Mass fish death overnight - except clowns

[keizo]

thanks I don't want to criticize your fish store - but - this is not acceptable. A 3-5 minute dip of praziquantel is nothing. And 14 days is too short

Thanks for the reply @MnFish1 ! While I believe there is a sound methodology for quarantining, and you are likely speaking from experience and knowledge that eclipses my own, there is just not enough evidence for me right now to focus on this being the primary culprit for the deaths (and again, I could be wrong, and I would like to know if so!) But my thoughts so far are below...

The fish I've described adding were introduced late Wednesday (6PM), showed no visible signs of any of the parasites I'm familiar with (again, a blind spot and limitation for sure), but what makes me sort of skeptical of this being the driving variable for the deaths is: why were the clownfish and yellow corris wrasse spared from this fast-spreading, fast-killing disease (the disease would have had to spread and kill the hosts within 36 hours), and why were there no visible signs of disease on these (now dead) fish prior to their deaths? Only time will tell, probably, if this fast-killing disease will reach the current population now.. and I'll be sure to update this thread if so (though selfishly I hope I don't have to update this thread with more unfortunate fish death news).

Respectfully, while I do think it's worth questioning whether the quarantine protocol is sufficient or insufficient by the vendor, I'm not sure I'm giving this hypothesis as much weight as I have prior to this morning when I posted this thread

 

[keizo]

Do you have any Sea cucumbers/apples, nudibranchs or similar?

I had a full tank crash about 12 years ago after a cucumber was shredded in a wavemaker. They release a potent toxin from their tissues.

The only survivors were a pair of tomato clowns.

I don't have any sea cucumbers, apples, or have purchased anything that would release a toxin upon death that I'm aware of.

As far as CUC, all I have are 1 mexican turbo, ~7 trochus snails, 2 peppermint shrimp, 1 skunk cleaner, and 1 conch.

No anemones and no sea cucumbers.

I have not bought nudibranchs either.

 

[MnFish1]

Not sure how to answer.

 

[MnFish1]

Thanks for the reply @MnFish1 ! While I believe there is a sound methodology for quarantining, and you are likely speaking from experience and knowledge that eclipses my own, there is just not enough evidence for me right now to focus on this being the primary culprit for the deaths (and again, I could be wrong, and I would like to know if so!) But my thoughts so far are below...

The fish I've described adding were introduced late Wednesday (6PM), showed no visible signs of any of the parasites I'm familiar with (again, a blind spot and limitation for sure), but what makes me sort of skeptical of this being the driving variable for the deaths is: why were the clownfish and yellow corris wrasse spared from this fast-spreading, fast-killing disease (the disease would have had to spread and kill the hosts within 36 hours), and why were there no visible signs of disease on these (now dead) fish prior to their deaths? Only time will tell, probably, if this fast-killing disease will reach the current population now.. and I'll be sure to update this thread if so (though selfishly I hope I don't have to update this thread with more unfortunate fish death news).

Respectfully, while I do think it's worth questioning whether the quarantine protocol is sufficient or insufficient by the vendor, I'm not sure I'm giving this hypothesis as much weight as I have prior to this morning when I posted this thread

Thanks for the respectful response. IMHO - you are incorrect.

 

[MnFish1]

Thanks for the reply @MnFish1 ! While I believe there is a sound methodology for quarantining, and you are likely speaking from experience and knowledge that eclipses my own, there is just not enough evidence for me right now to focus on this being the primary culprit for the deaths (and again, I could be wrong, and I would like to know if so!) But my thoughts so far are below...

The fish I've described adding were introduced late Wednesday (6PM), showed no visible signs of any of the parasites I'm familiar with (again, a blind spot and limitation for sure), but what makes me sort of skeptical of this being the driving variable for the deaths is: why were the clownfish and yellow corris wrasse spared from this fast-spreading, fast-killing disease (the disease would have had to spread and kill the hosts within 36 hours), and why were there no visible signs of disease on these (now dead) fish prior to their deaths? Only time will tell, probably, if this fast-killing disease will reach the current population now.. and I'll be sure to update this thread if so (though selfishly I hope I don't have to update this thread with more unfortunate fish death news).

