I just came home to this

[Richard Newman]

Title says it all.
So, this is the third fish we have now lost in a week.
Last Friday our male clown. Tuesday our royal gramma. And today our female clown.
I really have no idea how I'm going to get her out. I may have to wait until cousin It moves.

I've been treating with Dr G's medicated caviar as we believe the royal gramma had a bacterial infection. I'm guessing it could have been the same with the now both clowns. Although she was swimming and eating normally the last few days....

Anyone have ideas?

Two fish remain: watchman goby and firefish

Water parms are:
Temp 79.3F
Salinity 34.5
Ph 8
Ammonia 0
Alkalinity 8.1dkh
Nitrate 20 ppm
Phosphate .1
Calcium 440
Magnesium 1400

 

[Florida Sunshine]

What made you think it was a bacterial infection?
Did the clowns show any strange behavior (other than being clowns)? Swimming in front of a power head or yawning anything abnormal.
What was the most recent thing done to the tank?
What is in this Dr Gs medicated caviar? Medicated with what?
How old is the tank?
etc. give us any details you can.

 

[Richard Newman]

Tank is 8 months old. Here are/were the fish and when they were introduced into the tank.
RIP: 1 ocellaris clown (there were two, lost the smaller male on Friday Nov-8) original pair on 3/30
1 watchman goby 4/14
1 firefish 5/24
RIP: 1 gramma 5/30
1 gba 5/5

I have a thread about the royal gramma here (https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/gramma-lying-in-the-sand.662825/)
It was originally thought that it might be flukes. I was able to catch the gramma and give a freshwater dip, but nothing fell off. I took pictures to my LFS and they believe that it was a bacterial infection. They recommended Dr G's anti-bacterial caviar. Active ingredients: kanamycin and metronidazole. Additionally there were no white specks which might have indicated ick. Unfortunately as soon as I got home with the medicated food the gramma had passed. I've been feeding the remaining fish in the hopes that it would prevent anything further.

No issues with the clown yesterday. I was in the office early today so I didn't get to see much of the tank, but I did think it was odd that the clown was out of the anemone. But the was somewhat closed, so I didn't think much about it.

Other than that, the tank has been stable. I does phytoplankton about 5 times a week. Reefroids twice a week. Red Sea Calc/Alk/Mag 1ml daily each, Red Sea trace A B C D 1ml each weekly.

Glass is scraped a few times a week. Water changes 10% every other week. I will be doing a large water change this weekend at the advice of my LFS to bring down the nitrates.

I broadcast feed a variety of foods: Hikari Marine S pellets, Hikari frozen mysis, Copepod Max, and LRS Reef Frenzy Nano. I'm not a very good chef so they would get some of the frozen food for a few days as a cube of mysis and LRS lasted 2 or 3 days.

That's all I can think of.
Thanks again!

EDIT: Filtration I run inTank media baskets with filter floss, bio balls, carbon and gfo.
I also have an IM protein skimmer, skimming a bit wet.
Floss gets changed out every couple of days, carbon / gfo gets changed out monthly.

 

[Doctorgori]

I've seen that before...kinda going through it now with seahorses (then again one bad fart in another room and they might die ) ...
I'm thinking you are on the right course feeding the meds as I personally never med a reef tank

 

[Richard Newman]

According to the bottle the meds are reef safe. I don't have a hospital or QT, nor do I really have room to set one up. So I have to look to other alternatives. The Dr G's says it can be used preventatively as well as to treat active bacterial infections. I think I was just a little too late, unfortunately. I'm going to keep feeding till day 10 to hopefully protect / heal the remaining two fish. I might also get an ICP test this weekend to see if there is something else that I might be missing.

 

[LAReefer4Life]

Sorry for your loss. Could it be predator hiding out? It could be a parasite, any flashing, scratching, excessive yawning, lack of appetite?

 

[Richard Newman]

Hi @pathot984.
There was a definite change since we lost the male clown. The gramma was the only one that had any appetite loss and flashing. The female clown you might say seemed sad. But it's kind of hard to tell. The only oddity was this morning she was out of the nem way before sun up, 5:30am. I was pretty sure she was eating. My guess is that she expired and then the current in the tank blew her into where the urchin was.

 

[wasafuzz]

Hi @pathot984.
There was a definite change since we lost the male clown. The gramma was the only one that had any appetite loss and flashing. The female clown you might say seemed sad. But it's kind of hard to tell. The only oddity was this morning she was out of the nem way before sun up, 5:30am. I was pretty sure she was eating. My guess is that she expired and then the current in the tank blew her into where the urchin was.