If a fish dies can you replace that fish?

[ZachDemitro]

I know there's rules when adding fish to probably add 1-3 at a time every couple weeks but what happens if you add a fish then it dies..? Can you replace that fish and add a new one or should you still wait until the couple weeks pass

 

[Troylee]

Depending why the fish died would determine that.. if you have ich or something you might wanna wait.. if all your other fish look healthy and doing fine then it should be safe to add one right away.

 

[Timfish]

That is really going to depend on the fish in question and the other fish in your system as well as the size of your system. If I lost a big Naso in a 300 gallon I probably wouldn't worry too much about replacing it if there were only a couple other tangs. In a 120 if I went through the trouble of quarantining and acclimating 2 or 3 different dwarf angel species together before I added them then a month, or year, later I lost one I would not even consider trying to replace one.

 

[ZachDemitro]

That is really going to depend on the fish in question and the other fish in your system as well as the size of your system. If I lost a big Naso in a 300 gallon I probably wouldn't worry too much about replacing it if there were only a couple other tangs. In a 120 if I went through the trouble of quarantining and acclimating 2 or 3 different dwarf angel species together before I added them then a month, or year, later I lost one I would not even consider trying to replace one.

It's a 135 Gallon I have 1 coral beauty 1 majestic 1 goby sleeper banded 2 mocha storm clownfish 1 powder brown tang. I had a baby regal who died. Was just gonna go get a midnight dwarf.

 

[Troylee]

It's a 135 Gallon I have 1 coral beauty 1 majestic 1 goby sleeper banded 2 mocha storm clownfish 1 powder brown tang. I had a baby regal who died. Was just gonna go get a midnight dwarf.

You’ll be fine.. granted it didn’t die from disease and or parasites and Infect the new fish. If we’re just talking bacteria wise then no worries..

 

[ZachDemitro]

You’ll be fine.. granted it didn’t die from disease and or parasites and Infect the new fish. If we’re just talking bacteria wise then no worries..

I think he was just too fragile and shy. No one bothered him or anything he was eating but he hid alot

 

[DMG Reef]

I think you should slow down. What happened to your Copperband butterfly, the juvenile blue tang, the Threadfin butterfly, the Moorish Idol, the Rock Beauty Angel, the Bicolor Angel? You listed these fish at the end of May. And you’ve added a powder brown tang, Majestic Angel and Regal Angel since then? If all of these previously-listed fish have died and you don’t know why, you shouldn’t add anymore fish until you figure out if there’s disease in your tank.

 

[littlefoxx]

I think you should slow down. What happened to your Copperband butterfly, the juvenile blue tang, the Threadfin butterfly, the Moorish Idol, the Rock Beauty Angel, the Bicolor Angel? You listed these fish at the end of May. And you’ve added a powder brown tang, Majestic Angel and Regal Angel since then? If all of these previously-listed fish have died and you don’t know why, you shouldn’t add anymore fish until you figure out if there’s disease in your tank.

If all that @DMG Reef says you had is true and they passed I agree. It also seems like youre taking on some very challenging fish way too fast: ie the regal, moorish idol. rock beauty, CBB and other angels. Sounds like either you are not meeting their habitat/nutrition needs or youve got something going on in your tank sickness wise.

 

[ZachDemitro]

I think you should slow down. What happened to your Copperband butterfly, the juvenile blue tang, the Threadfin butterfly, the Moorish Idol, the Rock Beauty Angel, the Bicolor Angel? You listed these fish at the end of May. And you’ve added a powder brown tang, Majestic Angel and Regal Angel since then? If all of these previously-listed fish have died and you don’t know why, you shouldn’t add anymore fish until you figure out if there’s disease in your tank.

For the Copperband Threadfin Moorish Idol Rock beauty and Bi-color i had a ammonia spike from no where. I cleared all the water up since then two months ago. Ive had the majestic a while. I only added the powder brown and baby regal. I have lots of food in the tank on the rocks and live rock. I feed them decent and i check the water once a day just to make sure im not spiking anything. I have not seen ick on any of my fish and i have a cleaner shrimp to help try and keep fish clean and healthy.. All of my fish are eating just fine. i had a bit of ammonia 0.25ppm but it went away just before i added the regal and the powder brown. No one was bullying him either. I will stick to just easier fish to keep for now.

