wrong decision?

3dees · Dec 15, 2013

I'm starting to question my decision to convert my 120 gal. wild discus tank to a fowlr sw. on Thursday I bought a lawnmower blenny. Friday morning I find him stuck to the filter Intake In the qt dead. then yesterday morning I noticed my spotfin bf In my dt having trouble staying upright. soon after he was dead. he has looked healthy and eating like a pig since day one. sometimes I think I should have stayed with what I know best.

Reefing Madness · Dec 15, 2013

No, your change over is quite sound. FW is boring. SW fish take a bit to acclimate properly. I call it the 2 weeks of watching. In this 2 week period they can die for no apparent reason.
To give them a better chance at survival you need to drip acclimate them.
You should keep Nitrates under 40 for a FOWLR
SG can be in the 1.017 to 1.027 range
Should keep your PH around 8-8.4
Temp 76-80
And make sure they are eating the proper foods. MOst you do get from the LFS are hardy fish and are bullet proof once you get them acclimated.
Aquarium Acclimation: Employ the Drip Method to Reduce Aquarium Acclimation Stress

3dees · Dec 15, 2013

the bf was in qt for four weeks with an auriga bf. my water is fine. nitrates are always under 10ppm. sg is 1.024. ph is 8.2. temp is 77-78. all peaceful fish. no aggression. I can't understand how bad he went in one day. I only acclimate for temp as the lfs sg is the same as my qt and only 10 minutes away.

kschweer · Dec 15, 2013

When you had the tank set up as a FW system did you ever treat the tank with any medications such as copper?

kschweer · Dec 15, 2013

Also how long has this been set up as a saltwater system?

inurocker · Dec 15, 2013

If you can keep discus you will do fine with SW. We all have some bad luck along the way I'm sure you must have lost a FW fish or two.

3dees · Dec 15, 2013

my fw tank had to many scratches so I bought a new one.
tank is 4 months old with 140 lbs of live rock. I would think if there was anything wrong, I would see problems with other fish.
in the tank now are:

one spot foxface 3"
royal gramma 2"
yellow coris wrasse 21/2"
pair of black clowns 2"
auriga bf 3"
bengaii cardinal 2"
melanurus wrasse 3"
scissortail dartfish 3"

I feed twice per day with frozen brine, Mysis, bloodworms, butterfly special blend cubes, and prime reef flake. also nori for the foxface.

I am not used to loosing fish. had my discus tank for four years and lost two lemon tetras to carpet surfing.

match69 · Dec 18, 2013

Hi 3dees,

3dees said:
I only acclimate for temp as the lfs sg is the same as my qt and only 10 minutes away.

I am in no way an expert but I agree with Reefing Madness about drip acclimatization. I know of one supplier that gives away an acclimatization pack with every livestock purchase; it ain't a serving suggestion. There is more to salt water than temperature and SG; Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, KH, DH, to name the obvious, but countless others that we don't or can't test for and the best we can do is dilute them over a period of a few hours. Also did you transfer the fish to a separate vessel with the bag water then net them out into your qt? Or float them in the plastic bag till the temperatures were correct then tip everything into the qt. Some aquaria have background levels of copper or other medication. Do you know if your lfs uses such a scheme; in the longer term it could jeopardize the viability of your qt. I do not want to sound all preachy preachy, you are obviously a competent aquarist to have kept Discus but if you thought they were delicate to acclimatize they are Nuke Proof compared to even the hardiest of coral reef fish.

3dees · Dec 19, 2013

I have never put bagged water In my tank. I think acclimation Is really overblown. I have never understood how you can acclimate a fish to different water parameters in an hour or two. imo that is just way too short of time. I have never bought any sw fish except locally. most, if not all have the same ph being in the same area. temp is not a problem. I set my qt to the same sg as the lfs. everything else is not going to harm the fish. if it was an acclimating problem I would have problems with more than one fish. as inurocker said, it happens to everyone at one time or another. I guess I got spoiled with the discus. it's said that if you can keep them, you can keep anything.

Coraloliseffect · Dec 19, 2013

I am ignorant to discus. But most all freshwater ornamentals I have delt with we're captive bred. Thus the hole supply chain was primarily captive. So fish are adapted to captivity and don't have the disease and parasites they did I the wild.
Nor the global disease swapping ground of the lfs.

