The Tank of Death

[kayvon77]

I am pulling my hair out (at least what's left of it) trying to figure out why I have lost so many fish in the last couple of months. The latest casualty was a P. Clownfish that I got about a week ago and it was doing ok until in the last two days it started swimming upside down and couldn't keep itself floating. Today I can't even find him, which I speculate he's lodged lifeless in some crevice.

Now my death tally is at 10 (two damsels, five chromas, two Pajama Cardinals, and now one Clownfish added to the toll). I'm thinking it may be there's really something wrong with my tanks water, but the parameters register fine, so I can't figure out what it could be. The only thing I can think of is I used an old substrate from like 20 years ago when I first got into the hobby that was sitting in my garage for the longest time. I had it soaked in water for about a week and I forgot about it. I saw it bubble up with sludge and stuff, which I used as ammonia to cycle the tank before adding the fish. I'm thinking maybe I introduced something else with it being so aged and having it grow bacteria while staying soaked.

As of now here are my specs for the tank:
Setup June 28th
60 gallon Uniaquarium
Tunze protein skimmer
Dual GFO & Carbon reactors
About 40 lbs of live rock
0 Ammonia
0 Nitrite
10 Nitrate
450 Calcium
11.9 dKH
PH 8.2
Fish: One Cardinal and Two Chromes

Any ideas?

 

[wkscott]

1. The substrate is certainly suspicious. Sitting in a garage for years (don't know if it was airtight) could have allowed it to absorb car fumes, gas, paint, and all kinds of other noxious stuff. Mixed with saltwater any such toxins could be released right into the aquarium. How do you know that the bubbling you saw in the bucket was ammonia? It could have just as easily been hydrogen sulfide.
2. Your tank is 6 weeks old. You've added a BIG bioload to the tank in a very short period of time. Even though your testing shows zero ammonia, with 10 fish gone already, this is my number one choice.
3. Not sure if you quarantined any of your fish, so you could have brought in disease. The behavior of your last purchase however leads me to believe it's ammonia or other toxins from your substrate.

 

[kayvon77]

1. The substrate is certainly suspicious. Sitting in a garage for years (don't know if it was airtight) could have allowed it to absorb car fumes, gas, paint, and all kinds of other noxious stuff. Mixed with saltwater any such toxins could be released right into the aquarium. How do you know that the bubbling you saw in the bucket was ammonia? It could have just as easily been hydrogen sulfide.
2. Your tank is 6 weeks old. You've added a BIG bioload to the tank in a very short period of time. Even though your testing shows zero ammonia, with 10 fish gone already, this is my number one choice.
3. Not sure if you quarantined any of your fish, so you could have brought in disease. The behavior of your last purchase however leads me to believe it's ammonia or other toxins from your substrate.

Thanks for the feedback bud. I know the substrate was in a storage room in my garage but it was in a bucket with it's top open. So I have no idea what it could have been exposed to. So maybe I took a bad chance and used it. So at this point do you suggest taking out the substrate after it's been there a month?

Thanks in advance for all your help.

 

[wkscott]

Yes, I recommend removing the substrate, and doing at least an 80% water change. Also change out your carbon and GFO.

You can add newly purchased sand now or anytime later.

Do still have any fish alive? If you do, don't add any new ones for at least 6 weeks. Keep monitoring your ammonia levels.
If you don't have any live creatures, do a 100% water change.

Best of luck and reach out if you need any help.

 

[kayvon77]

Yes, I recommend removing the substrate, and doing at least an 80% water change. Also change out your carbon and GFO.

You can add newly purchased sand now or anytime later.

Do still have any fish alive? If you do, don't add any new ones for at least 6 weeks. Keep monitoring your ammonia levels.
If you don't have any live creatures, do a 100% water change.

Best of luck and reach out if you need any help.

Thanks! I do have two Chromas and one Cardinal. I will change out the substrate and see how it goes. Thanks again!

 

[DeniseAndy]

You can put those three in a temporary tank while the new one cycles. For the fish tank, you would just need a hob filter, pvc and a ammonia badge. Water changes every few days.

 

[kayvon77]

Yes, I recommend removing the substrate, and doing at least an 80% water change. Also change out your carbon and GFO.

You can add newly purchased sand now or anytime later.

Do still have any fish alive? If you do, don't add any new ones for at least 6 weeks. Keep monitoring your ammonia levels.
If you don't have any live creatures, do a 100% water change.

Best of luck and reach out if you need any help.

By the way, I haven't really had a full blown Diatom bloom since I have set it up. Just a bit of brown algae everywhere. Do you think this is related?

 

[Triggreef]

Whoah whoah whoah before jumping to any conclusions...

Have you quarantined any of these fish? All of these fish i should say.