Respectfully, while I do think it's worth questioning whether the quarantine protocol is sufficient or insufficient by the vendor, I'm not sure I'm giving this hypothesis as much weight as I have prior to this morning when I posted this thread

I'm going to focus on the 'is the quarantine' enough - from the vendor - no. IMHO. your vendor may have a different answer

 

[Garf]

I don't have any sea cucumbers, apples, or have purchased anything that would release a toxin upon death that I'm aware of.

As far as CUC, all I have are 1 mexican turbo, ~7 trochus snails, 2 peppermint shrimp, 1 skunk cleaner, and 1 conch.

No anemones and no sea cucumbers.

I have not bought nudibranchs either.

As long as your return pump is not going off at night and you have a running emergency overflow going to the sump, I can’t see low oxygen being a thing. I’m assuming you have adequate flow in the DT also. You got a pic of the tank?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Yeah, happy to elaborate on the fish disease front.

Again, I myself am unable to 150% validate or rule it out, but I have my skepticism for the following reasons.
I picked up the three fish from a vendor two days ago (Wednesday), which I had placed an order for about a month back. The vendor puts the fish through a quarantine methodology, which includes freshwater dip dosed with Praziquuentel for 3-5 minutes, treatment with Chelated Copper Sulfate and Nitrofurazone (copper being run at 2.5-2.8ppm). This is done with a minimum of 14 days (consecutive days protocol, i.e. fish has to be clean and not show signs of infection at any point during those 14 days). Again, I am not there every day to inspect this process, so of course I have a blind spot here and have to take the vendor's word for their process. I examined each fish visually at the vendor prior to accepting them, as they showed no visual signs of disease. Upon being put into the DT, they were all displaying very good personalities and were all eating the frozen foods I usually provide to the other tank inhabitants.

I have since visually inspected the dead fish -- all of which were now identified and taken out of the DT -- none of which showed any visual, or external signs of the obvious symptoms of the only two diseases I could detect with my naked eye: velvet, ich, brook.

I too dont believe its ammonia or poor water quality however what I find concerning is this Quarantine methodology mentioned. FW in itself is not a treatment and dislodges any worms which may be present and Prazi takes a full day to take effect why two intervals of treatment for 8 days is recommended. In essence, LFS placed the fish in FW and Glycol which is the active agent. Then they placed it is Copper which recommendation for QT is no less than 21 days and added nitrofurazone which is a disinfectant and with parasites would be one or the other at 250gm for 24 hours - not mixed with chelated copper.
Copper- Max recommended - 2.5 was exceeded at 2.8 and assuming 2.8 was accurate. Copper at high levels become a poison.
You may ask how fish was alive then for a few days- Placing fish under all these fish in these medications in a small window of time likely affected both oxygen and even their nervous system. You will not see signs of disease which is similar to cyanide caught fish which appear normal but wasting away internally

 

[keizo]

Thanks for the respectful response. IMHO - you are incorrect.

Thanks for weighing in @MnFish1 - I do really hope I am and that there is a traceable reason for these deaths that were as simple as "yes, the new fish caused half my tank to die from this specific disease."

While I've been typing the response below, I did read your response @vetteguy53081 and do appreciate it as well. That's insightful and there is reason to believe that it could have caused issues with the dead fish.

Again, I don't think there's anything here I'm ruling out completely (perhaps with the exception of fish aggression being the cause of these deaths).

To summarize what we've speculated so far, here's the short-list:
(1) Oxygenation issue (unknown)
(2) Disease (unknown)
(3) Ammonia (lowest explanatory variable)

The reason behind why I feel disease is "unknown" in terms of explanatory power is the following, and please feel free to help clarify or articulate any additional perspectives here, because my mission here is to learn and understand. Here's where I'm stuck with regards to disease as the driving variable:

(1) I'm not sure how to interpret the fact that seemingly, extremely healthy fish (my goldhead goby, yellow tang, and foxface rabbitfish) were killed off so quickly and with nothing quite visible on their skin. Nutrition has been my #1 focus outside of maintaining stable water parameters for my corals, so these three fish have always been fed foods aimed at enhancing their immune system (i.e. algae being 99% of the diet for my yellow tang and foxface, mysis/krill/brine shrimp for goby). An important assumption here I'm making is that the fish that died were healthy (i.e. the ones that were there before the 3 new additions). I don't think this should ever be taken at face-value, but this is what I know: they haven't shown any signs of out-of-usual behavior this week, and have always been eating throughout the meal time. Again, this doesn't mean they've BEEN healthy or ARE healthy, just an assumption that I am making based on the information / observation I've made myself.

