Losing my fish!

[Rosyposey]

Hello everyone! I'm new to forum but I've been reading threads for about 9 months which is about how long I've had my saltwater tank. It's 55 gallons sitting at 77 degrees, spg 1.025. So within the last 40 days or so I've lost my blue sailfin and my larger clownfish this morning. I'm about to do another water change today. My sailfin always had stress issues and was very timid. Had 2 battles with ich which I had to do a copper treatment which killed my starfish (according to my supplier). Even tho they told me they'd be fine, and I've lost 13 turbos total. I do a water change ever 2 weeks 25%, I clean out the filter ever 4 weeks. So far I'm down to one clownfish, very small and my 5 hermit crabs. I haven't hooked up my protien skimmer. I took out the bubble rock and stopped the blower because they just looked like they were constantly fighting the current and stayed far away from the bubbles. So about 3 weeks ago my water started to evaporate very quickly. Faster than it normally does. I took my water to be tested and the spg was at 1.030! So I started putting in freshwater as instructed 1 gallon at a time over the next few days. Day 3 sailfin passes. Clownfish seemed ok but I noticed the larger one had her mouth open! I tried hooking up the blower again thinking it was an o2 issue didn't help. Her mouth never closed. Looked for parasites, something stuck in her gill or an injury. Nothing. I guess I'm asking for any tips am I doing something wrong? I feel awful, heartbroken. Is this just a series of unfortunate events? Thanks for taking the time to read this, I really appreciate it. And I'm trying my best, still new but if I'm making an unknown mistake I'd like to correct it asap.

 

[SlugSnorter]

Hello everyone! I'm new to forum but I've been reading threads for about 9 months which is about how long I've had my saltwater tank. It's 55 gallons sitting at 77 degrees, spg 1.025. So within the last 40 days or so I've lost my blue sailfin and my larger clownfish this morning. I'm about to do another water change today. My sailfin always had stress issues and was very timid. Had 2 battles with ich which I had to do a copper treatment which killed my starfish (according to my supplier). Even tho they told me they'd be fine, and I've lost 13 turbos total. I do a water change ever 2 weeks 25%, I clean out the filter ever 4 weeks. So far I'm down to one clownfish, very small and my 5 hermit crabs. I haven't hooked up my protien skimmer. I took out the bubble rock and stopped the blower because they just looked like they were constantly fighting the current and stayed far away from the bubbles. So about 3 weeks ago my water started to evaporate very quickly. Faster than it normally does. I took my water to be tested and the spg was at 1.030! So I started putting in freshwater as instructed 1 gallon at a time over the next few days. Day 3 sailfin passes. Clownfish seemed ok but I noticed the larger one had her mouth open! I tried hooking up the blower again thinking it was an o2 issue didn't help. Her mouth never closed. Looked for parasites, something stuck in her gill or an injury. Nothing. I guess I'm asking for any tips am I doing something wrong? I feel awful, heartbroken. Is this just a series of unfortunate events? Thanks for taking the time to read this, I really appreciate it. And I'm trying my best, still new but if I'm making an unknown mistake I'd like to correct it asap.

well, copper is highly toxic to inverts, and can really damage biofilter. You should setup a QT tank in the. future, as meds like copper will kill bacteria, corals and any other invert, so that part is expected, use an ATO to ensure that your salinity doesn't swing do to evaporation. Many parasites are not visible to humans. Make sure your ammonia has not been messed up by copper killing your CUC and biofilter, that could cause major issues. You could try treating your fish with MetroPlex w focus and some kick ich along with rally baths, but theres no guarantee it will work.

