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massive die off. Please help!!!!!!
- Thread starter reeferkid
- Start date
I see both sides... The water change will lower the toxicity for the remaining fish and enough ammonia and nitrates remain to cycle. In a perfect world the cycle should be fishless.... To each there own. No disrespectful taken or towards you because I know you know what your talking about.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
I just tested my water. I think the nitrate and nitrite numbers were switched in the initial post.
Current number:
Ammonia: 0 or undetected
Nitrite (NO2): Between 0.1 and 0.2
Nitrate (NO3)-: Between 2 and 5
I see my female clown on the way out. It's weak. I see strings (may be meats) on the side of the body hanging out.
Prior to dying, my 2 clowns constantly swim close to my skunk cleaner shrimp. They never swim near the shrimps. Does that mean they are picking the parasite off the body.
Also mentioned, I have 2 skunk cleaner shrimp. I hand feed them. They are hungry, which means they are fine. So that means the water is fine?
Prior to putting the new dry rocks from BRS into my tank, I cycled the rocks with Instant Ocean Bio-Spira in a Brute trash can for 2 weeks.
One more thing, I did mentioned in the initial post that I run a Zeovit system. I am using Zeobak for a bacteria source.
Thanks for everyone's input.
Current number:
Ammonia: 0 or undetected
Nitrite (NO2): Between 0.1 and 0.2
Nitrate (NO3)-: Between 2 and 5
I see my female clown on the way out. It's weak. I see strings (may be meats) on the side of the body hanging out.
Prior to dying, my 2 clowns constantly swim close to my skunk cleaner shrimp. They never swim near the shrimps. Does that mean they are picking the parasite off the body.
Also mentioned, I have 2 skunk cleaner shrimp. I hand feed them. They are hungry, which means they are fine. So that means the water is fine?
Prior to putting the new dry rocks from BRS into my tank, I cycled the rocks with Instant Ocean Bio-Spira in a Brute trash can for 2 weeks.
One more thing, I did mentioned in the initial post that I run a Zeovit system. I am using Zeobak for a bacteria source.
Thanks for everyone's input.
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One more thing, I did not do water change after I put the first livestock into the tank. I started water change after one month after I put the livestocks in. I ran a 14 days Zeovit cycle.
Here is the link:
ZeoVit Basic Information (FAQ) - zeovit.com
Here is the link:
ZeoVit Basic Information (FAQ) - zeovit.com
I am sorry but there are quite a few flags here. You say you cycled the rock with bio-spira? Bio-Spira is live bacteria that needs to be fed. So when you use it you need to add some fish with it to keep it going. If you added it with rock for 2 weeks without a nitrate source you just killed it. There was no cycling what so ever.
Zeoback is not instant bacteria like Bio-Spira or Dr. Tim. Bacteria needs a place to cultivate and that takes time if it is not active.
Yes, if a fish is going to a shrimp it means they are looking for cleaning. So as someone suggested before, if you see no signs of ICH but your fish are dying in hours that has to be velvet. However, I looked at the pic of the clown you posted a few hours ago and saw no ICH on it, so I do not think it is velvet.
That said, I see that you do seem to keep going back to asking repeated questions that your shrimp is fine and coral is fine so water is fine. I think you have been given quite a few suggestions on this thread already. If you did not mean to adhere by the suggestions why did you start this thread in the first place?
Zeoback is not instant bacteria like Bio-Spira or Dr. Tim. Bacteria needs a place to cultivate and that takes time if it is not active.
Yes, if a fish is going to a shrimp it means they are looking for cleaning. So as someone suggested before, if you see no signs of ICH but your fish are dying in hours that has to be velvet. However, I looked at the pic of the clown you posted a few hours ago and saw no ICH on it, so I do not think it is velvet.
That said, I see that you do seem to keep going back to asking repeated questions that your shrimp is fine and coral is fine so water is fine. I think you have been given quite a few suggestions on this thread already. If you did not mean to adhere by the suggestions why did you start this thread in the first place?
