Fish constantly dying.

JCSReefing · May 22, 2015

Hello,
I have been in the hobbit for well over 4 years now. I had a 90g reef tank I shared while living with my brother. I recently got a house and now started my 75g reef and been up and running for over a year. I have had no problems keeping corals however every fish I've bought from clowns, fire fish, golbys, and tangs have all died. I constantly check water parimiters and salinity and the longest I had a fish was 2 months. I do about 5g water changes a week.
Salinity:1.023-1.024
Nitrate:0
Nitrite:0
Ammonia:0
Ph: 8.1-8.2
Please PLEASE HELP!!

bobstir · May 22, 2015

when they die, do they just disappear (as if something ate them) or are they visibly showing signs of stress and then eventually die?

JCSReefing · May 22, 2015

Seems more like they are there one day and gone the next. Most recent was a small sailfin

Triggreef · May 22, 2015

Are you QT'ing youe fish? Sourcing them from where? Are you noticing tell tale signs or symptoms of disease/parasites? Fish can practically live in pond water with table salt so to lose fish for that long and that often tells me you have some issues other than water quality.

JCSReefing · May 22, 2015

I don't really quarantine because I don't have another tank. I do drip acclimation. I buy both from local fish store aquarium world Houston and also online from saltwater fish.com.
I dont think its my water quality. I use rodi and reef crystals for water changes and test water about once every two weeks.. Starting to get extremly annoying!!

LetItReef · May 22, 2015

Maybe try float method when acclimating.

4FordFamily · May 22, 2015

That's your issue. You likely have a resident parasite. I know it's a pain, but it's easiest to keep crypt (ich) and velvet out of your tank than it is to try and manage it. Good luck managing velvet anyway...

Your tank needs to run fallow of fish for 63-72 days depending on how safe you want to play it. You need to buy a quarantine tank. This is not expensive, you need only a small HOB aquaclear filter, a heater, an ammonia badge by seachem, and some PVC piping for structure that won't absorb medication. No substrate or live Rock. Also you'll need salt for daily water changes until it "cycles". I would recommend setting it up and ghost feeding it for 3-4 weeks before adding any fish. A 20 gallon or so is more than enough. Petco may still have their $1/gallon sale. That's dirt cheap.

In the long run you'll kill far less fish and it will cost you much less time, stress, and money. You'll also want to use cupramine to treat fish for 4-5 weeks at .50-.55 ppm prior to ever adding them in your display tank moving forward. Lots of great threads in proper quarantine procedure here.

I would treat even non symptomatic fish for ich and flukes before ever making it in your tanks because many fish can hide these parasites well and infect your display tank.

JCSReefing · May 22, 2015

I have a ten gallon. Would that work at all?? Big issue is my wife hates all my "fish stuff" lying around and now I gotta set another tank from what I'm told lol. Oh boy!!

Humblefish · May 22, 2015

jcs401 said:
I buy both from local fish store aquarium world Houston

I've been there ... very nice shop. One thing I don't understand. Do you ever find body/remains of the fish that die?

JCSReefing · May 22, 2015

Yes I have seen remains. But my clean up crew usually does a bang up job with the remains

JCSReefing · May 22, 2015

If it's all because I don't quarantine, why when I was in the hobby with my brother we never quarantined (even knowing we should have) did we not have any problems keeping fish. We had a white cheeked tang that lived for 5 yrs including switching tanks and finally sold him?

Humblefish · May 22, 2015

jcs401 said:
If it's all because I don't quarantine, why when I was in the hobby with my brother we never quarantined (even knowing we should have) did we not have any problems keeping fish. We had a white cheeked tang that lived for 5 yrs including switching tanks and finally sold him?

Luck of the draw. Perhaps you & your brother were fortunate enough to only acquire fish with manageable diseases (like ich.) This time around, your luck has run out and you picked up a fish with velvet or flukes, and that is (maybe) what's killing all of your fish.

JCSReefing · May 22, 2015

So does that mean it's in my water? Like do I need to drain it ? Is there anything that can test for this??

JCSReefing · May 22, 2015

Also, why is nothing affecting my corals?

