Old fish are thriving, new fish are dying.....HELP!

[SSGTLA]

I have a FOWLR 120ga saltwater aquarium that is approximately 1yr old, has completely cycled & matured over this time. I currently have fish in my DT: 2 Ocellaris clowns, 1 Blue Hippo, 1 Yellow tang, 1 Powder Brown tang, 1 Blue Jaw Trigger fish, 1 Pearly jawfish, 1 Firefish goby, 1 Chromis....I've had all these fish from the very beginning and they are happy, healthy, & thriving. Anything that I quarantine in my FOWLR 30ga QT for a 4-6wk period (that's been up and running for over 2yrs now) and then transfer to my DT...eventually die within a couple of weeks upon introduction into the DT, and the deaths of these newly introduced fish do not affect my original crew whatsoever. I do not understand what's going on, no one has parasites or fungus of any kind. I feed Reef Frenzy frozen, mysis & brine shrimp, Nori, & flakes. I am lucky that there is no bullying going on, all my fish get along peacefully. My water parameters in both my QT & DT are identical and are as follows: pH-8.0 Amm-0 Nitrite-0 Nitrate-0. So, the transfer from QT to DT shouldn't be a shock. HELP! Any suggestions? TIA for consideration.

 

[BestMomEver]

My best guess is that your gang of “homies” don’t like newcomers. They might be beating them up after lights out.

 

[Mjrenz]

Welcome to the forum! The theory above does sound quite plausible. What do the fish look like when you lose them? Beat up at all?

 

[SSGTLA]

My best guess is that your gang of “homies” don’t like newcomers. They might be beating them up after lights out.

Ok, now that is quite funny when I think about it! Maybe I should put a camera on them and spy during lights out.

 

[MnFish1]

Welcome and a suggestion- Because when ever I add fish to the tank-there are ALWAYS bullying problems initially. These resolve within a couple-3 days. But-another issue could that you're not observing long enough to see the bullying -so I would try that. Especially at times when you dont usually look at it. Also -make sure that all of the fish are getting enough food-its sometimes hard for the new fish to out-compete.

BTW-what kind of fish are you adding? How long after adding to they die? Any symptoms 'at all'?

This could also be a disease like velvet which sometimes can be hard to see - or a chemical contaminant that your other fish are 'used to' or salinity/temp/etc. Hope you figure it out. There will be lots of recommendations here

 

[SSGTLA]

Welcome to the forum! The theory above does sound quite plausible. What do the fish look like when you lose them? Beat up at all?

Most new fish I have added seem to find a corner in my tank, although I have a ton of live rock to hide in. I will admit the very first I added to the homies tank was a 3" Pearlscale Butterfly. He lasted approx 2 weeks, but looked like it had been sliced and diced on his/her sides, but my yellow tang chased the poor thing and did give it a tail thrashing...I witnessed that. Now the others that I added, and have died are 3 Banghai Cardinals, 1 coral beauty, 1 diamond goby, 1 yellow wrasse, 1 royal gramma. None of these had any visible signs of wounds..they were just kind of swimming around and hiding, and then I noticed them lying around (obviously not normal behavior) and then randomly dying.

I'm concerned because I have a few other fish that I've not moved from QT to DT yet. A little more expensive fish that will need to be eventually transferred into the DT. I'm sorta batting zero on newcomers at this point. A little discouraged honestly.

Oooh, I forgot to post in initial thread....salinity is 1.024/32ppt in both QT & DT Temp is 76-78 in both as well.

 

[SSGTLA]

Welcome and a suggestion- Because when ever I add fish to the tank-there are ALWAYS bullying problems initially. These resolve within a couple-3 days. But-another issue could that you're not observing long enough to see the bullying -so I would try that. Especially at times when you dont usually look at it. Also -make sure that all of the fish are getting enough food-its sometimes hard for the new fish to out-compete.

BTW-what kind of fish are you adding? How long after adding to they die? Any symptoms 'at all'?

This could also be a disease like velvet which sometimes can be hard to see - or a chemical contaminant that your other fish are 'used to' or salinity/temp/etc. Hope you figure it out. There will be lots of recommendations here

I added banghai cardinals, a diamond goby, an angel, royl gramma, yellow wrasse (They all died )

