Flame Angel Died after Water Change

[Fatmike92]

I had a flame angel die and an emerald crab

Yesterday I moved some rock around. Nothing big. Just some small ones up front.

And then did a 33% water change (30g)

I unfortunately use my well water at the minute with water conditioners. RODI should be here tomorrow

But my nitrates are like 25-35 per the Salifert test kit. I know this is too high I have been trying to get it down

tanks roughly 3 months old

had the flame angel 2-3 weeks

Any ideas?

Did I just do too much and stress it out?

Did I move the sand too much? Is sand just a ticking time bomb?

Other fish are alive and seem fine. Maybe a little labored breathing. Corals look fine as well

 

[brandon429]

I know you won’t believe it’s fish disease from skipping fallow and qt but thats most likely candidate. a three month bed isn’t bad yet

if you keep an eye out for trends in the fish disease forum the losses are tied to coincidental actions like water changes rock moves etc, and in this case loss of one clean up crew member but the others remain and the water remains clear and the other fish remain but show disease symptoms. After cycling there isn’t a concern with ammonia, your tank can handle some degree of well water ammonia input if it’s there just as it’s been handing daily feeding etc. if your well water had toxic ammonia levels you’d smell it when showering etc


the coincidental timing of actions paired with the disease onset always leads the keepers away from disease causes but the fact remains that mixing non prepped fish in a system is nowadays leading to losses bigtime, per the disease forum. If these were quarantined then the next step I’m seeing umpires take in the disease forum is to verify # of days in quarantine holding and then where treated, they discern the levels of treatment medication per species and then again the number of days held in observation before adding to the tank.


since the tank is only three months, the time it takes for fallow and there is a clean up crew present that wasnt fallowed before adding (see new clean up crew killed my fish posts) that’s one input vector unaccounted for not even counting fish themselves.


nitrate isn’t harmful to fish and those test strips can’t be used accurately in saltwater youve got to eliminate disease first, if you had bad parameters it couldn’t be a living system this long.

 

[Aqua Man]

I unfortunately use my well water at the minute with water conditioners. RODI should be here tomorrow

Sorry to hear about your fish.

Do you know the TDS of your well water?

Do you know the PH?

How long did the salt mix for?

 

[brandon429]

For sure nine people are primed to assume ammonia issues caused the loss but there’s also some interesting counter data to support it’s not that

-find any seneye post on the entire site of a system three months aged that can’t support ammonia control within ten minutes of a serious disturbance such as adding actual liquid ammonia. Take from any site on the entire internet including international forums, post one single example here / there isn’t any, it doesn’t happen. There are threads available for tracking where people add cycling ammonia into running reefs as a test, on seneye, and it resolved in 10 mins/ huge doses that don’t harm anything. Cycled systems have an amazing affinity for ammonia uptake that non digital kits can’t measure, they lie constantly. The only examples of ammonia noncontrol in reefing are cheap non digital test kits with samples taken from great looking normal / non crashed tanks- they are misreads. This innate command of ammonia doesn’t range tank to tank, its why cycling charts have the same ammonia drop date site to site, book to book, it’s known to be even per system.


even if your well water has ammonia, it’s not concentrated like test ammonia from those dosing threads sure is, and your tank is eating up any dosed just about immediately


the chances of you having the first ammonia non control reef ever seen is small, the chances fish are dying due to skip qt are high considering an entire forum exists to measure that impact.


another pattern exists where fish losses manifest within the first eight months in non quarantine systems, per reporting we are in that time span and fish are symptomatic.

see how disease markers are adding up, but digitally- proven cycling issues can’t be found anywhere on the entire internet to be linked here

 

[LeftyReefer]

brand new tank, bunch of new additions, without QT'ing anything.

sorry bud, but your fish probably died of ICH (or similar) and now your whole tank probably has it.

I would plan to QT the rest of your fish and let your tank go fallow for 2 and a half months. Then after that, you will need to QT anything before adding it to your tank or risk doing this all over again.