Paul B
NJRC Member
Of course we can't see your tank from here but I notice a few things. First of all, nitrates did not kill your fish, nor did ammonia. Fish can tolerate nitrates well over 150. My fish now, which are almost all spawning are in my tank with nitrates about 80 and have been for years. If they died from ammonia, they would have been gasping or died with their gills flaired out. My opinion is that your fish died from a parasite but I can't tell unless I see the gill of one up really lose. I have a microscope and jewelers loupe which makes that very easy. You can't tell much without looking inside the fish from here anyway. If I saw the fish just before they died I could probably tell you what they are dying from. Your corals look fine so your water is fine.
So sorry for your losses. I am still positive that this is nitrite related. Did you test again for nitrite?
This is a good read. http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-06/rhf/index.php#6
Where are you located?
This is a good read. http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-06/rhf/index.php#6
Where are you located?
There's a lot more folks here with a lot more experience than me, but with so many losses so quickly and so close together the only things running through my head are:
A cycle,
Something was spilled into or mistakenly added to the tank,
A toxic invertebrate died (anem, cucumber),
or could a heavy stray voltage do this?
Anyways, just a few thoughts off the top of my head to help fuel the think tank.
Sorry you're going through this.
A cycle,
Something was spilled into or mistakenly added to the tank,
A toxic invertebrate died (anem, cucumber),
or could a heavy stray voltage do this?
Anyways, just a few thoughts off the top of my head to help fuel the think tank.
Sorry you're going through this.
I thought of all possibility. May be toxin from corals. I don't have any invert except the 2 shrimps. spill is unlikely because I have a canopy that is almost as high as me. I'm 6 feet. I did change carbon and my zeolite rocks, but like I said, I would see it in my coral first.
What about heavy metal poisoning?
I would also take your water somewhere to be tested, ACC will do this for you down in Ocean. I have seen plenty of bad test kits lead myself and others down the wrong path in the past. For now you are going to have to accept losing the fish, unless you can move them to QT ASAP. Something in the water that would kill coral doesn't bother fish, but others it is the opposite, tough part of this hobby.
1. The new fish you introduced may very well have introduced a parasite. The parasite may have taken advantage of the stressed fish from the tank move, or the fish could have succumbed to something already in your system. If you still have live fish, I would pull them. I would immediately begin a QT. If they have white dots (ich) I would begin a treatment with either Cu or hypo. If they have velvet, I have actually had some luck with fresh water baths (don't forget to equalize the Ph before you try this) and Cu, but I still lost almost 1/3 of the infected fish at the time. I followed up the treatment with a broad spectrum antibiotic, which I think improved survival levels, but that is just speculation on my part, and we used medicated food at the time (with the fish that were still eating).
2. If your fish are all gone, I'm very sorry for your loss. I know I get very attached to my fish, and this is heartbreaking when it happens. I would consider adding a UV sterilizer (if you don't have one already) if you are not going to QT your new fish before adding them to the tank.
3. Cycling the tank. You mentioned you used dry rock and new crushed coral sand. You didn't mention whether or not anything was introduced with the rock to begin the cycle. Was the sand live sand or dry sand? Did you introduce an ammonia source? Were you running a skimmer at this time?
2. If your fish are all gone, I'm very sorry for your loss. I know I get very attached to my fish, and this is heartbreaking when it happens. I would consider adding a UV sterilizer (if you don't have one already) if you are not going to QT your new fish before adding them to the tank.
3. Cycling the tank. You mentioned you used dry rock and new crushed coral sand. You didn't mention whether or not anything was introduced with the rock to begin the cycle. Was the sand live sand or dry sand? Did you introduce an ammonia source? Were you running a skimmer at this time?
Thank you.
I don't have any fish left. I'm heartbroken when my hippo died. I did a little research for Velvet. An article on liveaquaria said if it's Velvet, soak the dead fish in freshwater and see if any parasites come out. So that's what I'm doing right now with my chromis.