Fairly normal out come if you are not quarantining your fish. Especially when you are adding chromis to the equation. Known to carry uronema marinum.

 

[Hiroshi]

Maybe it's got something to do with the sand. It would have been better to use new sand. How long did you cycle your tank for? Also did you QT any of the fish and did you buy them from a reputable LFS? They could have brought in something. You started the tank on June 28th?

 

[wkscott]

Maybe it's got something to do with the sand. It would have been better to use new sand. How long did you cycle your tank for? Also did you QT any of the fish and dos you buy them from a reputable LFS?

Hi there. I believe that you may have missed some of this thread, at the beginning.

 

[Hiroshi]

Hi there. I believe that you may have missed some of this thread, at the beginning.

Read it again. If take the substrate out if you can and do a big water change. That is the only thing I can think that may work and is your best bet.

 

[kayvon77]

Whoah whoah whoah before jumping to any conclusions...

Have you quarantined any of these fish? All of these fish i should say.

Fairly normal out come if you are not quarantining your fish. Especially when you are adding chromis to the equation. Known to carry uronema marinum.

No, unfortunately I did not. I did give them a freshwater bath through before putting them in the tank.

 

[kayvon77]

Read it again. If take the substrate out if you can and do a big water change. That is the only thing I can think that may work and is your best bet.

Yeah, I think the consensus is take the substrate out. My LFS says that it's not the substrate or else you'll be seeing the condition with all my fish.

 

[Dextereef]

Yeah, I think the consensus is take the substrate out. My LFS says that it's not the substrate or else you'll be seeing the condition with all my fish.

Ehh I think those guys are just tough enough to still be alive. I would ditch the old sand, get the remaining fish into a temporary tank, add new sand and start over. My garage gets so dusty and a layer of dust builds up on everything in short order. Who knows what settled into that old sand while it was sitting there.

 

[Triggreef]

I think many of the readers have missed some info from the start.

1. No Quarantine = anything could be killing your fish.

2. 10 dead fish in a tank that has been set up for only 6 weeks total = most likely many if not all deaths probably related to the cycling of the tank.

3. 3 fish alive out of 13 = I don't normally agree with fish store advise (no offense to the few fish store people who do offer good advice) but in this case I agree. If it were the sand strong enough to kill 10 fish, all would most likely be dead.

4.
60 gallon Uniaquarium
Tunze protein skimmer
Dual GFO & Carbon reactors = this should be quite a good combo on a 60g tank to remove anything harmful he could throw at it from the sand that sat in a bucket in the garage. What could really be in that bucket. Some saw dust maybe. Sanding dust from anything? Nothing thats not easily removed by GAC GFO skimming or mechanical filtration.

Lets get [HASHTAG]#reefsquad[/HASHTAG] @Humblefish @4FordFamily @melypr1985 in here to weigh in.

 

[melypr1985]

Personally I believe there is something in your tank killing the fish. If it were me, I'd take all the fish out (the ones that are left) run them through QT (30 days of copper, 2 rounds of prazipro) and leave the tank fallow (fishless) for 76 days. There is another thread I just read through that has a similar problem. Same advice for that person. Hit the "reset" as humble likes to say.

 

[Triggreef]

And I have some questions to get minds going...

What sort of activities have you done in said garage while bucket of sand is exposed? You park in the garage? Not that I think c02 would be an issue anyway.

Signs on any of the fish? How close are you watching them?

Flashing/scratching on rocks/sand/objects?
laying on the bottom?
ulcers/lesions?
white spots?
whitish haze?
torn fins or tattered fins with whitish slime at the ends?
white stringy poop?
cloudy eyes?
swollen eyes?
constantly swimming in front of powerheads?
keeping hidden or tucked away in a corner?
hiding from light/ light sensitivity?

All things to watch for with new fish and if your not quarantining then my assumption is your probably not watching them all that close.

 

[jsker]

I agree with @melypr1985 to do a reset, but I would go one step further and start with a new sudstraight and also soak the rock in a acid bath or new rock. We can play detectives all day long figuring what got into the bucket

 

[wkscott]

Geez...

 

[Humblefish]

IMO; there's too many variables in play to draw any definite conclusions. Maybe its this 20 year old substrate that has been sitting in the garage or maybe its a disease or maybe something else entirely? If its uronema (as was suggested by someone above), then going fallow won't fix the problem because as a free-living parasite it feeds on live food, dead tissue and bacteria. And the only way to eradicate bacteria from your tank is to completely break it down and start over. I'm discovering not even chlorine can kill all the bacteria.

So, my recommendation here is to do a "hard reset"... break the tank completely down, sterilize all rock/equipment, ditch the old substrate and replace it with some purty sand.