 

[brandon429]

Mike this will also help in troubleshooting: can you list the steps taken to prevent disease being transmitted into the 3 month old tank


for example, on dry start bottle bac systems upon cycle completion there isn’t any mode for disease to get in, it’s pure chain of command still. Some folks buy only pre quarantined fish from suppliers, keeping the coc in place, this would be one possible means of controlling vectoring-did you do anything along those lines or are the fish from a pet store

also post a full tank picture, this helps to assess activated surface area and the degree of bioloading in effect. Ammonia burnt fish will all be hovering at the top, all of them, unable to breathe and the water will be cloudy from bacteria taking advantage of nutrients so present that colonies on the rocks weren’t enough.

 

[vetteguy53081]

How long did you allow newly mixed warter to settle before testing?
Was the water same temperature as display tank?
Have you had a water test done on your well water by company such as Culligan ?

I had well water and when it was tested, it was high in sulfur, iron, ph was 4, and high content of radon and mercury. You would have been better off buying bottles spring water and adding 1/2 cup of salt to each bottle for correct mix ratio.

 

[Aqua Man]

had the flame angel 2-3 weeks

Other fish are alive and seem fine. Maybe a little labored breathing. Corals look fine as well

What kinds are the other fish?

 

[Fatmike92]

Sorry to hear about your fish.

Do you know the TDS of your well water?

Do you know the PH?

How long did the salt mix for?

No unfortunately I don't know the TDS or PH of the well water.

I ill have to get a TDS meter for the input of the RODI. I only got one for the output of the RODI

I mixed the salt for around an hour

 

[Fatmike92]

How long did you allow newly mixed warter to settle before testing?
Was the water same temperature as display tank?
Have you had a water test done on your well water by company such as Culligan ?

I had well water and when it was tested, it was high in sulfur, iron, ph was 4, and high content of radon and mercury. You would have been better off buying bottles spring water and adding 1/2 cup of salt to each bottle for correct mix ratio.

After I mixed for an hour it probably sat 10-15 minutes before testing. salinity tested at 1.024

water temperature was roughly the same. I didn't check it but I do have a heater in the brute when mixing. I have an extra temperature probe I can add onto my lighting controller that can put in the brute while mixing. I will do that from now on.

and no I have not had my water tested in some time. I need to have the water softener people come out anyways so I will get that done sooner than later

 

[Fatmike92]

What kinds are the other fish?

This is in a 90 gallon tank.

(4) clownfish
(1) orchid Dottyback
(1) picasso

 

[Fatmike92]

I know you won’t believe it’s fish disease from skipping fallow and qt but thats most likely candidate. a three month bed isn’t bad yet

if you keep an eye out for trends in the fish disease forum the losses are tied to coincidental actions like water changes rock moves etc, and in this case loss of one clean up crew member but the others remain and the water remains clear and the other fish remain but show disease symptoms. After cycling there isn’t a concern with ammonia, your tank can handle some degree of well water ammonia input if it’s there just as it’s been handing daily feeding etc. if your well water had toxic ammonia levels you’d smell it when showering etc


the coincidental timing of actions paired with the disease onset always leads the keepers away from disease causes but the fact remains that mixing non prepped fish in a system is nowadays leading to losses bigtime, per the disease forum. If these were quarantined then the next step I’m seeing umpires take in the disease forum is to verify # of days in quarantine holding and then where treated, they discern the levels of treatment medication per species and then again the number of days held in observation before adding to the tank.


since the tank is only three months, the time it takes for fallow and there is a clean up crew present that wasnt fallowed before adding (see new clean up crew killed my fish posts) that’s one input vector unaccounted for not even counting fish themselves.


nitrate isn’t harmful to fish and those test strips can’t be used accurately in saltwater youve got to eliminate disease first, if you had bad parameters it couldn’t be a living system this long.

