Dead fish and high ammonia

[vetteguy53081]

Between 4 an 8 is pretty high. How did you cycle the tank?

You say that the ammonia dropped and then you added another clown. What was the ammonia level when you did this?

Had the clown that got sucked into the intake also been in the tank for 6 weeks, or was it a new addition?

Agree and suspect ammonia spike/low oxygen from feeding. . bioload. . and number of occupants in a short span of time.

 

[brandon429]

your ammonia levels as nh3 are in this range

.001-.04

that prediction comes from studying cycling using precision test kits and using tan factored reporting in thousands of cycles in systems exactly like yours, its not a flippant assessment.

Knowing what to eliminate as a cause of your loss helps in discerning the actual cause.

you have an ammonia misread. People sometimes dose prime and won't state it, that messes up readings.

Moving on to disease tracking...

that reef is aged past the ammonia drop date shown on all cycling charts

it had quick cycle bottle bac, has high surface area in the middle of flow, carries open corals and feed daily, there was never an ammonia issue.

oh there was on API, but not in real life. api routinely causes this reaction sequence, we track it for years.

ammonia was just ruled out as a cause before the fish loss. even the loss of one fish won't spike it that high.

these are mixed fish from a pet store correct?

 

[Hud]

Those fish may be small now but I still think the tank is overstocked — when that are mature it will be an issue.

you also just mentioned ich for the first time. Are you certain it was ich? Did you quarantine your fish, or add them direct from the fish store?

it would appear to me there is a disease problem, potentially ich. And high ammonia could be from the other fish dying. Did you remove them right away?

Basically what happened was when I first started getting fish I went to a fish store that was good but there was another one close by so I went there and I got a clown and he got ich it spread to my other clown and they both died eventually it went away and then it came back and I qt my fish and then it came back again just recently. I did remove the fish right away

 

[Hud]

Agree and suspect ammonia spike/low oxygen from feeding. . bioload. . and number of occupants in a short span of time.

I slowly added the fish I would get one at a time over the span of a couple months

 

[brandon429]

There is a thread available that covers what happens when we add raw ammonia into tanks like that

raw ammonia, for cycling, straight into full running reefs

-when a good ammonia kit is used- say a digital one like seneye, all these posters show ammonia is oxidized in about ten minutes among that much surface area, its why your system didn't have a sustained reading issue, that's just a non seneye nh4 relay.


these are mixed pet store fish, no prep. My original assessment holds

you need to fallow this tank


and only add back quarantined fish. all set your issue has been fixed

though you may be tempted to assess this as an extended cycling issue, and ammonia control issue, it's not. if you let that distract you from actual disease preps, next round of fish keep dying in succession after short delays.

 

[Hud]

your ammonia levels as nh3 are in this range

.001-.04

that prediction comes from studying cycling using precision test kits and using tan factored reporting in thousands of cycles in systems exactly like yours, its not a flippant assessment.

Knowing what to eliminate as a cause of your loss helps in discerning the actual cause.

you have an ammonia misread. People sometimes dose prime and won't state it, that messes up readings.

Moving on to disease tracking...

that reef is aged past the ammonia drop date shown on all cycling charts

it had quick cycle bottle bac, has high surface area in the middle of flow, carries open corals and feed daily, there was never an ammonia issue.

oh there was on API, but not in real life. api routinely causes this reaction sequence, we track it for years.

ammonia was just ruled out as a cause before the fish loss. even the loss of one fish won't spike it that high.

these are mixed fish from a pet store correct?

I get my fish from a really good aquarium shop and none of there fish have died or gotten ich

 

[Hud]

There is a thread available that covers what happens when we add raw ammonia into tanks like that

raw ammonia, for cycling, straight into full running reefs

-when a good ammonia kit is used- say a digital one like seneye, all these posters show ammonia is oxidized in about ten minutes among that much surface area, its why your system didn't have a sustained reading issue, that's just a non seneye nh4 relay.


these are mixed pet store fish, no prep. My original assessment holds

you need to fallow this tank


and only add back quarantined fish. all set your issue has been fixed

though you may be tempted to assess this as an extended cycling issue, and ammonia control issue, it's not. if you let that distract you from actual disease preps, next round of fish keep dying in succession after short delays.

What do you mean no prep

 

[Lyss]

Basically what happened was when I first started getting fish I went to a fish store that was good but there was another one close by so I went there and I got a clown and he got ich it spread to my other clown and they both died eventually it went away and then it came back and I qt my fish and then it came back again just recently. I did remove the fish right away

If you have ich in the system and are certain it was ich these other fish had then it is in your tank and you need to run the tank fallow for 6 weeks or whatever the time period is — experts chime in b/c I forget.

