MmmmBalf
Active Member
Lost another fish today, a female clown, one of the first fish in the tank (from Dec). This is the 5th fish loss over the past month and it's driving me to despair.
The tank is 150g with 66g sump. Filled at start of November 2016 & cycled with Dr Tim's bacteria (dry rock). Cycle was completed start of Dec. I waited another few weeks before adding the first fish on 24 Dec. 2 Ocellaris Clown fish, blue tang & 1 blue chromis. All levels remaining good, I added a Foxface and Firefish on 10th January. I then had a battle with dinoflagellates (identified under a microscope). They really took over the tank, covering rock & sand.
On 5th Feb I suddenly lost my first 2 fish. The tang & the foxface
Both died at the same time and very quickly. One minute they were swimming around fine and feeding, then within a few hours were dead. No symptoms prior, no marks, no unusual behaviour, no cloudy eyes. Just suddenly lying on their sides on the sand and died quickly. I thought ammonia spike perhaps without any symptoms prior, although I wasn't sure what would cause it. Over next couple weeks I reduced the dinos a lot just by vacuuming them out & I think they were starving themselves, so added another few fish - another Foxface, a small royal dottyback and small green clown goby. A week later after all appearing fine, I went to bed after watching them all feeding, & next morning the dottyback & Foxface were drifting around dead. Again with no warning symptoms. :mad:
At this time it occurred to me that there was one thing that I did the same the night before each bout of fish deaths. I haven't set up my ATO yet (I've bought it, just don't have reservoir yet) and top up manually every day with RODI. Probably 3 - 4 litres depending on humidity (it's summer here). I pour the water into the sump. Both times prior to the deaths, I poured it onto the filter socks. I didn't usually do this, the only 2 times I did it both had fish deaths straight after. Maybe I'm grasping at straws, but I thought maybe the fresh water had caused a mass die off of dinos which gather in the socks and released toxins into the water. Is that a viable theory? It was all I could think of (apart from disease).
I did a 72 hour black out 2 weeks ago just after this. The results were beyond my hopes - dinos seem completely gone. I haven't detected any under microscope. I'm not sure if it's completely gone, time will tell. So a week ago I added a single fish. A Spinecheek goby. The last few days the female clown started behaving oddly. It went into a cave I'd never seen it do before, and was then lying on the bottom in the corner of the tank all the time. The male would kind of lie on top of her. I thought it was odd but google revealed all sorts of odd clown behaviour
, so I thought it might be ok. She wasn't feeding well either. No marks or discolouration at all. She deteriorated & died.
So that's where I'm at. Sorry for the long post, I wanted to be as thorough as possible. Tank parameters:
NH4 : 0
NO3 : 0
NO4 : 0
PO4 : 0.08 ppm
Ca : 410 ppm
Alk : 8.2 dKH
Mg : 1300 ppm
pH : 8.0
SG : 1.025
Temp: 26 C
Still in the tank: Firefish, 1 clown, green clown goby, spinecheek goby. Also inverts : Coral banded shrimp, sand sifting star, snails (nassarius, turbo & cerith). Only 3 corals - Heliofungia, a plate coral, and a frag of acro (dallas). All inhabitants including coral & inverts appear fine.
Oh, I should mention, at risk of getting bashed over it, no QT. I know it's a risk but it is what it is, I don't have one yet.
Mainly looking for a plan of action. What do I do from here? Apart from recommending QT. I will get one set up soon. Do I just leave the current inhabitants and see what happens? With water changes of course as usual. I can't narrow it down to a disease with most of the deaths being sudden without any signs. Do diseases always affect every fish? How long will it be before I know if the others are infected? Firefish has been through all the bouts of death & appears perfectly fine. Really down in the dumps about the whole thing.
The tank is 150g with 66g sump. Filled at start of November 2016 & cycled with Dr Tim's bacteria (dry rock). Cycle was completed start of Dec. I waited another few weeks before adding the first fish on 24 Dec. 2 Ocellaris Clown fish, blue tang & 1 blue chromis. All levels remaining good, I added a Foxface and Firefish on 10th January. I then had a battle with dinoflagellates (identified under a microscope). They really took over the tank, covering rock & sand.
On 5th Feb I suddenly lost my first 2 fish. The tang & the foxface
Both died at the same time and very quickly. One minute they were swimming around fine and feeding, then within a few hours were dead. No symptoms prior, no marks, no unusual behaviour, no cloudy eyes. Just suddenly lying on their sides on the sand and died quickly. I thought ammonia spike perhaps without any symptoms prior, although I wasn't sure what would cause it. Over next couple weeks I reduced the dinos a lot just by vacuuming them out & I think they were starving themselves, so added another few fish - another Foxface, a small royal dottyback and small green clown goby. A week later after all appearing fine, I went to bed after watching them all feeding, & next morning the dottyback & Foxface were drifting around dead. Again with no warning symptoms. :mad: At this time it occurred to me that there was one thing that I did the same the night before each bout of fish deaths. I haven't set up my ATO yet (I've bought it, just don't have reservoir yet) and top up manually every day with RODI. Probably 3 - 4 litres depending on humidity (it's summer here). I pour the water into the sump. Both times prior to the deaths, I poured it onto the filter socks. I didn't usually do this, the only 2 times I did it both had fish deaths straight after. Maybe I'm grasping at straws, but I thought maybe the fresh water had caused a mass die off of dinos which gather in the socks and released toxins into the water. Is that a viable theory? It was all I could think of (apart from disease).
I did a 72 hour black out 2 weeks ago just after this. The results were beyond my hopes - dinos seem completely gone. I haven't detected any under microscope. I'm not sure if it's completely gone, time will tell. So a week ago I added a single fish. A Spinecheek goby. The last few days the female clown started behaving oddly. It went into a cave I'd never seen it do before, and was then lying on the bottom in the corner of the tank all the time. The male would kind of lie on top of her. I thought it was odd but google revealed all sorts of odd clown behaviour
, so I thought it might be ok. She wasn't feeding well either. No marks or discolouration at all. She deteriorated & died.So that's where I'm at. Sorry for the long post, I wanted to be as thorough as possible. Tank parameters:
NH4 : 0
NO3 : 0
NO4 : 0
PO4 : 0.08 ppm
Ca : 410 ppm
Alk : 8.2 dKH
Mg : 1300 ppm
pH : 8.0
SG : 1.025
Temp: 26 C
Still in the tank: Firefish, 1 clown, green clown goby, spinecheek goby. Also inverts : Coral banded shrimp, sand sifting star, snails (nassarius, turbo & cerith). Only 3 corals - Heliofungia, a plate coral, and a frag of acro (dallas). All inhabitants including coral & inverts appear fine.
Oh, I should mention, at risk of getting bashed over it, no QT. I know it's a risk but it is what it is, I don't have one yet.
Mainly looking for a plan of action. What do I do from here? Apart from recommending QT. I will get one set up soon. Do I just leave the current inhabitants and see what happens? With water changes of course as usual. I can't narrow it down to a disease with most of the deaths being sudden without any signs. Do diseases always affect every fish? How long will it be before I know if the others are infected? Firefish has been through all the bouts of death & appears perfectly fine. Really down in the dumps about the whole thing.