I never said that disease wasn't a cause. No it was not my first thought which is why I came on here and posted to try and get some help and guidance on what I did wrong.

I have absolutely seen the trend in the fish disease forum about the losses.

I want to learn and provide the best system I can. I truly love the hobby and am very sad when something dies.

 

[Fatmike92]

For sure nine people are primed to assume ammonia issues caused the loss but there’s also some interesting counter data to support it’s not that

-find any seneye post on the entire site of a system three months aged that can’t support ammonia control within ten minutes of a serious disturbance such as adding actual liquid ammonia. Take from any site on the entire internet including international forums, post one single example here / there isn’t any, it doesn’t happen. There are threads available for tracking where people add cycling ammonia into running reefs as a test, on seneye, and it resolved in 10 mins/ huge doses that don’t harm anything. Cycled systems have an amazing affinity for ammonia uptake that non digital kits can’t measure, they lie constantly. The only examples of ammonia noncontrol in reefing are cheap non digital test kits with samples taken from great looking normal / non crashed tanks- they are misreads. This innate command of ammonia doesn’t range tank to tank, its why cycling charts have the same ammonia drop date site to site, book to book, it’s known to be even per system.


even if your well water has ammonia, it’s not concentrated like test ammonia from those dosing threads sure is, and your tank is eating up any dosed just about immediately


the chances of you having the first ammonia non control reef ever seen is small, the chances fish are dying due to skip qt are high considering an entire forum exists to measure that impact.


another pattern exists where fish losses manifest within the first eight months in non quarantine systems, per reporting we are in that time span and fish are symptomatic.

see how disease markers are adding up, but digitally- proven cycling issues can’t be found anywhere on the entire internet to be linked here

I appreciate the feedback.

I will start looking into setting up a QT system.

just no idea what I need to do! but I will definitely start researching.

 

[40g Nano]

Do you have a picture of the deceased fish? Might help with a diagnosis

 

[LeftyReefer]

I feel like I’m being paranoid…

my flame angel is hiding today which is out of character. Only had him about a week.

it is eating just fine today too.

maybe a little heavy breathing but not sure.

water parameter are good. (I don’t have exact number I just bought a new test kit on Amazon and just have the sticks.)

but everything is 0 except maybe a tiny bit of nitrates.

Am I just being crazy??

You posted the above a week or so ago, right?

So I'm going to guess that it wasn't the water change or moving any rocks that did this fish in...

The flame angel was sick/diseased. You posted after you had it a week that you were worried about it, that it was hiding and breathing heavy.... you even said in another post that it appeared that it was trying to get your peppermint shrimp to clean it and that you wanted to go get a cleaner shrimp so it could clean your flame angel. A week later, the fish is dead. Not rocket science here guys.

its a new tank, with a bunch of new additions, new fish, new corals and new CUC added, all without QTing.

I would strongly suggest you start a QT tank or issues like this will keep happening.

 

[Fatmike92]

Mike this will also help in troubleshooting: can you list the steps taken to prevent disease being transmitted into the 3 month old tank


for example, on dry start bottle bac systems upon cycle completion there isn’t any mode for disease to get in, it’s pure chain of command still. Some folks buy only pre quarantined fish from suppliers, keeping the coc in place, this would be one possible means of controlling vectoring-did you do anything along those lines or are the fish from a pet store

also post a full tank picture, this helps to assess activated surface area and the degree of bioloading in effect. Ammonia burnt fish will all be hovering at the top, all of them, unable to breathe and the water will be cloudy from bacteria taking advantage of nutrients so present that colonies on the rocks weren’t enough.

I guess from your examples I didn't do any means of disease prevention specifically.

but below is how I started the system

1. started system with 20ish lbs of live rock

2. built aquascape with another 25ish lbs of dry rock and another 30ish lbs of live rock
- so in all 50ish lbs of live rock and 20ish of dry rock. its probably around 80lbs total rock.

