Wipe out velvet or possible Amonia spike?

[89Sem]

Man this sucks! I’m at a loss just looking for answers I had a tang go missing thought maybe hiding, I couldn’t find him for for a day, I wake up and find my other tang and royal gramma dead. I test Amonia and it’s HIGH I do a quick 25% water change Took me an additional day to find the initial missing tang dead. Did another water change but over the next 24-36hrs lost another tiger goby, 1 clown fish, blue jaw trigger they all seemed fine. I watched the tiger swimming around sifting sand no issues and literally drop dead.
I have a clown fish, long nose hawk, fire fish and another tiger and 2 shrimps all look fine. Fox face looks rough check out pic let me know if you think it’s velvet and why are the other fish not affected? Or just not affected yet?

 

[Rmckoy]

@vetteguy53081

 

[vetteguy53081]

Man this sucks! I’m at a loss just looking for answers I had a tang go missing thought maybe hiding, I couldn’t find him for for a day, I wake up and find my other tang and royal gramma dead. I test Amonia and it’s HIGH I do a quick 25% water change Took me an additional day to find the initial missing tang dead. Did another water change but over the next 24-36hrs lost another tiger goby, 1 clown fish, blue jaw trigger they all seemed fine. I watched the tiger swimming around sifting sand no issues and literally drop dead.
I have a clown fish, long nose hawk, fire fish and another tiger and 2 shrimps all look fine. Fox face looks rough check out pic let me know if you think it’s velvet and why are the other fish not affected? Or just not affected yet?

What is age of the tank?
Tank looks awfully clean and suggests this is a newer tank and if that is true, you had way too many fish in the tank quite soon and many are Not good first fish for an immature tank and likely saw ammonia spikes as your readings which were high.
How are you testing your water levels?
Additionally, the foxface seems to have ick or velvet (hard to determine in pics) and what other symptoms did you notice with previous fish such as loss of appetite, heavy breathing, lethargic behavior, swimming at the water surface, etc?
What filters are you running - Can you provide pic of entire tank ?

 

[89Sem]

It’s about 3-4 months I cycled it for about a month it’s a 125gallon, 40 g sump I have a fleece roller, protein skimmer and I run carbon in a media reactor, refugium with Cheto I use a Redsea master kit for water testing.

I do agree it was overstocked I added them one at a time and ensured the water parameters were within range but it might have overwhelmed the bio filter

I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary with the other fish, the blue jaw was lethargic and that was right before he was gone. Currently the fox face looks like he’s breathing a lot

 

[89Sem]

And sorry to photobomb that’s the best pic I could get of the fox face

 

[89Sem]

F

 

[vetteguy53081]

F

Foxface and others I assume were not quarantined and if they were , you could avoid what's next-
Foxface has ich and its assumed although you may not see signs also has Ich and ALL Fish will have to moved to a separate quarantine tank and treated with Coppersafe or Copper Power at therapeutic level 2.25-2.5 For a FULL 30 days (do not interrupt this 30 day period) monitored by a reliable Copper Test kit such as Hanna Brand- No API brand. Also monitor Ammonia levels while in quarantine with a reliable test kit and add aeration with air stone during treatment using an air stone.
The display tank will have to be kept fishless (FALLOW) for 6-8 weeks to assure the existing parasites go through their life cycle without a host fish and die off
A quarantine tank can be as simple as a starter kit from Walmart which most of the needed essentials but you will need at least a 30 gallon or 40 breeder sized tank.

 

[89Sem]

Okay thanks! I appreciate the help! As for the display tank I have a skunk shrimp a fire shrimp, pistol shrimp and CUC snails, conch etc. do they have to be quarantined or can I leave them in there for the 6-8weeks?

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

How high was the ammonia reading? How high is it now?

I agree, the foxface seems to have an external protozoan disease. Can you post a video? I would like to see its respiration rate. This could be velvet and not ich.

Jay

 

[89Sem]

I’m going to say it spiked to 3-4 and happened overnight everyone was fine at 9pm and 2 dead by 6 am. Now it’s about 0.2 total Amonia so 0.02

 

[89Sem]

Rapid breathing

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

I’m going to say it spiked to 3-4 and happened overnight everyone was fine at 9pm and 2 dead by 6 am. Now it’s about 0.2 total Amonia so 0.02

I've never seen ammonia that high except during shipping, and even then, that is quite rare. As you may know, during shipping, the pH of the water drops due to CO2, making the ammonia much less toxic. Having 3 to 4 ppm ammonia in a normal pH marine aquarium, even for a short period, is very serious. You may just be dealing with the aftermath of that - supportive care may be all you can do; dim lights, good aeration.

Any idea how the ammonia got that high? That is outside the range of most test kits, did you do a serial dilution of the sample to get that reading?

Jay

 

[89Sem]

That’s just my estimate the test kit I have goes up to 2.0 and the color I got was way off the chart. My theory is I flew too close to the sun with the amount of fish and the tank not mature enough.
I’m guessing the bio filter was right on the cusp and crashed causing the fallout.

I had a tang go MIA and it took me about a day and a half to find him after moving the aqua scape around. Now I’m not sure how quickly the Amonia can go up from a decaying corps but my thinking is that it spiked and caused a domino effect with the other deaths and with Amonia out of range for that period of time affected the other fish to varying degrees.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

That’s just my estimate the test kit I have goes up to 2.0 and the color I got was way off the chart. My theory is I flew too close to the sun with the amount of fish and the tank not mature enough.
I’m guessing the bio filter was right on the cusp and crashed causing the fallout.

I had a tang go MIA and it took me about a day and a half to find him after moving the aqua scape around. Now I’m not sure how quickly the Amonia can go up from a decaying corps but my thinking is that it spiked and caused a domino effect with the other deaths and with Amonia out of range for that period of time affected the other fish to varying degrees.

Yes, a dead fish can often cause a large ammonia spike, and then pulling the body and doing a water change takes care of the issue….except the potential for residual damage on the fish.
Jay

 

[89Sem]

Right I immediately did a water change and another the next day but since it happened overnight I think unfortunately the damage had already been done. Sad and expensive lesson learned