Cycle and Dead Fish

[GrampsReef]

Looks like a made a $70.00 mistake. Ouch. I've been watching my parameters and they showed that my tank had cycled (picture). I purchased two Clown fish and a Bennie. They thrived. So, several days later I purchased another fish (forgot its name). I went through the procedure to acclimate it to my tank, netted it, and released it into my tank. It disappeared. I thought it was just a bit stressed and was hiding. After two days I started to really look for it. I found it tucked under a piece of live rock. It was dead. I think it likely died in less than a day. Other than being dead I could not see any obvious reason that it died. My tank is now showing that its in the "Diatoms" stage of the cycle. Is this likely what caused it to die? By the way, what kind of fish was it (I have a bad memory)?

 

[DrZoidburg]

Tomini tang? I doubt your tank was the reason it died.

 

[GrampsReef]

Tomini tang? I doubt your tank was the reason it died.

I wonder if I should ask the store if they have a warranty.

 

[DrZoidburg]

I wonder if I should ask the store if they have a warranty.

Most do have this. This may be an issue of shipping stress, others, or acclimation stress. I don't think based on your graph that it was your tank parameters. Why did the salinitty go to zero>?

 

[Tamberav]

if you look closely the fish has a large lesion mark on the back of it, frayed tail fin, and very red gills. It is difficult to say if this is all postpartum stuff but....

A new tank + adding a bunch of fish... you going to learn a rough lesson about disease most likely. You may want to slow down and do a little research. You could wipe out all your fish.

It was a Tomini Tang

 

[DrZoidburg]

if you look closely the fish has a large lesion mark on the back of it, frayed tail fin, and very red gills. It is difficult to say if this is all postpartum stuff but....

A new tank + adding a bunch of fish... you going to learn a rough lesson about disease most likely. You may want to slow down and do a little research. You could wipe out all your fish.

It was a Tomini Tang

Don't think I didn't see this. What ever it is would not kill a fish in seller system, than buyer system in less than 2 days.

 

[brandon429]

disagreed Dr Z
he has other fish living, for this month

Jay had mentioned in several posts that stresses from acclimation variation and relocation can easily finalize disease stages

Tamberav is correct, no the cycle wasn’t an issue here we can tell by certain details in the description that don’t involve non digital test kit guessing to put everyone in parameter doubt.


adding unprepped fish is a recipe for disaster, per the fish disease forum, now this whole tank needs fallowed and never add a non qt fish again.


if I take api and make a chart from it, does that make the chart right?

 

[brandon429]

Any time spent reading in the fish disease forum shows that nowadays to not prep for disease is to directly invite it into the tank, it’s the #1 cause of all fish loss in the hobby at home after receiving new fish. We kill them by purposefully skipping preps



the title of the thread should be: fish deaths tied to skipping any form of prep from the fish disease forum


erase the word cycle from this linkage as it removes responsibility from the buyer. It’s not that this one fish death was preventable- it’s that infecting the entire system now affecting other fish was.


the #1 most important part of a reef tank cycle is the disease prep, we cannot mess up creating a working biofilter.

 

[Lyss]

It was asked above but I also am wondering about the analytics showing salinity and also ph having dropped to 0. I don’t see carbonate hardness on there at all. What’s up w/that?

 

[Garf]

It was asked above but I also am wondering about the analytics showing salinity and also ph having dropped to 0. I don’t see carbonate hardness on there at all. What’s up w/that?

Left hand side has a bunch of numbers which relate to the different axis ranges. Your looking at the ammonia one only by the looks of it

 

[Lyss]

Left hand side has a bunch of numbers which relate to the different axis ranges. Your looking at the ammonia one only by the looks of it

I was looking at the line chart on the right and totally glossed over the numbers next to the labels on the left.

 

[Duncan62]

Looks like a made a $70.00 mistake. Ouch. I've been watching my parameters and they showed that my tank had cycled (picture). I purchased two Clown fish and a Bennie. They thrived. So, several days later I purchased another fish (forgot its name). I went through the procedure to acclimate it to my tank, netted it, and released it into my tank. It disappeared. I thought it was just a bit stressed and was hiding. After two days I started to really look for it. I found it tucked under a piece of live rock. It was dead. I think it likely died in less than a day. Other than being dead I could not see any obvious reason that it died. My tank is now showing that its in the "Diatoms" stage of the cycle. Is this likely what caused it to die? By the way, what kind of fish was it (I have a bad memory)?