(2) Let's assume that there was, in fact, a disease introduced by the latest additions. What are the most prevalent and suspect ones that could do this over a 36-hour period (to healthy fish, at that)? This is a genuine question - as I've stated throughout this thread, I am simply not well versed enough in the library of fish disease outside of the most obvious ones (ich, velvet, brook, flukes) -- the first three of the four are ones that I think I would have been able to observe quite clearly on the bodies of the fish I picked up. THIS IS AN ASSUMPTION, PLEASE CORRECT ME! <-- I don't actually know if observing their lifeless skin IS the way to determine whether they died due to this disease. So the question here is: is there a disease virulent enough to spread and kill within 36 hours, regardless of how healthy the killed fish might have been? If so, which ones are they? This is THE most important question for fish disease as the explanatory variable behind the deaths, and which would drive the most immediate action for me, as it implies a tank-fallowing protocol that I have not yet decided to execute.

(3) Assuming the QT process is questionable and resulted in a slow, internally wasting fish. Would this have been isolated to the new fish? Could this treatment have resulted in the deaths of the other fish in the tank? This is more of a direct response to your point @vetteguy53081 - I'm eager to learn how this could have been able to spread to the other tankmates.

 

[Wyvern]

My guess is oxygen deprivation.

I recently lost two fish and ticked off my corals by accidentally overdoing Vodka - which caused a bacteria bloom after the lights went out.

I have since reintroduced my ozone generator. and have quit dosing for now.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Thanks for weighing in @MnFish1 - I do really hope I am and that there is a traceable reason for these deaths that were as simple as "yes, the new fish caused half my tank to die from this specific disease."

While I've been typing the response below, I did read your response @vetteguy53081 and do appreciate it as well. That's insightful and there is reason to believe that it could have caused issues with the dead fish.

Again, I don't think there's anything here I'm ruling out completely (perhaps with the exception of fish aggression being the cause of these deaths).

To summarize what we've speculated so far, here's the short-list:
(1) Oxygenation issue (unknown)
(2) Disease (unknown)
(3) Ammonia (lowest explanatory variable)

The reason behind why I feel disease is "unknown" in terms of explanatory power is the following, and please feel free to help clarify or articulate any additional perspectives here, because my mission here is to learn and understand. Here's where I'm stuck with regards to disease as the driving variable:

(1) I'm not sure how to interpret the fact that seemingly, extremely healthy fish (my goldhead goby, yellow tang, and foxface rabbitfish) were killed off so quickly and with nothing quite visible on their skin. Nutrition has been my #1 focus outside of maintaining stable water parameters for my corals, so these three fish have always been fed foods aimed at enhancing their immune system (i.e. algae being 99% of the diet for my yellow tang and foxface, mysis/krill/brine shrimp for goby). An important assumption here I'm making is that the fish that died were healthy (i.e. the ones that were there before the 3 new additions). I don't think this should ever be taken at face-value, but this is what I know: they haven't shown any signs of out-of-usual behavior this week, and have always been eating throughout the meal time. Again, this doesn't mean they've BEEN healthy or ARE healthy, just an assumption that I am making based on the information / observation I've made myself.

(2) Let's assume that there was, in fact, a disease introduced by the latest additions. What are the most prevalent and suspect ones that could do this over a 36-hour period (to healthy fish, at that)? This is a genuine question - as I've stated throughout this thread, I am simply not well versed enough in the library of fish disease outside of the most obvious ones (ich, velvet, brook, flukes) -- the first three of the four are ones that I think I would have been able to observe quite clearly on the bodies of the fish I picked up. THIS IS AN ASSUMPTION, PLEASE CORRECT ME! <-- I don't actually know if observing their lifeless skin IS the way to determine whether they died due to this disease. So the question here is: is there a disease virulent enough to spread and kill within 36 hours, regardless of how healthy the killed fish might have been? If so, which ones are they? This is THE most important question for fish disease as the explanatory variable behind the deaths, and which would drive the most immediate action for me, as it implies a tank-fallowing protocol that I have not yet decided to execute.

(3) Assuming the QT process is questionable and resulted in a slow, internally wasting fish. Would this have been isolated to the new fish? Could this treatment have resulted in the deaths of the other fish in the tank? This is more of a direct response to your point @vetteguy53081 - I'm eager to learn how this could have been able to spread to the other tankmates.