Triggreef · May 22, 2015

There are multiple ways to do it. The easiest and fastest way that I now implemented and have had good luck with is the following:

Day 1 -3) New tank (10g or 20g or whatever you have), water pulled from display tank (assuming this water is parasite free). Only equipment is a heater and a bubbler (no air stone). Get fish eating and used to you. No longer than 72 hours in this tank.

Day 4-7) Move fish to new tank, new heater, new bubbler. New water from display again. Bleach other empty tank, heater and bubbler tube. Treat with first Prazi dose. Again no longer than 72 hours in this set up.

Day 8-10) Move fish to new tank, new heater, new bubbler. New water from display again. Bleach other empty tank, heater and bubbler tube. No Prazi this time. Again no longer than 72 hours in this set up.

Day 11-13) Move fish to new tank, new heater, new bubbler. New water from display again. Bleach other empty tank, heater and bubbler tube. Treat with second Prazi dose. Again no longer than 72 hours in this set up.

Next move is fish into display. This method is referred to as "tank transfer method" (TTM). Basically Ich falls off fish in between transfers but does not have enough time to re-infect fish before the fish is moved into a new clean system. So you are breaking the ich life cycle. By the 3rd transfer fish are ich free but you only continue to day 13 to fool proof the method accounting for your own errors. The Prazi takes care of worms, intestinal parasites and Flukes in the meantime.

Just to clarify the importance of quarantining, I just recently did my first water change on my 125 fish only tank. Set the tank up in Feb of 2013. Never lost a fish from anything other than aggression, or removing one manually. The water is so poor, I can't even grow macro algae. lol Thats bad but I'm trying to renovate the tank now and make it a reef so my crazy coral eating fish are being re-homed and the tank will be glorious soon. Just want to get the point across that fish should not die from anything but old age in our systems!!

4FordFamily · May 22, 2015

Good suggestion above, but that will do little to nothing for velvet. I like humbefish's idea that he does not yet endorse- it's somewhat of a hybrid. 10 days in cupramine or CP, then one tank transfer, then back to another tank for monitoring. This is shorter and addresses both parasites. I will be a guinea pig for this method. With what I know about ich and velvet, I see absolutely no reason why this would not work. I may do two total transfers to be extra "safe". That's still 16 days.

4FordFamily · May 22, 2015

jcs401 said:
Also, why is nothing affecting my corals?

You do not need to drain you'll do more harm to your biological filtration and ecosystem. Just let the system run fallow (no fish) for 63-72 days.

It doesn't affect coral because inverts and fish are affected by completely different parasites. Running your display tank fallow for that period will starve any resident parasites without a host.

JCSReefing · May 22, 2015

Biggest issue is that I thought everything was going fine since a few fish lived for a couple months I come home from lunch today to find two of them dead the only thing left is the fire fish and I ordered some clowns to add to the tank should I now set up a quarantine tank for the clowns and medicate them

Humblefish · May 22, 2015

@jcs401 Basically what you need is a "clean slate" in your tank, as far as the fish are concerned. To accomplish this, catch all of your fish (but inverts/corals can remain), and QT them for 72 days. 72 days of going fallow (fishless) ensures any & all pathogens in your DT will starve to death.

In the meantime, treat all your fish in QT as "new fish" you just bought. Since you know it's likely at least one of them has a communicable disease, but don't know which disease exactly, treat with copper (ex. Cupramine) and Prazipro. This combination will eradicate the most likely culprits.

Triggreef · May 22, 2015

3fordfamily said:
Good suggestion above, but that will do little to nothing for velvet. I like humbefish's idea that he does not yet endorse- it's somewhat of a hybrid. 10 days in cupramine or CP, then one tank transfer, then back to another tank for monitoring. This is shorter and addresses both parasites. I will be a guinea pig for this method. With what I know about ich and velvet, I see absolutely no reason why this would not work. I may do two total transfers to be extra "safe". That's still 16 days.

Velvet is a little less common although it is still around. I'm not quite as familiar with velvet but I presume it would at least show signs throughout my process and then could be addressed accordingly. Or it could go undetected I suppose. I think the velvet life cycle is something like ich, only much faster. Been quite some time since I've really researched it.