I have a UV sterilizer, but would it kills off the good bacteria too?
This is the timeline:
Got the dry rock from BRS. Soaked them with fresh RO/DI in a brute trash can for 1 week with pump and airline. After a week, water was drained and new saltwater was added along with half a bottle of Bio-Spira. After a week, 50% water change with the other half bottle of Bio-Spira. While that was going, got 40 pounds of dry crushed corals soaking in bucket with fresh RO/DI with water change daily. After about 2 1/2 weeks of rocks being soaked in saltwater, I moved it to the DT with fresh saltwater. While it was in my DT, I had only rocks with crush corals for about a week without lights. I added fish food to help with the cycle. After a week, I started the 14 days cycle of Zeovit with skimmer and carbon and lights. By the 10th day of the cycle, I added 2 blue chromis to see how they would do in the new tank. After a week, they were hungry and well. So Petco had 20% saltwater fish. I picked up 4 more blue chromis. That's when I realized one of the chromis I put in had white dots on the fin and tail.
I should've waited to move livestock from my old tank to the new one, but my old skimmer on my old tank broke for awhile and the stand was about to break. I couldn't wait.
So I moved the yellow and hippo tangs along with 2 clowns and 2 chromis into the new tank after a week of putting the chromis I picked up from Petco.
Another week have passed, everyone was happy and eating. I moved the diamond Goby with 2 shrimps into my DT from a 20 gallons tub I had running after I took my old tank out. At the same time, I moved all my LPS and some of the SPS into my DT because it was over crowded in the tub.
May be a week or two passed, I picked up 2 Lystail Anthias from LPS. Another 1 to 2 weeks passed, everyone was happy and hungry. Then I noticed one of my Anthias was gone, then few days later, another Anthias was gone and a chromis. Then my hippo went into hiding and won't eat. About a week and 1/2 later, no one came out to eat. Next day (last Friday), my hippo died. Then 2 chromis, diamond goby, male clown, female clown, yellow tang, and another chromis this morning. Can't find 2 chromis and a neon goby. My ammonia still at zero.
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I'm sorry to hear that. I know how hard it can be to lose fish and not be sure why.
I have a couple of suggestions for you, so that something like this does not happen again.
1. When setting up a new tank, there is really no good reason to soak dry crushed coral or dry rock in RODI water for a long period of time (in my honest opinion), unless you are worried one or both are dirty. If the rock is dead, and used to have sponge etc. on it, yes, then you rinse it, but some dead organic material is useful in starting a cycle in my opinion (note- live aquaria disagrees with me). If you rinsed it all off with the RODI bath, then you are unlikely to have anything to start a cycle with. You need to feed it to start a cycle. So the 2 weeks in salted RODI with no ammonia source probably didn't do anything helpful for you. I think this is what you were trying to do with the biosphera, but if it didn't have anything to eat, it wouldn't do any good. The bacteria would just die. Followed by the 50% water change, you were just setting yourself back inadvertently again. As a side note, airline tubing plus a pump (a bubbler) isn't likely enough agitation when trying to cycle live rock, which is what you were trying to do. For future reference, you would want to do this with a pump (think maxijet, koralia or something that creates more significant agitation), you need to heat the water, and you needed to start feeding the bio-sphere immediately. You mentioned using 1 bottle, 1/2 at a time. What size was the bottle? How many gallons was it supposed to treat? By the time you added the fish food, you just likely didn't have enough bacteria in there or enough of an ammonia source.
Re: the crushed coral, I understand if you are trying to remove dust, but there is really no good reason to soak it in RODI for weeks at a time. For the future, if you feel you need to rinse it go ahead, but then you would want to add a cup or two of live sand from another running saltwater aquarium, to seed the sand with bacteria. Again, I think you tried to do this via adding the bio-sphera to your rock container, but it doesn't sound like you ever added the bacteria to the tank.