I again sympathize for your loss. Yes , it is very likely and you are not to blame- Im still trying to dwell on what would compel the LFS to perform this method as there is NO protocol with this method and the use of multiple treatments in a small window of time. Four decades and never seen this but moving forward, I personally (if you choose to purchase from this LFS again) would do Your Own quarantine and not have any LFS repeat this again. As clowns typically get Brooklynella or secondary bacterial infections, You can give them a 60-90 minute Ruby rally Pro bath prior to introduction, or Quarantine and start with chelated copper such as Coppersafe at 2.25 for 21-30 days, water change, then do (if you wish Prazi pro for 8 days, water change and one more 8 day application - Not all 8 days...one time)
They will per your question eat until their systems shut down and you may have noticed right prior to incident a sudden loss of normal appetite?

 

[gbroadbridge]

Hi everyone,

It pains to me type this out but wanted to seek counsel for what my next steps could be to protect my remaining livestock and to confirm my suspicions on what may have caused this issue.

Seemingly overnight, between the hours of 11PM and 8AM this morning, all but my 5 clownfish have died or presumed dead (presumed dead because I've already netted out 3 dead fish, out of a possible 4 additional fish that I have not yet been able to see and who regularly come out during the morning hours).

My water parameters are the following:
-Nitrate: 0.0 (Hanna)
-Phosphate: 0.0 (Hanna)
(My nitrate and phosphate levels being at 0 have been a separate concern of mine that started at the same time a small cyano outbreak occurred around 2 weeks ago).
-Salinity: 1.027 (teeters between 1.026 and 1.027) (Milwaukee)
-Ammonia (Red Sea visual checker = 0.2?
-Temperature: According to my Neptune Apex, it never fluctuated outside the 78F zone for the last 9 hours.
-Tank age: over 5 months old
-Tank size: 100 gal DT; 145 gal DT+Sump

• My biggest hypothesis is that there was a big enough ammonia spike (assuming the Red Sea visual checker is accurate) that caused these fish to die overnight. I did add 3 small fish two days before this issue occurred and acquired them from a vendor that puts the fish through a quarantine process before handing them to me. My suspicion here is perhaps that these 3 fish added more bioload that my nitrifying bacteria was not enough to transform into nitrate. I'm not sure how common this is as a cause for massive fish death.
• There have been no signs of disease on any of the fish before this occurred, and I doubt disease would take every one of the fish other than the clownfish out this quickly. All fish have been acting normal up until the evening last night, where I did notice my usually very active Goldhead Goby was hiding in his cave.
• Can rule out fish aggression... I doubt the clownfish decided to combine forces to take every other tankmate out
• No power outages

Any ideas on what could have caused this?
Marked as an emergency in case someone could help me confirm some additional steps that may be helpful in potentially rescuing my remaining clowns. At the moment, I'm not really sure what to do other than a big water change.

What is the temperature of the tank?

 

[keizo]

I again sympathize for your loss. Yes , it is very likely and you are not to blame- Im still trying to dwell on what would compel the LFS to perform this method as there is NO protocol with this method and the use of multiple treatments in a small window of time. Four decades and never seen this but moving forward, I personally (if you choose to purchase from this LFS again) would do Your Own quarantine and not have any LFS repeat this again. As clowns typically get Brooklynella or secondary bacterial infections, You can give them a 60-90 minute Ruby rally Pro bath prior to introduction, or Quarantine and start with chelated copper such as Coppersafe at 2.25 for 21-30 days, water change, then do (if you wish Prazi pro for 8 days, water change and one more 8 day application - Not all 8 days...one time)
They will per your question eat until their systems shut down and you may have noticed right prior to incident a sudden loss of normal appetite?

Thanks for the response @vetteguy53081 ! I understand this might have been the case for my new additions, but I find it hard to wrestle this with how the other fish were impacted. Perhaps I’m too dense to connect the dots here but something seems missing between this explanation and why the other three fish were affected. Any thoughts on this vette?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Thanks for the response @vetteguy53081 ! I understand this might have been the case for my new additions, but I find it hard to wrestle this with how the other fish were impacted. Perhaps I’m too dense to connect the dots here but something seems missing between this explanation and why the other three fish were affected. Any thoughts on this vette?