3. added small CUC 15 snails 10 hermits

4. added 4 clownfish a week later

5. (2) weeks later added orchid dottyback and a couple more snails and hermits

 

[brandon429]

Mike as a fourth odd trend in disease troubleshoots the website nano-reef.com has twenty years of data from tank setups where 98% of the builders with life history threads on the tanks didn’t do any type of prep. There is a verifiable niche in our hobby where it’s not as critical to make disease preps and it’s taken years to see the patterns in hindsight


the vast majority of builds over there are two clowns and some type of goby, by rule of smaller tank size they’re mostly excluding the mixed species / tangs and such these larger systems usually wind up holding. To me that’s an interesting dividing line between species groups and patterned outcomes, they can expect not to have problems in the setups by and large so long as the tank is cared for in an average manner. Something seems to have changed markedly in the last ten years either in collection transport or holding where species beyond a couple common clowns can nearly be guaranteed to bring in problems. It’s tricky when a given segment of the hobby doesn’t require preps and a given segment does.

Whoever invents a bottled doser than fixes the major disease issues in the display without having to fallow will be a deservedly rich individual. I know there are myriad dosers that claim the ability currently but if they’re not being used by zoos or part of the stickies at the top of the disease forum they don’t carry much weight so far. One day I bet some will arise with the way dna assessments and matched medications are being made so quickly in the general science market

 

[Fatmike92]

You posted the above a week or so ago, right?

So I'm going to guess that it wasn't the water change or moving any rocks that did this fish in...

The flame angel was sick/diseased. You posted after you had it a week that you were worried about it, that it was hiding and breathing heavy.... you even said in another post that it appeared that it was trying to get your peppermint shrimp to clean it and that you wanted to go get a cleaner shrimp so it could clean your flame angel. A week later, the fish is dead. Not rocket science here guys.

its a new tank, with a bunch of new additions, new fish, new corals and new CUC added, all without QTing.

I would strongly suggest you start a QT tank or issues like this will keep happening.

I did.

I will definitely be researching a posting a thread for help on setting up a QT

thank you for the honest feedback everyone!

 

[MnFish1]

I had a flame angel die and an emerald crab

Yesterday I moved some rock around. Nothing big. Just some small ones up front.

And then did a 33% water change (30g)

I unfortunately use my well water at the minute with water conditioners. RODI should be here tomorrow

But my nitrates are like 25-35 per the Salifert test kit. I know this is too high I have been trying to get it down

tanks roughly 3 months old

had the flame angel 2-3 weeks

Any ideas?

Did I just do too much and stress it out?

Did I move the sand too much? Is sand just a ticking time bomb?

Other fish are alive and seem fine. Maybe a little labored breathing. Corals look fine as well

IMHO - the fish was 'not great' beforehand - and the water change set it off. For example - I just changed water in my discus tank - all the fish were eating, doing fine, etc - I did a water change - 2 had jumped out - and 2 were dead (they were small)

What I think we forget is that ammonia - depends greatly on pH - the pH in my discus tank was probably 5 before the water change - and 8 after. If there is an ammonia issue - or filter issue - thats going to cause problem - becuase Free ammonia relates strongly to pH.

That said - I think its also important to realize that 'fish die'. Especially 2-3 weeks old. It depends how they were collected, shipped, their condition, etc.

PS - I'm sorry for your loss - and PPS I am not sure your water change or sand mixing had anything to do with it. I might talk to the place you bought it - and ask - if there is a possibility for a discount on a replacement - which I would do once the tank is a little more stable

Happy New Year

 

[DanConnor]

Just to be clear- a quarantine provides a separate place for medicating sick fish, and a chance to protect previous inhabitants of your reef from diseases coming in with new additions. Lack of a quarantine did not kill this fish.

I was going to say what MnFinh1 just did- newly imported fish go through a lot of stresses, and sometimes during the first few weeks they succumb to that. Yours was not yet out of that window of danger.

The main issue I see is lack of RO, but you are addressing that.