All new Tangs Died

[Jon Fishman]

Hard to tell, but is there like one powerhead in that tank? Sorry I didn’t read it all. Also, I wouldn’t go with the “What can I throw in the tank to neutralize ammonia” approach

Remove and properly cycle is best

 

[Matthatrick]

Thanks for all the help guys and narrowing down the issue!

 

[Matthatrick]

Hard to tell, but is there like one powerhead in that tank? Sorry I didn’t read it all. Also, I wouldn’t go with the “What can I throw in the tank to neutralize ammonia” approach

Remove and properly cycle is best

I have 3

 

[Matthatrick]

So I did a 100l water change yesterday and woke up this morning and my tang is swimming around and eating. Cheers! . My salinity is still high but dropping and will continue to do so during this week.

 

[Flippers4pups]

So I did a 100l water change yesterday and woke up this morning and my tang is swimming around and eating. Cheers! . My salinity is still high but dropping and will continue to do so during this week.

Sorry this happened to you as I'm now just reading about what happened. Instead of adding fresh water by hand to keep your salinity at 1.025-1.026, look into a ATO system to maintain your salinity. It's much easier to maintain a saltwater system with one. Adding 4 gallons of fresh water to a 116 gallon tank all at once is very stressful to your fish and corals. Respectfully.

Your fish deaths could have been from several things. Condition of the fish when bought (disease, parasites, malnutrition, stress....) your tank possibly isn't fully cycled or acclimation issues. Acclimating new fish with your salinity being presumably very high, sounds like the issue and osmotic shock may have done some damage. Where you bought them from presumably had much lower salinity and the sudden change from that salinity and your tanks salinity may have caused the deaths.

Once again, sorry this happened to you.

Look into a ATO system, you'll be glad you did later. Hang in there and if you have any more questions, please feel free to come back and ask or just type #reefsquad and we will come running.

Cheers!

 

[ruskimax]

Unfortunately parameters only tell you when the bacteria is strong enough to start processing ammonia, which indicates an end to a cycle. Once cycled the bacteria needs time to build while you add livestock. This means fish AND coral


If TOO much livestock is added it very well could have been TOO much for the new bacteria in the tank to handle, thus leading to the deaths....this is a very possible scenario.

OP in your post you said you added 15L or RO water. As stated above fresh water will shock fish but dropping salinity should not have killed the fish, hypo salinity is used as a QT hospital method very widely in this hobby....I would rule this out.

Light will not kill fish....I would rule that out

The damsels will definitely bully fish to death especially new ones. Although if this happened in 1 night that is a bit far for them to kill 2 fish in 1 night....I would rule this out but a close second place.

Did the tangs have any signs of disease or parasites? White stringy poop? White spots? Anything unusual? Unless we know %100 while being observed in a QT we really probably wont know.

When you say parameters are perfect...what does this mean? Every tank is different so numbers really do matter. What test kits do you use?

With other fish still alive, your tank IS processing the ammonia and the death of the new fish. If the others are all good you have no more free floating ammonia.

I believe you over worked the bacteria in a NEWLY cycled tank. Most of us are guilty of this.

Unless another fish dies thats probably what's happening. The only thing that will help this is time and a water change with SEA water.

I could be wrong but let's ask @brandon429 as he has talked about this a lot in his sand rinsing threads.

He said the parameters were perfect. How dare you question them, they’re perfect!!! Lol

 

[IKD]

So I did a 100l water change yesterday and woke up this morning and my tang is swimming around and eating. Cheers! . My salinity is still high but dropping and will continue to do so during this week.

Great news!! I second the idea of implementing an ATO. They are definitely worth the cost (at least for me)

 

[ScottB]

Some will disagree with me on this, and thats fine. But IME drip acclimation is a fish killer, especially tangs.

Here is what works best for me, by far, and again Tangs are the fish where I see the benefits most.
1. temp acclimate 15-20 minutes in a closed bag
2. prepare a container with aerated, temp matched, salinity matched water. Most fish are shipped at about 25-30 ppt. I don't sweat the decimal points here, the idea is just to get some nice clean low salinity water.
3. Open the bags and IMMEDIATELY (within <10 seconds) remove the fish from the nasty bag water and put it IMMEDIATELY in the water you've just prepared.
4. add salt water slowly to adjust the holding tank to normal salinity over the next 2-12 hours.