 

[brandon429]

I get my fish from a really good aquarium shop and none of there fish have died or gotten ich



That has zero bearing. read the fish disease forum stickies for the win.
they're getting moved into a totally new start system with new challenge variables which affect disease expression


gotta spend one hour reading here to learn the terms:

Fish Disease Treatment and Diagnosis

A forum for discussing treatment and diagnosing saltwater reef fish.

www.reef2reef.com

we can't set up quick start reefs using pet store fish without disease preps, regardless of how the fish looked at the pet store. Your entire build was named before I had any details on the matter because these are the constant and recurring patterns thousands of cycles show that we work with annually here, and the disease prep component is the final step in making that a great tank, it looks great and ready to carry fish that have been prepped.

fallow and quarantine is key

 

[Hud]

If you have ich in the system and are certain it was ich these other fish had then it is in your tank and you need to run the tank fallow for 6 weeks or whatever the time period is — experts chime in b/c I forget.

That’s what I am doing thanks

 

[Hud]

I get my fish from a really good aquarium shop and none of there fish have died or gotten ich



That has zero bearing. read the fish disease forum stickies for the win.

gotta spend one hour reading here to learn the terms:

They qt all there fish and I have seen where that do it the ich was introduced from a different lfs

 

[FishyFishFish]

2 weeks ago I got a hob protein skimmer for my 20 gallon the livestock was 2 clowns a tailspot blenny, six line wrasse, and a royal gramma. The tank has been set up for 7 months and everything in my tank was doing great. About a week after I got the skimmer one of my clowns died and I checked my levels and I had high ammonia. I put my royal gramma in a different tank because I wanted a different fish for my 20 gallon. Today I woke up and another clown died so I put my other clown and wrasse in a qt and the clown died. All my corals are doing great and so is the tailspot blenny and my cleaner shrimp. What has happened? Is the skimmer taking out to much waste/nutrients

Basically what happened was when I first started getting fish I went to a fish store that was good but there was another one close by so I went there and I got a clown and he got ich it spread to my other clown and they both died eventually it went away and then it came back and I qt my fish and then it came back again just recently. I did remove the fish right away

??

If you think it is Ich then you need to read up on it. Removing a single dead fish won't remove the Ich from the system if other fish remain.


You still haven't really given a full explanation of your timeline, parameters or processes. Help us to help you!!

 

[Hud]

??

If you think it is Ich then you need to read up on it. Removing the dead fish won't remove the Ich.


You still haven't really given a full explanation of your timeline, parameters or processes. Help us to help you!!

I did

 

[brandon429]

your tank needs fallowed now that you have had losses, and you can run your own QT now to make sure its done right, clearly it wasn't at the lfs.


you can see from reading the fish disease forum how adding mixed pet store fish and no fallow prep/ the corals were added without fallow/ can introduce disease. its all in the fish disease forum, you have to re fallow the tank now and handle your own QT to prevent future losses.

 

[Hud]

your tank needs fallowed now that you have had losses, and you can run your own QT now to make sure its done right, clearly it wasn't at the lfs.


you can see from reading the fish disease forum how adding mixed pet store fish and no fallow prep/ the corals were added without fallow/ can introduce disease. its all in the fish disease forum, you have to re fallow the tank now and handle your own QT to prevent future losses.

Ok thank you very much I will do that

 

[vetteguy53081]

With ich confirmed in the past, with treatment, they have not been eliminated, reason for quarantine.
When you treated for ich - What level of copper did you treat at and what test kit did you use?
Just because you don’t see white spots on a fish’s fins or the body doesn’t mean that the fish is not infested with saltwater ich. Sometimes the ich parasites infest primarily in the gills, showing no white spots or other outward symptoms.
After a number of days or even weeks, the cyst opens up and the infective parasites are released as free-swimming theronts, seeking to attack your fish. This is really the primary stage that these medications are effective against the parasites. The theronts have about six hours to find a fish and burrow into the skin, becoming a trophont. Then the cycle begins again.
Unless tank was without fish for at least 6 weeks, you may be experiencing a reoccurence

 

[Hud]

Update my ammonia is now 0.25 ppm

 

[Hud]

Update my ammonia is .25-.5 ppm

 

[brandon429]

after tan conversion its reading as .025 or .05, see how that guessing kit is getting close to the assigned range which a digital kit will show

looking better now. that's what api usually shows in running reefs, what you're reporting as nh4.

This thing with marine fish disease, hasn't always been that way. at least freshwater fish still work that way Hud if I bought any of the fish at the pet store and put them into my planted tank, I get a totally normal lifespan from any of them. Haven't had disease in any freshwater system I've owned, with mixed pet store fish, in twenty years.

but for marine the tide has changed there's something in this holding and delivery chain to the home that makes disease losses within eight months just a profound pattern.


fun exercise

go to the fish disease forum and click everyone posting a thread's badge name on page one, click find all threads, read their first thread made here. it usually gives tank build dates. exclude from the tally list any tanks you can't age verify.

build a list for the first three pages in the disease forum, pre 8 mo ones are the majority disease phase/loss phase

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

I u

I used an api test kit the ammonia is between 4 and 8 ppm. The clown died and I checked my parameters and there was ammonia but I did a wc and they went down so I got another clown and he died. All the fish in my tank are quite small but when the first clown died there was only 4 fish I had all those fish for around a month and a half

4 to 8 ppm? Did you mean 0.4 to 0.8? I’ve never seen ammonia higher than 2 ppm unless there was something really strange going on, like a really low pH.
Jay