Some just can't take the stress. Just my opinion, but I think stress contributes to the death of many fish.

 

[brandon429]

Agreed, I learned from reading posts by disease forum fish owners that the prime benefit of quarantine doesn’t have to be medications it can be just a basic observation period so if they keel over it doesn’t infect the whole tank.


my cycling threads are moving to a direct statement that purposefully buying and killing fish is no longer ok, every reader on this forum has seen disease prep posts. We have to seize them now.

if this was a dog forum, and folks posted fifty times a day how they bought a new puppy, brought it home to a dirt kennel in the backyard of Dallas, skipped all prep shots, and it died of parvo everyone would be up in arms (except for the posters who are able to keep puppies that way, and advise others to skip preps for their dirt backyards).


thats exactly how marine fish keeping works now in 2021, to buy them and add them without preps after having all the free info from the fish disease forum I find to be a purposeful act. I know this info stings but it’s a direct statement on trend. We as a group of peers are ok with puppy milling our fish and carting them out for disposal without a second thought.

I estimate that 2% of reefers who post for cycle help and get that apply fish disease control preps though it’s first mention in my cycle threads. 98% are immediately inputting two clowns despite the warning, the vast majority of fish buyers simply don’t care enough to adhere to the patterns in fish disease forum


pls forgive the judgement lol its not a big leap for a one gallon pico reef owner with no fish to wind up chiding fish owners this way. From the outside, it looks like an unacceptable degree of loss and it’s amazing we tolerate it as peers on a daily basis. We wouldn’t be this accepting if it was tiny little chihuahua puppies with apple heads and big ears and wide spread eyes. We as peers would be demanding at least some degree of reasonable prep based on the last fifty years freely accessible published material in canine science.

 

[Lyss]

Could another answer be improper acclimation, or in some cases something off in the tank that current inhabitants have acclimated to but a new addition hasn’t? I’m just 100% curious as to why we always jump to the fish had a disease, even if there’s no clear visible evidence, (realizing that majority of time it probably did) — but should we not probe about other possibilities as well? I’m genuinely just honestly wondering that.

 

[Duncan62]

Agreed, I learned from reading posts by disease forum fish owners that the prime benefit of quarantine doesn’t have to be medications it can be just a basic observation period so if they keel over it doesn’t infect the whole tank.


my cycling threads are moving to a direct statement that purposefully buying and killing fish is no longer ok, every reader on this forum has seen disease prep posts. We have to seize them now.

if this was a dog forum, and folks posted fifty times a day how they bought a new puppy, brought it home to a dirt kennel in the backyard of Dallas, skipped all prep shots, and it died of parvo everyone would be up in arms (except for the posters who are able to keep puppies that way, and advise others to skip preps for their dirt backyards).


thats exactly how marine fish keeping works now in 2021, to buy them and add them without preps after having all the free info from the fish disease forum I find to be a purposeful act. I know this info stings but it’s a direct statement on trend. We as a group of peers are ok with puppy milling our fish and carting them out for disposal without a second thought.

I estimate that 2% of reefers who post for cycle help and get that apply fish disease control preps though it’s first mention in my cycle threads. 98% are immediately inputting two clowns despite the warning, the vast majority of fish buyers simply don’t care enough to adhere to the patterns in fish disease forum


pls forgive the judgement lol its not a big leap for a one gallon pico reef owner with no fish to wind up chiding fish owners this way. From the outside, it looks like an unacceptable degree of loss and it’s amazing we tolerate it as peers on a daily basis. We wouldn’t be this accepting if it was tiny little chihuahua puppies with apple heads and big ears and wide spread eyes. We as peers would be demanding at least some degree of reasonable prep based on the last fifty years freely accessible published material in canine science.

Everyone has experienced an un explained loss. Often in a new tank. It's the people you see at the fish store buying over and over thinking the fish are temporary that bother me. The goal should be to see how happy you can keep animals long term.