This way, the fish are never exposed to toxic ammonia that accumulates in the bag and is made toxic by pH effects on opening the bags.

Again, there is a lot of variation and some will disagree with my procedure. But I can say with absolute certainty that everytime I've tried to drip acclimate a Tang, they've showed distress during acclimation. Heavy breathing, lethargy, etc. With the method I described above, they are immediately happy and swim and breathe normally.

Your process is solving for a very real (and often overlooked) problem if the fish has been shipped or spent considerable time in the bag -- accumulated ammonia that becomes "activated" when the bag is opened. A drop of Prime or Amquel would neutralize (not remove) the ammonia keeping it safe for the fish and ready for the longer drip acclimation. Disagree?

 

[Flippers4pups]

Your process is solving for a very real (and often overlooked) problem if the fish has been shipped or spent considerable time in the bag -- accumulated ammonia that becomes "activated" when the bag is opened. A drop of Prime or Amquel would neutralize (not remove) the ammonia keeping it safe for the fish and ready for the longer drip acclimation. Disagree?

That could be deadly if the fish was shipped in water containing low levels of copper. Use of prime or amquel with this condition could cause the water to become toxic.

 

[raketemensch]

Just FYI -- an ATO doesn't have to be expensive -- I built mine with a 12v relay and a cheap float switch from eBay. It ended up at probably 2 hours of my time, plus around $15. There are dozens of YouTube tutorials on how to do it.

It just turns on a pump in the RODI barrel, with a hose leading to the back of my overflow. What's nice is that the hose almost works like a gas pump, because I can just pull it out of there and drop it into whatever bucket I need to fill.

Sea Chem prime can neutralize ammonia

I believe that it just temporarily binds the ammonia, it doesn't remove it. Which could help at times, and other times mask larger issues.

 

[EMeyer]

Your process is solving for a very real (and often overlooked) problem if the fish has been shipped or spent considerable time in the bag -- accumulated ammonia that becomes "activated" when the bag is opened. A drop of Prime or Amquel would neutralize (not remove) the ammonia keeping it safe for the fish and ready for the longer drip acclimation. Disagree?

Agreed. I will say that when I've tried the Prime treatment, it has improved survival but the fish have still shown distress during acclimation.

But yeah, I see both processes as addressing the same problem.

 

[raketemensch]

That could be deadly if the fish was shipped in water containing low levels of copper. Use of prime or amquel with this condition could cause the water to become toxic.

Could you explain why this is the case? Just looking to learn more, and I don't know how Prime interacts with copper.

 

[MERKEY]

Could you explain why this is the case? Just looking to learn more, and I don't know how Prime interacts with copper.

Prime used with cuppermine is deadly. The mix becomes toxic and kills the fish.

Prime used with chelated copper is usually ok. Humblefish has A LOT of threads on this.
But as a rule of thumb when using copper treatment it's good to stay away from prime

 

[CuzzA]

I can see the last Regal Tang at the back of the tank now with white parasites on him

Sorry to hear this. Can you post pictures? Although you've found out the initial cause of death and I assume will be getting a refractometer if you haven't already and will add an auto top off, you may be in for a tough time depending on the parasite. I think Petco is having their $1 per gallon sale and I would go ahead and set up a qt now. You're probably going to need it.

 

[Admann]

I think the 1200 is the length of the tank

Yes it is 1200mm

 

[ScottB]

That could be deadly if the fish was shipped in water containing low levels of copper. Use of prime or amquel with this condition could cause the water to become toxic.

Thank you for that (new to me) info. I'll check to see if Quality Marine ships copper water or not. My personal fish all come from LFS so I don't acclimate with Prime or Amquel. But my LFS does use Amquel in acclimation.

 

[va4444]

PH 8.2
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0.15
Ammonia 0.2
Calcium 445
Magnesium 1250
Alk 8
Phos 0.04

this is all the tests I did

Stupid question. But are u feeding them seaweed on a veggie clip? 2 months is not much time for algea to be adequate if ur not feeding veggies