 

[ZachDemitro]

If all that @DMG Reef says you had is true and they passed I agree. It also seems like youre taking on some very challenging fish way too fast: ie the regal, moorish idol. rock beauty, CBB and other angels. Sounds like either you are not meeting their habitat/nutrition needs or youve got something going on in your tank sickness wise.

I dont really know much about fish sickness i usually just ask my dad because hes been reefing for years. But he lives in another country so hes not exactly hands on. Im gonna avoid adding any more fish and just monitor the tank for a while. I havent seen any weird spots or things on my fish though.

 

[littlefoxx]

I dont really know much about fish sickness i usually just ask my dad because hes been reefing for years. But he lives in another country so hes not exactly hands on. Im gonna avoid adding any more fish and just monitor the tank for a while. I havent seen any weird spots or things on my fish though.

Probably good and I would suggest hardier fish with less complex requirements until you figure out how to care for the particular fish and whats going on in your tank. Clowns, chromis, damsels are the easiest. Gobies and blennies are good too depending on species. I would stick to those because a lot of the fish you tried are expert care only kind of fish

 

[DMG Reef]

For the Copperband Threadfin Moorish Idol Rock beauty and Bi-color i had an ammonia spike from no where. I cleared all the water up since then two months ago. Ive had the majestic a while. I only added the powder brown and baby regal. I have lots of food in the tank on the rocks and live rock. I feed them decent and i check the water once a day just to make sure im not spiking anything. I have not seen ick on any of my fish and i have a cleaner shrimp to help try and keep fish clean and healthy.. All of my fish are eating just fine. i had a bit of ammonia 0.25ppm but it went away just before i added the regal and the powder brown. No one was bullying him either. I will stick to just easier fish to keep for now.

It wasn’t my intent to be critical of you. You’re not the first or the only new reefer who wants to get every beautiful fish they see. But many of them leave the hobby after all the losses. Going slow and researching every fish you want goes a long way towards satisfaction with reefing. I’ve had 5 of my fish for over nine years. They are pets.

Most of us just want what’s best for the animals. And we want you to stick around and enjoy reefing as much as we do.

 

[littlefoxx]

It wasn’t my intent to be critical of you. You’re not the first or the only new reefer who wants to get every beautiful fish they see. But many of them leave the hobby after all the losses. Going slow and researching every fish you want goes a long way towards satisfaction with reefing. I’ve had 5 of my fish for over nine years. They are pets.

Most of us just want what’s best for the animals. And we want you to stick around and enjoy reefing as much as we do.

100%

 

[CoralB]

there is good advice given here so far . I would add from observation of your comments that aside from not buying any more fish for a while I would also get more familiar to the basics of keeping fish in general . Like the one comment you made that “ammonia came out of nowhere “ ammonia did come from somewhere and you really need to know why if you are to be successful . How long has this tank been up and running ? How long did you cycle this tank before putting livestock in it ? , what are you using for filtration ? What is the temp? , sand or bare bottom ? , how much rock in the tank ? ,what is the salinity? , what are your nitrates at? , ammonia spike is telling you that you dont have sufficient biome to sustain the added fish.

 

[littlefoxx]

All good questions from @CoralB !! I started in December and I learned the hard way with fish. Bought a beautiful coral beauty, showed no signs of anything and put her in my 70 gallon. A week later every fish but my baby engineer goby and firefish died from velvet. Had to go 3 months fallow. In that time I researched fish after fish after fish! My boyfriend would always ask me “fish research?” When ever he saw me on my phone! But in this period I learned so much about how to precent this stuff, what I can add and how fast! I got a beautiful 70 gallon reef going that has a lot of corals and some easy hardy fish!! Once that tank had been doing well I then began to look into the more complex fish I wanted and had done endless research on and got a baby dwarf lion and marine betta! Waited a few months and then came across someone getting out of the hobby and got his six foot reef tank off him! This tank I tried some more complex fish (after hours of research and sifting through this form and making posts). This tank Ive got two triggers, 3 tangs, a regal angel (who I moved to fast with by putting her in the DT and had to move her to QT when she got what I suspect was Ich from stress. I then backed off and shes been ich free for a week in my tank and is now eating frozen foods as she is a wild caught angel!). I also have anthias, a saddleback butterfly fish, foxface and mandarin dragonet. All of these guys are more complicated for sure and required a lot of research. Get your tank up and running with some easy fish like chromis, damsels, gobies, blennies, and other hardy fish! I would also stick to one dwarf angel, they are a pain and Ive tried the multiples, did not go well. My point is I got sucked into all the beautiful fish and added them too fast and had a lot of losses because of it and was ready to throw the towel in. But when I slowed down and did countless hours of research and found success with a reef tank of beautiful hardy fish is when I moved on to more complex fish! You will get there just takes time! Chromis are very good to start with as they are very active and colorful and very hardy! Ive got 3 green reef chromis and one black and gold. Most people complain they are boring but when you start to add other fish they help the shy ones come out more!