Again - Oxygen. Not just from new fish but O2 . Can be as simple as salinity which affects oxygen and even Temperature. Stocking of new fish and added bioload can affect o2 at times as well as poor gas exchange if you are seeing a surface film or little movement. Last is carbon dioxide which has an impact on ph of the tank. when the lights go out and photosynthesis stops, co2 is no longer generated and o2 levels drop as does PH.
It can be any of these and we may never know with the fish now perished, but dying in same tank May have impacted oxygen.

 

[keizo]

Thanks Vette - appreciate the response

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Thanks for weighing in here @Jay Hemdal - always appreciate your input.

The only gas exchange that occurs is with my Vortech MP60s and protein skimmer. I incidentally did turn off my protein skimmer the past two nights because I have been dosing Macrobacter 7 at night (instructions indicate I should turn off my skimmer) and because my nitrate/phosphate levels bottoming out (i.e. trying to raise my nutrient levels to be above 0 by reducing mechanical filtration).

I have kept the skimmer running and can check back in tomorrow with updates (fingers crossed and hoping to share that the remaining wrasse and clowns are still alive and well).

In addition to all this, I'll summarize some stuff here as well as answers in the hopes that anyone who has experienced anything at this scale like I have could read this and learn.

(1) I have now since put less weight on my initial hypothesis that perhaps Ammonia was the reason behind the massive fish deaths. I figured that it would have likely impacted the clowns as well as my surviving yellow corris wrasse. The level is at ~0.2ppm and it isn't clear whether this was the level of ammonia before the fish have died overnight, or after they died (when I took the reading).

(2) I do not believe the cause of the deaths are attributable to a virulent disease. The timeframe seems overly aggressive for anything to have spread to the aforementioned fish in <48 hours while showing no visible, external signs of disease, while 6 other fish in the same tank have been fine (5 clowns, 1 yellow corris wrasse). This is harder for me to stand behind confidently because I simply cannot validate without external signs of disease and I am not a fish disease expert.

(3) I'm not sure if it's a voltage leak of any kind. I ran a quick copper HR test with Hanna and it shows 0.00. Plus, all my inverts look healthy (3 shrimp total; skunk and 2 peppermint. In addition to all my corals that seem to be doing fine).

(4) The primary suspect now is oxygenation issues. Could it have been due to the unfortunate combination of additional macroalgae I've added yesterday (golf-ball sized chaeto) + turning off my protein skimmer (because I was dosing Macrobacter 7 + I was intentionally reducing my mechanical filtration to get my nitrate/phos levels to be above 0.00).

I think it was a combination of the skimmer being off and the bacteria taking up oxygen at night, when there was no photosynthesis going on (unless you have algae in a reverse light sump).
Jay

 

[keizo]

I think it was a combination of the skimmer being off and the bacteria taking up oxygen at night, when there was no photosynthesis going on (unless you have algae in a reverse light sump).
Jay

Thanks for the response Jay. I do run a refugium with a Kessil light on running counter to my daylight period (the refugium being stocked with several different macro algae).

At this point, I haven’t ruled anything out as causes of the mass deaths, so I’m going to assume everything’s on the table (oxygen, disease, or otherwise)

 

[Garf]

Did you check that your pumps are not going off at night, for some reason?

 

[Christian0505]

Maybe this sounds stupid, but any chance you had a power outage at night?

 

[keizo]

Thanks for all the questions and engagement here everyone.

The idea that my home experienced a power outage is not a dumb question. But in this case, it did not occur. Should it have occurred, I would have suspected this to be the primary suspect behind the deaths.

The pumps are also never off - they’re on 24/7.

In other news, the rest of the fish that survived the initial die off are still alive, eating well, and otherwise exhibiting no strange / out of usual behavior.

 

[keizo]

This will be my second-to-last post on this thread so we can move on.

My last post will be a week from today, for anyone who might still be interested in this and for any potential future viewers who may have stumbled on this thread. I’ll provide a wrap-up summary of what I’ve learned and any future tips I may have given to myself should I have known about risks associated with the most plausible drivers behind the die off.

It is now around 50 hours after the initial discovery of the die off, and the remaining fish are still behaving normally, which I define as no labored breathing, no erratic swimming patterns nor listless swimming patterns, no swimming against return pumps or power heads, demonstrating interest in appetite.

The inverts are also alive and, incidentally, two of my three shrimp have molted yesterday.