 

[brandon429]

Grampsreef the statement above isn’t meant to post harsh on your loss research you are trying to learn from it clearly is the heart of the post. To find which issue may have taken it

my indictment above is on us peers, I find fish disease to be the last accepted possibility in loss analysis threads anywhere a cycle question exists in the thread title. It automatically changes the context into a chemistry hunt


my simple recommend for the hobby is to assess disease preps initially in every loss case, it’s the strongest % causative especially when other members of a reef are ok (post full tank pic pls for this context)

if we as analysts guide practices to the disease forum by initial rule, and then eliminate from there on down the list of causatives we will lose less fish per day in the home tank


I once put two cherry head gobies in my pico and in a month they died/ guilty. It was about five years old at the time, well-cycled. plus I violated all gallonage laws placing me on the reef fish felons list. Well from this side of the outcome am advising all cycle umpires to initially approach 99% of any cycle in question as done, they are regarding bioload carry ability, and begin 100% of cycle assessments with disease protocol review. If none are in place, begin right there with the coaching and direction. In my case the expected swings in a pico were the assessed cause I don’t think they made it long enough to express disease.

 

[blaxsun]

Fish losses can usually be chalked up to 3 circumstances:

1. Illness/injury that isn't caught or treated (QT or observation).
2. Introducing a fish too early or reaching that tipping point where the addition of one or more fish exceeds the bio load capacity of the system, and then stress or deteriorating parameters has an impact).
3. Misadventures (ie: jumping out of the tank, etc.).

And sometimes fish just die - for no apparent rhyme or reason (I had a chromis that's been hanging out constantly near a powerhead for 5+ months and he finally just up and disappeared). I'm reluctant to use the term "retarded", but dang that fish was retarded...

 

[davidcalgary29]

Fish losses can usually be chalked up to 3 circumstances:

1. Illness/injury that isn't caught or treated (QT or observation).
2. Introducing a fish too early or reaching that tipping point where the addition of one or more fish exceeds the bio load capacity of the system, and then stress or deteriorating parameters has an impact).
3. Misadventures (ie: jumping out of the tank, etc.).

And sometimes fish just die - for no apparent rhyme or reason (I had a chromis that's been hanging out constantly near a powerhead for 5+ months and he finally just up and disappeared). I'm reluctant to use the term "retarded", but dang that fish was retarded...

Agreed, but let's add shipping stress into the mix. I've been really lucky with fish purchases from eastern Canada, but it takes three days of travel on average, and that must place physiological stress on these animals. My incoming fish go straight into a methylene blue dip and a darkened observation (and possibly) hosptital tank.

 

[blaxsun]

Agreed, but let's add shipping stress into the mix. I've been really lucky with fish purchases from eastern Canada, but it takes three days of travel on average, and that must place physiological stress on these animals. My incoming fish go straight into a methylene blue dip and a darkened observation (and possibly) hosptital tank.

Three days? Mine have arrived next day within 16 hours. But yes, shipping/stress can go under #1 or #3.

 

[Quietman]

Stress can kill or be a significant factor in sudden deaths during shipping, quarantine and acclimation. Last thing I'd want to be is some small fish in a holding tank 48 hours from my final home. Some species are more susceptible that others. A fish may have a minor underlying condition that's not visible and the stress of new tank will allow the condition to take over and kill the fish. You can also do everything right, and fish will still die. There could be nothing wrong and the fish during stress of shipping/acclimation die. Sounds rather bleak and hopeless doesn't it. Well, yeah maybe a little.

That's not to say we don't do everything we can to make that transition easy as short as possible while protecting our existing fish (and methods vary, so not getting into what's best, nothing is 100% unless you just never add fish to your tank). Whether your in the management or eradication camp, observational or prophylactic treatment QT, or simply buy from repeatable dealer, inspect and add after acclimating to well established tank everything is a risk/benefit decision. But don't beat yourself up if you're doing your best. Keep learning, understand the risks, make conscious decisions how you add fish based on need, ability, funds, time and room.

If your other fish are exhibiting no symptoms of anything then either they are healthy enough to ward it off with their immune systems or nothing was brought in to tank. No real guarantees but there's no substitute for having healthy, well fed (meaning good diet, not fat) fish in an environment that meets their physical and behavioral needs (hiding space, open swimming, grazing, etc). This keeps stress minimized so their immune systems aren't compromised by stress and have much better chance of protecting fish. This also allows quickest 'de-stress' for any new inhabitants.

Good luck!