3dees · Dec 20, 2013

I agree, but I kept wild discus. I know that over all, sw fish are harder to acclimate to an aquarium, but many people have fish live for years. I try to do everything right and this Is what I get.

benny z · Dec 20, 2013

it sounds like you've lost 2 of 11 fish, if you still have these 9 fish:

one spot foxface 3"
royal gramma 2"
yellow coris wrasse 21/2"
pair of black clowns 2"
auriga bf 3"
bengaii cardinal 2"
melanurus wrasse 3"
scissortail dartfish 3"

2 deaths out of 11 is pretty good for a new tank stocking, imo. just kind of the way it goes with salterwater fish ime and imo. ...especially being pickups from a lfs.

welcome to the hobby!

3dees · Dec 20, 2013

all are fine except the auriga. yesterday I noticed it wasn't eating and this morning his eyes are cloudy. don't think it's going to make it. I know bf's aren't the easiest to care for. I think I'll just forget about bf's. now the problem is that I have a kole tang and a flame angel in my qt. they were going to be the last fish. probably have problems adding anything after. good thing is that they are both small.

hit_the_gap · Dec 20, 2013

isnt 11 fish in a 4 month period kind of fast? just a question, not a criticism. i would think that would be hard on the system.

TheSaint216 · Dec 20, 2013

Your gonna have ups and downs, some fish will make it and some wont. Sometimes fish are just doomed from the start. When I first started I had a full tank of corals and fish and while I was at work I had a par 38 bulb drop in my tank and kill everything except two fish. I walked in and my tank was like a cloudy white soup. Killed all my coral, I kept a few pieces and some came back. You just have to keep going. One of the best things about this hobby is figuiring out problems and fixing them. Its a learning process and you determine the learning curve.

3dees · Dec 20, 2013

hit_the_gap said:
isnt 11 fish in a 4 month period kind of fast? just a question, not a criticism. i would think that would be hard on the system.

all fish are small, 2-3". 120 gal. dt. usually do 3 at a time. water parameters are always spot on.

TJ's Reef · Dec 20, 2013

Reading this thread over I don't see any details of the setup as far as Live Rock and sand -vs- Dry Rock and sand used to start. IMO/IME if it were Dry/Dead then 4 months is very young for that bio-load. LR is/can be years to decades or more old and fully colonized by an assortment of nitrifying bacteria. I cut open a piece of Marco rock from a friends tank that was 3+ years old and barely populated more than 1/4" - 3/8" in by bacteria or in essence as effective as maybe 15% of LR of same volume. Also look into seeing if you can get a copy of your Water Districts water analysis, we in Washington have some of the very best aquifers in the country though there are some nasty ones as well full of heavy metals. I imported and bred Discus in the mid 70's til the late 80's and chose location of my home for best overall Water District around, slightly soft and acidic and non-chlorinated which was perfect for my 200+ gallons of WC's daily. About 15 miles North was/is an aquifer that you cannot keep SA Chiclids, Catfish or scaleless fish alive without major adjustment because of heavy metals (just below human safety concern levels) Copper, Selenium and Cadmium in abundance. Just my $0.02 and would be worth investigation to see whats really in your water. Obviously keeping Discus there shouldn't be an excess of heavy metals but something else maybe ???

Cheers, Todd

benny z · Dec 20, 2013

TJ's Reef said:
Reading this thread over I don't see any details of the setup as far as Live Rock and sand -vs- Dry Rock and sand used to start. IMO/IME if it were Dry/Dead then 4 months is very young for that bio-load. LR is/can be years to decades or more old and fully colonized by an assortment of nitrifying bacteria. I cut open a piece of Marco rock from a friends tank that was 3+ years old and barely populated more than 1/4" - 3/8" in by bacteria or in essence as effective as maybe 15% of LR of same volume. Also look into seeing if you can get a copy of your Water Districts water analysis, we in Washington have some of the very best aquifers in the country though there are some nasty ones as well full of heavy metals. I imported and bred Discus in the mid 70's til the late 80's and chose location of my home for best overall Water District around, slightly soft and acidic and non-chlorinated which was perfect for my 200+ gallons of WC's daily. About 15 miles North was/is an aquifer that you cannot keep SA Chiclids, Catfish or scaleless fish alive without major adjustment because of heavy metals (just below human safety concern levels) Copper, Selenium and Cadmium in abundance. Just my $0.02 and would be worth investigation to see whats really in your water. Obviously keeping Discus there shouldn't be an excess of heavy metals but something else maybe ???

Cheers, Todd

man, i always love your posts.

how the heck do you measure nitrifying bacteria?!