 

[MaxTremors]

A few things. If you put copper into your display tank, you will likely never be able to keep inverts or corals in it, you can try running some cuprisorb, but you likely still have small amounts of copper leaching out of your rocks and sand. If it were my tank and I was planning on keeping inverts and corals, I would probably just ditch the rocks and sand and start over, I realize that’s a big and costly decision, so try the cuprisorb first, but if that doesn’t get all of it out (there will undoubtedly be traces left) and you don’t want to start over with new rocks and sand, you may have to settle for a fish only tank. If you removed the air stone and the wave maker, you likely have an oxygen sufficiency, tangs need a lot of O2, so it’s possible that the tang asphyxiated and the clown didn’t (did you notice them swimming close to the surface?). You should put either both, or at least one of these back in, if it’s the wave maker, angle it towards the surface (you want good surface agitation). A protein skimmer will also help with oxygenatik

I would really recommend that you get your own testing equipment, depending on an LFS isn’t practical, having a way to accurately test your salinity isn’t optional, you need a refractometer with calibration fluid, an electronic meter like the Hanna, or a glass thermometer style hydrometer, the floating arm style of hydrometers are inaccurate and shouldn’t be used. If you don’t have an ATO or a glass lid, you should be topping off your water (with RODI) daily, you can use a dry erase maker to mark the water level after a water change and use that to know how much water to add (still want to check salinity with one of the above mentioned methods).

Without more info, I can’t tell you what killed your fish (even with more info it’s very hard to determine after the fact), but my only other advice for you is to ask here before adding anything new it changing ANYTHING, you’re clearly not getting thorough or accurate advice (I would stop listening to whoever told you to put copper in your DT). I would work on running the cuprisorb and start testing your water regularly (twice a week) and keep a log of all test results and all maintenance that you do, and then we can get a better idea of where your tank is at and what direction to go in.

 

[dedragon]

with maxtremors here, time for a full tear down and then cleaning replacing rock and sand. Also rinsing the whole tank with vinegar to make sure not copper is left over, but this is only if you plan to keep inverts or corals in the future. Im not positive if the cuprisorb will take out all of the copper but will make it safe for now and probably fine for fowlr.
I would never listen to that LFS again if they told you to put copper into your dt with inverts

 

[Rosyposey]

Yea the totally did...then we're like "yea copper killed your starfish but not the snails" I got a hanna specific gravity reader. I got huge copper like streaking all over my tank when I did that treatment. I've been running my filter with carbon filters and a carbon sack it came with. And it went away. I totally do not plan on keeping any corals or inverts. I turned my blower back on and I'm gonna do the water change tonight. I always take everything out and clean it, making sure all parameters match the water I'm putting in. Which is premixed at the shop. I see a lot of white flakes come up when I turned it on. I also see a white string coming from my tiny clown.

And I place micorbacter in when I do my change. I can see him going for the food but not actually eating it...I'll see if he eats dinner. . . Thank you all.. my sister said the same thing today maybe we shouldn't go to that place anymore.
This may be a stupid question. But how long would it take to show parasite infection from the shop to home? And can they just get them even if no new life is introduced?

 

[MaxTremors]

Yea the totally did...then we're like "yea copper killed your starfish but not the snails" I got a hanna specific gravity reader. I got huge copper like streaking all over my tank when I did that treatment. I've been running my filter with carbon filters and a carbon sack it came with. And it went away. I totally do not plan on keeping any corals or inverts. I turned my blower back on and I'm gonna do the water change tonight. I always take everything out and clean it, making sure all parameters match the water I'm putting in. Which is premixed at the shop. I see a lot of white flakes come up when I turned it on. I also see a white string coming from my tiny clown.

And I place micorbacter in when I do my change. I can see him going for the food but not actually eating it...I'll see if he eats dinner. . . Thank you all.. my sister said the same thing today maybe we shouldn't go to that place anymore.
This may be a stupid question. But how long would it take to show parasite infection from the shop to home? And can they just get them even if no new life is introduced?

White, stringy poop is generally a sign of an internal parasitic infection (pretty common with clownfish). You can either move it to a hospital tank and treat with prazipro, or treat in the display tank with metroplex (you bind it to their food with Focus, the idea is you get them to eat it instead of treating the whole tank). I have read that prazipro (praziquantel) is safe to use in a display tank, but I’ve never done it and reluctant to treat any fish diseases in the display tank. I would read up on both of these procedures before doing either (though you want to act fairly quickly, once they stop eating it can be an uphill battle), you can search here or Google for detailed instructions, or make a thread in the disease forum help (I’m not an expert when it comes to fish diseases and treating them, so I would definitely search the disease forum).