2. You mentioned adding Chromis. I've been in this hobby for a very long time, and years ago, people used chromis and other damsels to cycle a tank. If that was your intention (and I'm not going to go into the ethics of that decision right now), you didn't give it nearly long enough. You needed to give the tank, and the chromis, 4-6 weeks and you should have been testing nitrates, nitrites, and ammonia to see where you tank was in the cycle, and if in fact it ever started.
3. Zeovit, Carbon, and skimmer. Anything you had done to create a cycle prior to this point, the zeo, carbon and skimmer stopped dead in its tracks. The Skimmer and carbon pulled out the dissolved organics. The zeo pulled out anything that was left that those two things left.
4. You added a lot of fish to a 90 g tank over the course of 1 month. The tank had been "set up" for no more than 6 weeks. Now, all your fish are unfortunately dead. While I understand you didn't realize this would happen, and wish you could undo it, let's talk about what led you to this point.
Reading your posts, it sounds like you inadvertently failed to cycle your tank. I noticed that you didn't mention testing the tank at all until yesterday. Just that your ammonia is still at 0, yesterday and today. I think this is where you really went wrong. I'm guilty of under-testing (as Mike will attest), but you really needed to be testing no less than ever other or every third day, and documenting the cycle to be sure your tank was ready, and it doesn't sound like you did this. If you never had ammonia, you never got to a cycle. This used to be what people would call new tank syndrome in the late 70s and early 80s. Put all the fish in the tank, the fish survive for a little while, and then all of them die. Here, it sounds to me as if you introduced your fish into a very stressful environment, a new uncycled tank, and added inhabitants way too fast to be honest.
The silver lining (if there is any here) is that your next batch of fish will be going into a cycled tank.
To avoid this happening again, I'd first pull all of your coral. You don't want to expose them to what I'm going to suggest you do. Put them in your 20g tub with a light and a skimmer and a powerhead.
I'd suggest you get a piece of shrimp from the grocery store, and toss it into the tank. Turn off your skimmer. Stop dosing Zeo. Turn off your carbon reactor. Just leave your pumps on. Run a normal light cycle for your tank. Add a pinch or so of food every day. You are trying to create ammonia here. You want to test every to every other day. You need to track your nitrogen cycle. This should take 30-45 days. I like Red Sea's test kits and Salifert's test kits. As others have suggested, I would take your water to Trop, ACC, or AO and ask them to test it for you too so you have a reference point other than your own.
At the end of the 45 days, after the tank has gone through a cycle, I would then turn your skimmer on about 1 week before you add fish. I'd leave the whole thing fallow for 60-80 days. You likely either had ich or velvet. You need to let it go through its life cycle before you add any more fish.
Fish.
If you are going to continue to buy from Petco or another store like it, I strongly suggest you set up a QT system. Set up your 20g bin for this (after you sterilize it), and QT (with hypo I'd suggest) for 45 days. Consider freshwater baths for parasites. Consider de-worming food. You will likely need all three if you are going to buy routinely from Petco or other stores that do not do any medication of fish, unless you are incredibly lucky.
Stocking and husbandry.
Let's start with husbandry. By the time a fish hides, you are in trouble. I'd suggest in addition to a QT, you see if you can find yourself a small hospital tank. Having a small tank (like a 10g) available at a moment's notice, along with a heater, a powerhead, and some general medication will really help you in the long run. Had you had this equipment, you may have been able to rip the tank apart, medicate the fish, and save some of them. You can use almost no medications in a reef tank. That is where the hospital tank comes into play. I know that given your equipment failures you probably didn't have this option, but it is something to think about before you buy any more fish.
On the topic of fish. Tangs and Anthias. I wouldn't beat you up over it if you still had these fish, but I'd caution you to think long and hard before buying a second hippo.
