Foxface and shrimp died

[USMA36]

So this is my first loss for my 90 gallon tank. I have a 36 gallon sump with a protein Skimmer and refugium with chaeto. Tank is about 4 months old now. My magnificent foxface is barley alive. I found him this morning floating upside down breathing a little on the heavy side. I transferred him to an already running empty qt tank. I also lost a cleaner shrimp 3 days ago and another cleaner shrimp yesterday. Foxface had no signs of sickness. Ate like a pig up until and including last night. He did have a couple ich spots about 6 weeks ago but never stopped eating. Had not more than 4 or 5 specs. I haven't added any new fish in about a month and they all seem to be doing fine. Corals all doing well. Remaining fish are 2 OC clowns, 2 pj cardinals, 1 yasha, 1 watchman goby, and 3 blue green chromis. I also have about a dozen or so snails of different varieties. Only new additions in the last month have been about 5 coral frags. Any ideas as to what could have happened? My sand bed is about 3" deep. Ammonia 0, Nitrates between 10 and 20 salt 1.026 I change out about 15-20 gallons a week. I run kalk through my ATO my ph is 8.0 and alk is 11.5. Temp steady between 76.5 and 77.5 all monitored through an Apex. Any ideas? A friend thinks I disturbed the sand bed while vacuuming it during my last water change about a week ago. Being that it's a new tank he thinks maybe h2s built up and killed him. Is this a possibility?

 

[Brew12]

So this is my first loss for my 90 gallon tank. I have a 36 gallon sump with a protein Skimmer and refugium with chaeto. Tank is about 4 months old now. My magnificent foxface is barley alive. I found him this morning floating upside down breathing a little on the heavy side. I transferred him to an already running empty qt tank. I also lost a cleaner shrimp 3 days ago and another cleaner shrimp yesterday. Foxface had no signs of sickness. Ate like a pig up until and including last night. He did have a couple ich spots about 6 weeks ago but never stopped eating. Had not more than 4 or 5 specs. I haven't added any new fish in about a month and they all seem to be doing fine. Corals all doing well. Remaining fish are 2 OC clowns, 2 pj cardinals, 1 yasha, 1 watchman goby, and 3 blue green chromis. I also have about a dozen or so snails of different varieties. Only new additions in the last month have been about 5 coral frags. Any ideas as to what could have happened? My sand bed is about 3" deep. Ammonia 0, Nitrates between 10 and 20 salt 1.026 I change out about 15-20 gallons a week. I run kalk through my ATO my ph is 8.0 and alk is 11.5. Temp steady between 76.5 and 77.5 all monitored through an Apex. Any ideas? A friend thinks I disturbed the sand bed while vacuuming it during my last water change about a week ago. Being that it's a new tank he thinks maybe h2s built up and killed him. Is this a possibility?

Normally H2S builds up in deeper sand beds that don't get stirred regularly. Your 3" sandbed makes this possible if you don't have a good number of sand sifters/stirrers in your system and don't vacuum it regularly. It normally forms a black sludge under the sand and smells like rotten eggs. I also don't know why it would only impact one fish and not all of them. The loss of cleaner shrimp has me puzzled, too.

Let's get more eyes on this.
#reefsquad

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

. Any ideas? A friend thinks I disturbed the sand bed while vacuuming it during my last water change about a week ago. Being that it's a new tank he thinks maybe h2s built up and killed him. Is this a possibility?

In such a new tank Id say no. Possible yea I suppose. But your also vacuuming regularly.
It was literally years before I had sand problems that led me to my stance on either regular sand cleaning or go true DSB.fwiw 3in is not a dsb and likely a bad idea unless you regularly clean it.

The loss of cleaner shrimp has me puzzled, too.

Yea, really odd. Possibly unrelated to the fish and has lost 3 total. Underfeeding the shrimp? New tank voo doo loss.?

 

[glb]

Doesn't make sense to me either. Usually a serious water quality problem will affect everything. I agree with everyone that your tank is pretty young to have sand problems. Could it have been bad food the foxfish and shrimp ate?

 

[USMA36]

No rotten egg smell at all. Food is LRS. No other fish are sick. Everyone seems healthy and happy.