 

[vetteguy53081]

I dont really know much about fish sickness i usually just ask my dad because hes been reefing for years. But he lives in another country so hes not exactly hands on. Im gonna avoid adding any more fish and just monitor the tank for a while. I havent seen any weird spots or things on my fish though.

When a fish perishes, you have to revisit behaviors such as : If fish was eating and breathing normal.
How other tankmates look - any increased respirations, itching, loss of appetite, etc
Investigate cause if possible such as flukes, ich etc.
After death, do a 10-14 day waiting period to see if any other fish show/develop unusual signs, if not - verify water parameters and consider quarantining replacement fish prior to introduction in display tank

 

[PeterEde]

Just don't try telling the other fish it's the same fish

 

[hansonbr]

It's a 135 Gallon I have 1 coral beauty 1 majestic 1 goby sleeper banded 2 mocha storm clownfish 1 powder brown tang. I had a baby regal who died. Was just gonna go get a midnight dwarf.

Take your time….try and determine why it died (source, qt, etc). You don’t need to replace, but you can add at longer intervals too to be safer

 

[ZachDemitro]

It wasn’t my intent to be critical of you. You’re not the first or the only new reefer who wants to get every beautiful fish they see. But many of them leave the hobby after all the losses. Going slow and researching every fish you want goes a long way towards satisfaction with reefing. I’ve had 5 of my fish for over nine years. They are pets.

Most of us just want what’s best for the animals. And we want you to stick around and enjoy reefing as much as we do.

I was telling myself maybe I'm not cut out for reefing I should just stop. But I got more motivation to keep on going. I do my best off research for sure I actually bought my tank and had waited an entire year before even adding water because I knew nothing about saltwater. I studied as much as I can but sometimes you can't get all the info I don't think anyone knows everything which is okay. But I know I've had quite a few flukes. The only main thing was my ammonia spike that took out 5-6 fishes. I added one too many fish and I overfed trying to get a copperband to eat and that's definitely on me. But the blue Caribbean tang and the two regals were strange to me no diseases I could see on the regals all 3 eating but the Caribbean tang I really believe had that fingerprint disease. Absolutely in love with my tank putting tons of money into rocks micro plankton and stuff. I have been doing everything I know by the books. The only flukes I know is the regals and the one tang. I'm gonna slow it down take everyone's advice but most importantly keep on reefing with what I have.

 

[ZachDemitro]

there is good advice given here so far . I would add from observation of your comments that aside from not buying any more fish for a while I would also get more familiar to the basics of keeping fish in general . Like the one comment you made that “ammonia came out of nowhere “ ammonia did come from somewhere and you really need to know why if you are to be successful . How long has this tank been up and running ? How long did you cycle this tank before putting livestock in it ? , what are you using for filtration ? What is the temp? , sand or bare bottom ? , how much rock in the tank ? ,what is the salinity? , what are your nitrates at? , ammonia spike is telling you that you dont have sufficient biome to sustain the added fish.

I have like 300lbs of dry rock and 130 lbs of live rock or something like that I'm really not sure. My salinity is at 1.023 my ammonia is 0 my nitrite 0 my nitrate is in between 0 and 5.0 ppm I was told that's just it cycling. I have a 100 gallon protein skimmer a Eheim 2217 canister filter a marine land HOB filter my water temperature is 77 degrees. I have a mix of sand and crushed coral as a base to try and keep my ph at a nice level. My water hardness is at 10 which I was told it had to be around 8-12 12 being a little high but liveable. Feeding an assortment of mysis shrimp brine seaweed flakes sometimes small pellets. I also have two of the highest gallon wave makers from fluval I could find in store. I do water changes once a week.