A Hippo is among the fish I would love to have. But my tank isn't big enough. It is only 210g and 5 feet. I can't have a Hippo because I don't have a large enough tank for it to be healthy. It will get big, if it doesn't die young. It will need a bigger tank than I have to be healthy. 6 feet plus. Otherwise, it will be a magnet for disease. So, I don't have a Hippo. The yellow is a better choice for a 90g. It is also a much hardier fish. This is where your UV comes in. You need one rated for a 90g if you are going to ignore me and get a hippo again. This fish will be a disease magnet in a tank that is too small, and a 90, unless yours is the exception rather than the rule, is probably going to be too small. The UV light kills the bacteria in the water that is pumped through it. It doesn't hurt the bacteria in the sand, or in the rock. Just in the water. If you had one, and your outbreak was Ick, it may have slowed it down.
Anthias. Anthias need an established tank. They need to eat frequently to be healthy. Before you buy another anthia, try to have your tank up and running for 6-9 months. I know this is hard, but your chances of success with increase dramatically if you can do this. Your tank needs to mature for you to be able to house a delicate fish like an anthia with long term success. I know many very good aquarists who struggle with anthias. If you are absolutely in love with them, think about buying an anthia like a sunburst that is hardier.
Finally, I'm very sorry you lost all of your fish. Sending you a hug over the forum. I know this sucks.
I have a couple of suggestions for you, so that something like this does not happen again.
1. When setting up a new tank, there is really no good reason to soak dry crushed coral or dry rock in RODI water for a long period of time (in my honest opinion), unless you are worried one or both are dirty. If the rock is dead, and used to have sponge etc. on it, yes, then you rinse it, but some dead organic material is useful in starting a cycle in my opinion (note- live aquaria disagrees with me). If you rinsed it all off with the RODI bath, then you are unlikely to have anything to start a cycle with. You need to feed it to start a cycle. So the 2 weeks in salted RODI with no ammonia source probably didn't do anything helpful for you. I think this is what you were trying to do with the biosphera, but if it didn't have anything to eat, it wouldn't do any good. The bacteria would just die. Followed by the 50% water change, you were just setting yourself back inadvertently again. As a side note, airline tubing plus a pump (a bubbler) isn't likely enough agitation when trying to cycle live rock, which is what you were trying to do. For future reference, you would want to do this with a pump (think maxijet, koralia or something that creates more significant agitation), you need to heat the water, and you needed to start feeding the bio-sphere immediately. You mentioned using 1 bottle, 1/2 at a time. What size was the bottle? How many gallons was it supposed to treat? By the time you added the fish food, you just likely didn't have enough bacteria in there or enough of an ammonia source.
Re: the crushed coral, I understand if you are trying to remove dust, but there is really no good reason to soak it in RODI for weeks at a time. For the future, if you feel you need to rinse it go ahead, but then you would want to add a cup or two of live sand from another running saltwater aquarium, to seed the sand with bacteria. Again, I think you tried to do this via adding the bio-sphera to your rock container, but it doesn't sound like you ever added the bacteria to the tank.
2. You mentioned adding Chromis. I've been in this hobby for a very long time, and years ago, people used chromis and other damsels to cycle a tank. If that was your intention (and I'm not going to go into the ethics of that decision right now), you didn't give it nearly long enough. You needed to give the tank, and the chromis, 4-6 weeks and you should have been testing nitrates, nitrites, and ammonia to see where you tank was in the cycle, and if in fact it ever started.
3. Zeovit, Carbon, and skimmer. Anything you had done to create a cycle prior to this point, the zeo, carbon and skimmer stopped dead in its tracks. The Skimmer and carbon pulled out the dissolved organics. The zeo pulled out anything that was left that those two things left.
4. You added a lot of fish to a 90 g tank over the course of 1 month. The tank had been "set up" for no more than 6 weeks. Now, all your fish are unfortunately dead. While I understand you didn't realize this would happen, and wish you could undo it, let's talk about what led you to this point.