 

[Mal11224]

I have a foxface and he is a pig and have noticed when he eats too much, he spits up the seaweed that he ate. Maybe he ate too much. Also, you need to verify your apex readings, I try to double check certain readings. I've noticed my salinity readings to be way off at times on my apex and now I just use a refractometer to get my sg. It's strange to say the least that your foxface fell ill so fast. Maybe a chemical entered the tank somehow. I would pay close attention to the other fish for sure.

 

[USMA36]

I don't use the Apex for salinity. I use a calibrated refractometer. Foxface is still clinging to life in hospital tank. No idea what to do for him. Just sits there upside down. I did notice a smoke like substance coming off of him today. Not sure what that is. Slime coat maybe?

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

#reefsquad.

 

[dbl]

@melypr1985.

 

[USMA36]

Only other thing that's strange is my chaeto has suddenly shrank. 2 months ago I had to cut it down, it was basketball sized. It started getting big again, but in the last 2 weeks it has gotten really small. I am running GFO and carbon full time and have been since the beginning. Nitrates run between 10 and 20. Not sure of phosphates I dont have any tests left.

 

[Frop]

So this is my first loss for my 90 gallon tank. I have a 36 gallon sump with a protein Skimmer and refugium with chaeto. Tank is about 4 months old now. My magnificent foxface is barley alive. I found him this morning floating upside down breathing a little on the heavy side. I transferred him to an already running empty qt tank. I also lost a cleaner shrimp 3 days ago and another cleaner shrimp yesterday. Foxface had no signs of sickness. Ate like a pig up until and including last night. He did have a couple ich spots about 6 weeks ago but never stopped eating. Had not more than 4 or 5 specs. I haven't added any new fish in about a month and they all seem to be doing fine. Corals all doing well. Remaining fish are 2 OC clowns, 2 pj cardinals, 1 yasha, 1 watchman goby, and 3 blue green chromis. I also have about a dozen or so snails of different varieties. Only new additions in the last month have been about 5 coral frags. Any ideas as to what could have happened? My sand bed is about 3" deep. Ammonia 0, Nitrates between 10 and 20 salt 1.026 I change out about 15-20 gallons a week. I run kalk through my ATO my ph is 8.0 and alk is 11.5. Temp steady between 76.5 and 77.5 all monitored through an Apex. Any ideas? A friend thinks I disturbed the sand bed while vacuuming it during my last water change about a week ago. Being that it's a new tank he thinks maybe h2s built up and killed him. Is this a possibility?

Bummer.

 

[blkhwkz]

I don't use the Apex for salinity. I use a calibrated refractometer. Foxface is still clinging to life in hospital tank. No idea what to do for him. Just sits there upside down. I did notice a smoke like substance coming off of him today. Not sure what that is. Slime coat maybe?

Foxface shed their slime coat when stressed so could be that. When I moved mine from QT to DT it shed, yesterday I had to remove all fish to QT and it shed again when I put it in there.

 

[Frop]

Foxface shed their slime coat when stressed so could be that. When I moved mine from QT to DT it shed, yesterday I had to remove all fish to QT and it shed again when I put it in there.

Can the shedding kill the shrimp?

 

[Cory]

The only thing ive seen was your alk is a little high. I like the keep mine at 9.5dkh in case of an error, gives room up and down.

Ive also heard fish can choke to death.

 

[USMA36]

Update. Foxface still clinging to life in the hospital tank. He actually ate a few pellets and swam a little. Still upside down though. He braces himself against things in the tank to avoid bouncing around. Had to turn off powerhead it was bouncing him around the tank too much. I do have an oversized hob filter that I'm hoping is oxygenating the water enough. I really wish I could figure this out.

 

[USMA36]

Here's a quick video. Marks on his side are from spending a couple hours pinned up against the filter strainer. I have blocked it off so it doesn't happen again.

 

[Bdog4u2]

Could be something wrong with his swim bladder especially since it ate

 

[Fishfinder]

The only time ive seen a fish do that is swim bladder issues..... coming up from deep water

Weird it coincided with your shrimp dying too

 

[USMA36]

I know. It's crazy. Seems alert too. Knows when I walk in the room and what not. He's definitely better today than yesterday. As far as the shrimp I am starting to think I had something on my hand when I was last in the tank. Both shrimp cleaned my hand. One was dead the next day the other 2 days after that. No other explanation. All the corals and other inverts are fine.

 

[Fishfinder]

This might be the wrong route, wait for a second opinion but have you thought about venting him?