Losing fish and now my urchin

susan101 · May 24, 2022

We lost and angel first. Then two pj cardinals Then a damsel.
But let me start with the tank is a few months old. We did a fishless kickstart with dr Tim’s one and only. Then got two damsels two blennies one goby and one shrimp. Along With 1/2 dozen snails and crabs They alge nloomed and the cleaning crew stepped up. We got an urchin and a angel at that point. The angle lasted a week and died. No reason I can find. All the levels are perfect. Filters is good. The bio cycle seems to be good. So we got two pj cardinals. They lasted one day ! Now another week later the urchin is sitting still on the bottom and spines are falling off
I cannot tell by looking at him or from these posts if he is truly dead or sick or hungry? so I am an account.
What is going one ? Ideas please ?

blaxsun · May 24, 2022

Unfortunately, by the time an urchin starts losing its spines it's almost always a slow decline until it dies. There's not a lot you can do except continue to feed it seaweed.

#fishmedic

fishguy242 · May 24, 2022

hi welcome to the reef...

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ZombieEngineer · May 24, 2022

How big is your tank?

Did you quarantine your fish?

What are all of your parameters (ammonia, nitrate, salinity, temp, pH)?

davidcalgary29 · May 25, 2022

Maybe it's the angle of the shot, but that tank looks very small. @blaxsun is correct: the urchin is likely a goner. I recommend that you start out with a tuxedo urchin (not what you have), as they tend to be very hardy and ave the best chance of surviving new tank conditions.

karamreef117 · May 25, 2022

What are the parameters? Im interested in knowing what the ammonia is? Also did anything seem weird when the fish died? any coloration or shapes? lastly, any other livestock still thriving?

JumboShrimp · May 25, 2022

I detect ‘speed’ in your narrative in terms of stocking/advancing forward… in a hobby where slowness wins the race.

Mr. Mojo Rising · May 25, 2022

how big is the tank? It sounds like toomuchtoofast, adding 5 fish in a brand new tank at once is not a good idea.

s1oliver · May 25, 2022

I agree with the two posts above, you likely added too many fish too fast and overwhelmed the biological filter. The biological filtration builds up slowly so in the future I'd add a fish every couple of weeks.

susan101 · May 25, 2022

ZombieEngineer said:
How big is your tank?

Did you quarantine your fish?

What are all of your parameters (ammonia, nitrate, salinity, temp, pH)?

It’s a 32 gallon taken
we did quarentine before entry with ro watch mixing with the tank water and the water they came in. the timeline above is compressed
it’s was a least two weeks before each new fish was introduced in pairs .
First the shrimp damsel and blennies with some snails and crabs.
Then the goby urchin and more snails and crabs
then the angel
Then after the angel passed the pjs.

the levels are all minimal or middle such as salt levels. The temp is 78
o nitrates and nitrates. .5 of ammonia 7.4 ph.
I don’t have lots to test for copper etc.

susan101 · May 25, 2022

s1oliver said:
I agree with the two posts above, you likely added too many fish too fast and overwhelmed the biological filter. The biological filtration builds up slowly so in the future I'd add a fish every couple of weeks.

The readings I found said one to two fish per every 10 gallons. Since most of the population is cleaning crew we only counted the damesels
.

SlugSnorter · May 25, 2022

susan101 said:
We lost and angel first. Then two pj cardinals Then a damsel.
But let me start with the tank is a few months old. We did a fishless kickstart with dr Tim’s one and only. Then got two damsels two blennies one goby and one shrimp. Along With 1/2 dozen snails and crabs They alge nloomed and the cleaning crew stepped up. We got an urchin and a angel at that point. The angle lasted a week and died. No reason I can find. All the levels are perfect. Filters is good. The bio cycle seems to be good. So we got two pj cardinals. They lasted one day ! Now another week later the urchin is sitting still on the bottom and spines are falling off
I cannot tell by looking at him or from these posts if he is truly dead or sick or hungry? so I am an account.
What is going one ? Ideas please ?

params? tank age? rock? using rodi? salinity good?

davidcalgary29 · May 25, 2022

susan101 said:
The readings I found said one to two fish per every 10 gallons. Since most of the population is cleaning crew we only counted the damesels
.

Most stocking guidelines are antiquated and don't take into account aquascape (your live rock) and the specific feeding requirements of many types of fish. Most angelfish are, for instance, grazers, and need a great deal of live rock. They're also very active, and will swim around the entire water column. 32g is therefore pretty tight, and only a few species will do well in a tank of that size. Banggai cardinals will, however, typically not move around a lot, and are a good fit in that tank size.

.5 ammonia is a problem. I think you need to do a massive water change, and get some Prime. You should also test for ammonia regularly if you're registering ammonia at this point.

You have the option of quarantining all incoming livestock, and I do this with all new tanks. There are a great many advocates here for not quarantining at all, and you can search for the procedures that they prefer.

More pics of the tank would help

dedragon · May 25, 2022

susan101 said:
we did quarentine before entry with ro watch mixing with the tank water and the water they came in

what do you mean by this? a bit confused as to what you may have done

JumboShrimp · May 25, 2022

I think the poster means 'observation-only' as 'quarantine,' but I was unclear as well.

susan101 · May 25, 2022

dedragon said:
what do you mean by this? a bit confused as to what you may have done

We didn’t want transition too fast. Putting the qt tank hanging on edge of bucket - dripping in tank water overflowing out the existing water. After an hour or so out the fish in the main tank.

ZombieEngineer · May 25, 2022

susan101 said:
We didn’t want transition too fast. Putting the qt tank hanging on edge of bucket - dripping in tank water overflowing out the existing water. After an hour or so out the fish in the main tank.

Translation error.

What you are describing is called acclimation.

Quarantine is a process of keeping fish in a seperate tank for long periods of several weeks to observe the fish for parasites and often to also proactively treat for parasites with copper for ich/velvet, prazipro for flukes and formalin for brooklynella or ureonema.

s1oliver · May 25, 2022

susan101 said:
It’s a 32 gallon taken
we did quarentine before entry with ro watch mixing with the tank water and the water they came in. the timeline above is compressed
it’s was a least two weeks before each new fish was introduced in pairs .
First the shrimp damsel and blennies with some snails and crabs.
Then the goby urchin and more snails and crabs
then the angel
Then after the angel passed the pjs.

the levels are all minimal or middle such as salt levels. The temp is 78
o nitrates and nitrates. .5 of ammonia 7.4 ph.
I don’t have lots to test for copper etc.

Ammonia should be at 0 ppm, I'd do a big water change then re-test for ammonia. Wash, rinse and repeat until it's at zero and see where your other parameters are when it is. Your original post made it sound like you added all of the fish at once so my mistake on that. I'd also recommend not adding the water the fish came in to your tank to reduce the chances of a potential issue. You'd be surprised how bad the water quality is at some stores, one place sold me R/O water that registered over 80 on my TDS meter. The guy even told me the filters were just changed recently so clearly he lied, I'm just glad I checked it before I added it to my ATO reservoir. Hope you get things turned around soon, losing fish always sucks.