Reading your posts, it sounds like you inadvertently failed to cycle your tank. I noticed that you didn't mention testing the tank at all until yesterday. Just that your ammonia is still at 0, yesterday and today. I think this is where you really went wrong. I'm guilty of under-testing (as Mike will attest), but you really needed to be testing no less than ever other or every third day, and documenting the cycle to be sure your tank was ready, and it doesn't sound like you did this. If you never had ammonia, you never got to a cycle. This used to be what people would call new tank syndrome in the late 70s and early 80s. Put all the fish in the tank, the fish survive for a little while, and then all of them die. Here, it sounds to me as if you introduced your fish into a very stressful environment, a new uncycled tank, and added inhabitants way too fast to be honest.
The silver lining (if there is any here) is that your next batch of fish will be going into a cycled tank.
To avoid this happening again, I'd first pull all of your coral. You don't want to expose them to what I'm going to suggest you do. Put them in your 20g tub with a light and a skimmer and a powerhead.
I'd suggest you get a piece of shrimp from the grocery store, and toss it into the tank. Turn off your skimmer. Stop dosing Zeo. Turn off your carbon reactor. Just leave your pumps on. Run a normal light cycle for your tank. Add a pinch or so of food every day. You are trying to create ammonia here. You want to test every to every other day. You need to track your nitrogen cycle. This should take 30-45 days. I like Red Sea's test kits and Salifert's test kits. As others have suggested, I would take your water to Trop, ACC, or AO and ask them to test it for you too so you have a reference point other than your own.
At the end of the 45 days, after the tank has gone through a cycle, I would then turn your skimmer on about 1 week before you add fish. I'd leave the whole thing fallow for 60-80 days. You likely either had ich or velvet. You need to let it go through its life cycle before you add any more fish.
Fish.
If you are going to continue to buy from Petco or another store like it, I strongly suggest you set up a QT system. Set up your 20g bin for this (after you sterilize it), and QT (with hypo I'd suggest) for 45 days. Consider freshwater baths for parasites. Consider de-worming food. You will likely need all three if you are going to buy routinely from Petco or other stores that do not do any medication of fish, unless you are incredibly lucky.
Stocking and husbandry.
Let's start with husbandry. By the time a fish hides, you are in trouble. I'd suggest in addition to a QT, you see if you can find yourself a small hospital tank. Having a small tank (like a 10g) available at a moment's notice, along with a heater, a powerhead, and some general medication will really help you in the long run. Had you had this equipment, you may have been able to rip the tank apart, medicate the fish, and save some of them. You can use almost no medications in a reef tank. That is where the hospital tank comes into play. I know that given your equipment failures you probably didn't have this option, but it is something to think about before you buy any more fish.
On the topic of fish. Tangs and Anthias. I wouldn't beat you up over it if you still had these fish, but I'd caution you to think long and hard before buying a second hippo.
A Hippo is among the fish I would love to have. But my tank isn't big enough. It is only 210g and 5 feet. I can't have a Hippo because I don't have a large enough tank for it to be healthy. It will get big, if it doesn't die young. It will need a bigger tank than I have to be healthy. 6 feet plus. Otherwise, it will be a magnet for disease. So, I don't have a Hippo. The yellow is a better choice for a 90g. It is also a much hardier fish. This is where your UV comes in. You need one rated for a 90g if you are going to ignore me and get a hippo again. This fish will be a disease magnet in a tank that is too small, and a 90, unless yours is the exception rather than the rule, is probably going to be too small. The UV light kills the bacteria in the water that is pumped through it. It doesn't hurt the bacteria in the sand, or in the rock. Just in the water. If you had one, and your outbreak was Ick, it may have slowed it down.
Anthias. Anthias need an established tank. They need to eat frequently to be healthy. Before you buy another anthia, try to have your tank up and running for 6-9 months. I know this is hard, but your chances of success with increase dramatically if you can do this. Your tank needs to mature for you to be able to house a delicate fish like an anthia with long term success. I know many very good aquarists who struggle with anthias. If you are absolutely in love with them, think about buying an anthia like a sunburst that is hardier.
Finally, I'm very sorry you lost all of your fish. Sending you a hug over the forum. I know this sucks.