Losing fish

[Dfector]

Sorry for the lengthy post. I’m in a bit of a panic, as I’ve lost ten fish over the last 30 days. :-(

The tank has been running for almost two years. I test for ammonia (zero), nitrites (zero) and nitrates (~16-24ppm) regularly.

It started with two pajama cardinals and my original clown pair. They were acting funny and not eating. But I didn’t notice any external signs. They eventually appeared weak and started keeping close to the sand before dying.

Then it got to my other 3 clowns, which I tried to quarantine/medicate (metroplex and kanaplex). But they only lasted two more days in QT, and they were gone.

Most recently, it wiped out 4 other cardinals. Same as the clowns... no visible signs that I could see, just acting weak.

We still have a (seemingly) happy yellow tang, flame angel and a few gobies. There doesn’t seem to be any effect on my softies, shrimps or flower anemone.

My other parameters:
Temp: 76
Ph: 8.3
Alk: 13dkh
Salinity: 33ppt
Phosphate: 1ppm

I’ve tried doing some large water changes (25%) as well.

Is there something else I should test for? I’ll be really depressed if anything happens to our tang... she’s our first fish.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[hdsoftail1065]

#reefsquad

 

[wesman42]

Do you have any pictures of the fish?

 

[Big G]

Welcome to R2R. Sorry it's for such a bad reason. What was the last "wet" thing (fish, invert, coral, etc.) added to the tank and when?

 

[Dfector]

Do you have any pictures of the fish?

Sorry about the quality. I never tried taking fish pics before.

 

[Dfector]

Welcome to R2R. Sorry it's for such a bad reason. What was the last "wet" thing (fish, invert, coral, etc.) added to the tank and when?

Most recent was a diamond goby and the Banggai cardinals. But those came after all the clownfish had died.

Before that we added a BTA with the hopes of clownfish hosting.

 

[Big G]

There are two things that kill fish rather quickly: velvet and gram negative bacterial infections. The troubling thing about velvet is that it attacks first inside the gills unseen and sometimes never showing the exterior white spots. Velvet is rampant in the industry these days as is a real bad bacterial infection that appears to pop up a couple of weeks after fish are introduced into tanks. More important than ever to quarantine all incoming "wet" additions to our tanks. That being said, the quarantine treatment is for copper at therapeutic level for 30 days and antibiotic like Kanaplex or Furan2, or the combination of them as Spectrogram at the same time to combat the current situation.

 

[Dfector]

There are two things that kill fish rather quickly: velvet and gram negative bacterial infections. The troubling thing about velvet is that it attacks first inside the gills unseen and sometimes never showing the exterior white spots. Velvet is rampant in the industry these days as is a real bad bacterial infection that appears to pop up a couple of weeks after fish are introduced into tanks. More important than ever to quarantine all incoming "wet" additions to our tanks. That being said, the quarantine treatment is for copper at therapeutic level for 30 days and antibiotic like Kanaplex or Furan2, or the combination of them as Spectrogram at the same time to combat the current situation.

Thanks Big G!

That’s great information. Would I have to move all the remaining fish to a treatment tank because of the copper?

In the absence of any other fish, how long can these pathogens live in the water?

Thanks again for your help.

 

[Big G]

Going fallow for 76 days in the DT is what we generally recommend just to be safe. All fish have to be out for it to work with one exception: uronema which is a free swimming parasite that does not need a fish host.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/fallow-periods-going-fishless.190324/#post-2183025