any other signs of parasitic infection on your fish? Maybe you accidently introduced something else that kills fish faster than ich on one of the rocks you added.

What kind of peculiar behavior did you note in your yellow tang? That could help one of our fish experts give you a better diagnosis.

How are your invertebrates? Have they been affected at all?

What kind of corals do you have? If it's all zoos, mushrooms and softies, they are all extremely resilient corals. Eric (digitalreefer) once accidently left two frags of zoos in a plastic bag with no oxygen, no heat, no flow and they opened up immediately once placed in his main tank when he found them.

I would suggest QTing your remaining fish until you figure out what the problem is. Even if you don't medicate right away, you still might be saving them if it's something about your tank water (levels, lack of O2, stray currents, predator, etc.)

 

[Jasonny5895]

I have a 125 coralife skimmer, 2 power heads, ne which is a rio 1700 pump w/ a wavemake. It has been almost a week and the foxface, hippo tang clown in there now have no signs of ich, not even a spot. I am setting up a qt tank as we speak, trying to get these survivors out.

 

[Jasonny5895]

They all seemed healthy, they were all eating the day before fighting for the dried sea weed. The little ich didnt seem to slow them down. Than I introduced foreign rocks/equipment. First powder blue was dead in the morning (He was only a month old and have been told they dont always acclimate well to captivity). Than about 8 hours later I came home and my yellow tang seemed to be very low in the tank behind a rock (atypical for him), as i noticed this I realized the Kole tang was no where to be found (he was dead behind a rock. Than I couldnt find the psedochromis (never did). I dont feel any current going through the tank but will get a probe to make sure. As I said earlier a clown was sick and now dead. Im so depressed

Just to make things more confusing my corals (I KNOW there strong) but even a carpet anemone, that is traditionally sensitive is flourishing, my hippo tang seems to be as active as ever showing not a hint of ich or any weird behavior

 

[deelucky]

thats why i said ick doesnt kill fish so fast and it is easy to see.you would have noticed it.if you tested what test kit are you using?ammonia and nitrites can kill fish very quick and severly strees any fish that lives.i had a nitrite spike once by feeding bad frozen food,had i not noticed my clowns breathing heavy everything would have died.did you test the water after the deaths?something is not perfect in your tank,you'll have to check everything with a fine tooth comb.

 

[Jasonny5895]

Any one suggest a test kit that is undisputable, because both mine are the same in that my water is perfect. Im so FRUSTRATED!!!

Does anyone service tanks here and would like to help me with my situation (of course for money). Preferably someone who is fairly confident he could diagnose this problem and help me fix my reef

 

[mgchan]

How long was the tonga branch out of your friend's tank before it was introduced into yours? Was it in water when it was transferred to yours? Also, was the tank still being maintained before the branch was removed?

I agree, I don't think ich was the cause of the demise of your fish.

 

[Jasonny5895]

tonga was only out w/ moist paper towels around it for a cpl. hours. It had no smell. I think the guy let his tank go a little but it was running fairly well and had some livestock that would have died if water was totally bad. ANd this would have caused an ammonia spike which would have showed up on one of my tests, but didnt

 

[Hotwheels]

http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/saltwaterfishdiseases/Fish_Diseases_Health_Issues.htmhttp://saltaquarium.about.com/cs/co.../od/ichparasiticdiseases/a/aabrooklynella.htm
http://saltaquarium.about.com/cs/compldiagnodisease/a/aa041701.htm
http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/ichparasiticdiseases/a/aabrooklynella.htm

here are a few sites that might help you. You might have something that is not so visible as ich...
Sorry about your loss... extreme temp changes can cause high stress on fish. Imo you should clean any sponges, carbon bags and or any type of filtration. dead fish promote more bacteria. meaning you may have started with one thing ( a sick fish) this causing other types of sickness's.

 

[daisy]

I am SO very sorry for all your losses. That just sucks. I have been following this thread and thinking a lot about what's going on in your tank...

can you "feel" stray current in a tank? I am unaware of how one tests for it, but I don't think it's by using your skin...

On the other hand, if it were a stray current problem, wouldn't it have affected all of the fish? And you said that you have some fish who are thriving...

So does this rule out the stray current theory?

On the other hand, one fish dying but not removed can cause an ammonia spike if the tank does not have the clean-up crew to eat it all quickly. ...but you said all params are perfect, so that doesn't seem to fit the bill...

On the other hand, when did you perform the tests? How quickly can a spike be rectified by the bacteria in the tank? Could it be that one fish died, there was a spike and others died (were the "hardier fish" the ones that have survived and the ones who need more perfect water the ones who died? This would support disease or ammonia spike as opposed to stray current, which would be indiscriminate as to victims...), and then the cleaners found the dead fish (and you removed the others) and the tank returned to its equilibrium...

At this point, how long has it been since anything died?