Hello all, first time post. I have a 220g mixed reef, barely. Mostly a fish tank, but some softies and more to come (if we get past this....)
All parameters are good, SG just a little high at 1.028. I'm working it down with water changes.
About 3 weeks ago I started losing fish. It's been horrible ever since. I've lost over a dozen, have only 4 fish left, and none of them are going to make it much longer by the looks of it. (Almost) none of them showed any physical symptoms prior to being found missing or dead the next morning, although some other developments would change that. I'll try to keep it brief...
I have a Naso, Desjardini Sailfin, Hippo, and a Darwin clown left. The Naso showed some cloudiness in his eyes a week ago....they are now fully clouded. The Sailfin has a little bit of cloud in his eyes, and has also had HLLE for 6 months. The Hippo shows no visible problems even now. And the Darwin was fine until yesterday...today his twin is being eaten by some Caribbean fireworms and he's looking like he'll give up the ghost by tomorrow. ALL OTHER FISH died without warning, most of them just disappeared in the rocks. This made me suspect a predator worm or something....early in the tank, I lost a diamond goby to a 6ft long Eunicid worm, but he's gone now...but I'm always suspicious because of this.
Anyway, 3 weeks and 80% of my fish dead, with the last strong hold-outs probably gone in the next couple days. I do QT, but only on arrival....I've never attempted to catch them from the DT and put in QT.
I do have a bad outbreak of Caribbean fireworms, but I don't expect they are murdering fish every night, especially a 5" square back Anthias or a 5" powder blue tang....that one I actually found and he looked beautiful even when dead....no signs of malaise. They just eat them all up as soon as they're dead.
Zoas, mushrooms, and flower pots seem fine. Fire shrimp seems perfectly happy. No noticeable loss of snails or crabs. BTA seems decent (he's never been awesome, but he's still kind of new).
Interesting side note: in one year I never had a fish jump out of the tank; it's got a high canopy, would be tricky to do anyway. In two days time last week I had two do it: an ocellaris clown and a diamond goby. Don't know if that's useful info but two jumpers in two days after 0 jumpers in 400 days doesn't feel right.
Last item of note: this is not a drilled tank. I do not run a sump. I run 2 Fluval FX6 and around 140lbs of live rock. Weekly 25% water changes. I copied this off of a very densely stocked LFS tank that seems to be having great success with it. But in an effort to reduce nitrate (it does run ~20 to 30 sometimes), I added a Reef Octopus 2000 HOB skimmer, days before the death spiral began.
My best suspicions are a viral or bacterial infection. It's not ich, there's no sign. I don't think it's velvet, again because I've seen no external symptoms of such.
My real question for the experts here....do you agree that bacteria is the likely cause? What else can ravage a tank in this manner? Could this have anything to do with the new skimmer? And for treatment, once the tank is fallow, do I need to do anything other than just wait a while? Will the infection die out without fish to infect? Can I put antibiotics in a DT with some softies?
I'm probably sharing too much useless info and not enough useful....just very bummed and frustrated. All my fishh.......anyone, please help.
All parameters are good, SG just a little high at 1.028. I'm working it down with water changes.
About 3 weeks ago I started losing fish. It's been horrible ever since. I've lost over a dozen, have only 4 fish left, and none of them are going to make it much longer by the looks of it. (Almost) none of them showed any physical symptoms prior to being found missing or dead the next morning, although some other developments would change that. I'll try to keep it brief...
I have a Naso, Desjardini Sailfin, Hippo, and a Darwin clown left. The Naso showed some cloudiness in his eyes a week ago....they are now fully clouded. The Sailfin has a little bit of cloud in his eyes, and has also had HLLE for 6 months. The Hippo shows no visible problems even now. And the Darwin was fine until yesterday...today his twin is being eaten by some Caribbean fireworms and he's looking like he'll give up the ghost by tomorrow. ALL OTHER FISH died without warning, most of them just disappeared in the rocks. This made me suspect a predator worm or something....early in the tank, I lost a diamond goby to a 6ft long Eunicid worm, but he's gone now...but I'm always suspicious because of this.
Anyway, 3 weeks and 80% of my fish dead, with the last strong hold-outs probably gone in the next couple days. I do QT, but only on arrival....I've never attempted to catch them from the DT and put in QT.
I do have a bad outbreak of Caribbean fireworms, but I don't expect they are murdering fish every night, especially a 5" square back Anthias or a 5" powder blue tang....that one I actually found and he looked beautiful even when dead....no signs of malaise. They just eat them all up as soon as they're dead.
Zoas, mushrooms, and flower pots seem fine. Fire shrimp seems perfectly happy. No noticeable loss of snails or crabs. BTA seems decent (he's never been awesome, but he's still kind of new).
Interesting side note: in one year I never had a fish jump out of the tank; it's got a high canopy, would be tricky to do anyway. In two days time last week I had two do it: an ocellaris clown and a diamond goby. Don't know if that's useful info but two jumpers in two days after 0 jumpers in 400 days doesn't feel right.
Last item of note: this is not a drilled tank. I do not run a sump. I run 2 Fluval FX6 and around 140lbs of live rock. Weekly 25% water changes. I copied this off of a very densely stocked LFS tank that seems to be having great success with it. But in an effort to reduce nitrate (it does run ~20 to 30 sometimes), I added a Reef Octopus 2000 HOB skimmer, days before the death spiral began.
My best suspicions are a viral or bacterial infection. It's not ich, there's no sign. I don't think it's velvet, again because I've seen no external symptoms of such.
My real question for the experts here....do you agree that bacteria is the likely cause? What else can ravage a tank in this manner? Could this have anything to do with the new skimmer? And for treatment, once the tank is fallow, do I need to do anything other than just wait a while? Will the infection die out without fish to infect? Can I put antibiotics in a DT with some softies?
I'm probably sharing too much useless info and not enough useful....just very bummed and frustrated. All my fishh.......anyone, please help.