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

I have a FOWLR 120ga saltwater aquarium that is approximately 1yr old, has completely cycled & matured over this time. I currently have fish in my DT: 2 Ocellaris clowns, 1 Blue Hippo, 1 Yellow tang, 1 Powder Brown tang, 1 Blue Jaw Trigger fish, 1 Pearly jawfish, 1 Firefish goby, 1 Chromis....I've had all these fish from the very beginning and they are happy, healthy, & thriving. Anything that I quarantine in my FOWLR 30ga QT for a 4-6wk period (that's been up and running for over 2yrs now) and then transfer to my DT...eventually die within a couple of weeks upon introduction into the DT, and the deaths of these newly introduced fish do not affect my original crew whatsoever. I do not understand what's going on, no one has parasites or fungus of any kind. I feed Reef Frenzy frozen, mysis & brine shrimp, Nori, & flakes. I am lucky that there is no bullying going on, all my fish get along peacefully. My water parameters in both my QT & DT are identical and are as follows: pH-8.0 Amm-0 Nitrite-0 Nitrate-0. So, the transfer from QT to DT shouldn't be a shock. HELP! Any suggestions? TIA for consideration.

Maybe the older fish are running like a pack of wolves and devouring everything in there path. Just a thought

 

[MnFish1]

I added banghai cardinals, a diamond goby, an angel, royl gramma, yellow wrasse (They all died )

Curious - when you QT - do you add prophylactic treatment or just observe. At the National aquarium - they do observation QT for 90 days - because they have seen velvet appear in they QT tank even at 65 days (which would be 2 months). It may be that there is a velvet or other disease to which the fish in your tank are 'immune' or 'resistant' to - but when you add new fish they get sick. Sometimes the illnesses can be very difficult to see. the fact that the fish start acting 'abnormal' before death with no wounds - suggests a disease process. (which may have been made more likely by bullying).

Another question - where do you get their fish - any chance they could be cyanide - caught - which often results in deaths weeks later for no apparent cause...

 

[SSGTLA]

Curious - when you QT - do you add prophylactic treatment or just observe. At the National aquarium - they do observation QT for 90 days - because they have seen velvet appear in they QT tank even at 65 days (which would be 2 months). It may be that there is a velvet or other disease to which the fish in your tank are 'immune' or 'resistant' to - but when you add new fish they get sick. Sometimes the illnesses can be very difficult to see. the fact that the fish start acting 'abnormal' before death with no wounds - suggests a disease process. (which may have been made more likely by bullying).

Another question - where do you get their fish - any chance they could be cyanide - caught - which often results in deaths weeks later for no apparent cause...

No, I have personally never practiced prophylactic treatment in my QT tank. I just observe their eating habits, behavior, making sure I see no evidence of parasites, fungus, or any strange activity, and after 6wks transfer them to my DT. I have purchased fish from my LFS, and it's a popular spot in my area and seemingly knowledgeable owner for saltwater fish, supplies, & full equipment set up and services provided. I have also ordered from Saltwater.com & Reef Beauties with success of healthy specimens.

I believe I am going to try an acclimation box apparatus, perhaps if it is bullying that's going on, maybe I can lesson the transitional stress between my old tank mates and their new potential adversaries??? Here's hoping anyway!

 

[WVNed]

A really smart person on here ( @Lasse) transitions his QT tank to DT water for a few weeks. In short it makes the new fish smell like the old fish and lessons aggression.

 

[SSGTLA]

A really smart person on here ( @Lasse) transitions his QT tank to DT water for a few weeks. In short it makes the new fish smell like the old fish and lessons aggression.

Thank you, I'll definitely look him up!

 

[Mjrenz]

One parasite you could easily check for in your tank would be flukes, which are very common to find these days. You can check by catching one of your fish and preforming a freshwater dip. Here's how to do it
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/freshwater-dip.248898/
It is very possible you have parasites in your tank that your fish are able to keep at bay by having a healthy immune system

 

[BestMomEver]

Try an acclimation box. Once you move them to DT, but them ina box to give the homies a chance to get used to them.

 

[Lasse]

For the moment I do not use QT - I put my newcomers into my refugium and let the be there for a week or two. This is because I have a matured system that’s is very stable and the disease situation here in Sweden is not catastrophic. The reason for this is that I have seen that this type of introduction into my DT is very smooth. Very low bulling by my old fish. I learned this technique from keeping African cichlids in the past. However – if I would use a QT – it would be an observation QT and doing all WC with help of my water in the DT. Two reasons for this.

1. Vaccination. The DT can contain a micro fauna that the newcomers not are used of. A slow introduction of the water of the DT will serve as an slow natural vaccination of the newcomers

2. The newcomers will have the same smell. I believe that smell have a huge importance in recognition. If I do the partly WC when I had Tropheus spp in the past – the introduction into the shoal of old thropheus spp was rather smooth and works.


I have done rather much experiment with putting in newcomers directly into the DT and let them go in my refugium first. The surviving rate is much, much higher with the second way of introduction.

Sincerely Lasse