Loosing fish HELP

[Jason McK]

I haven't been able to come up with a reason. But it started about 2 weeks ago when I lost 1 Chromis and a Bicoloured Blenny, Now I seem to be loosing a fish a day. This morning I lost my Watanabe Angel, Yesterday was another Chromis, before that was a christmas wrasse, before that leaopard wrasse. I've tested everything and my Ammonia is 0.01, Nitrite 0.0 Nitrate 0.0. I have seen some invert deaths but for the most parts they are OK. I did set up a frag tank recently. Also the bodies show no sign of attack, the evening before they fed well and acted normally. no new fish have been introduced for months

Any suggestions would be great.

Jason

[Tangman]

Sorry to hear about loosing fish, I hate that when that happens, Its a reef keepers worst nightmare.
some sort of poisoning maybe ? glass cleaner, rust, stray voltage, dead or lost cucumber or anemone ? the list goes on....
I am sure you know there are things at work that we can't test for. What have you ruled out ?

[Jason McK]

I haven't ruled out much. But the fact that my inverts are for the most part OK and my corals look great. I'm leaning toward unmeasurable poisoning or O2 issues.

I will be doing water changes daily and looking for solutions to get more O2 in the water

J

[Der_Iron_Chef]

I find it difficult to believe that it's an 02 issue, unless you've drastically changed something in the last few weeks. Chromis are very hardy! Salinity? PH? Have you changed foods? This may be a long shot, but are you using any new hand products in the last few weeks?

[Salmon King]

There are some bad diseases out there.I/m fighting one now.It seems to be imune to medication.I read on the internet that there is a strain of ich that is copper resistant.

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

Anybody spray any cleanser or air freshener in the room? Are there any kids who have been around who may have dropped something into the system? What's the last fish or live rock you added to the system? Any chance it introduced a toxin or parasite into the system?

Good luck Jason. Couple of other friends have also had some bad fish morts lately.

Anthony

[cprowler]

Can you run carbon to try and remove any toxins that may have been introduced or does the ZEOvit prevent you from doing that?

[Jason McK]

So what I've done so far is:
O2 test came out at 15 so perfect
Added a ton of carbon to a phasban reactor
40G water change
Talking with Jeff @ J&L he has seen one instance of perfectly normal looking fish haveing worms that eat out the internal organs of the fish. All fish appear normal but suddenly die. I hope this is not the case but we will have to wait and see.

I have not added a fish since Nov 5th. I haven't even really added any corals.

Well if I find something I will let you all know

J

[christyf5]

OMG Jason that totally sucks! :neutral:

Worms eh? Have you done a necropsy (fish autopsy) on any of the fish to check for them?

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

When I suspect a toxin release or chemical problem, I like to use ChemiPure rather than carbon. Good luck tracking down the culprit.

Anthony

[Jason McK]

Christy -> no I haven't yet if I gat another loss I will. Want to come show me how :(

Anthony -> ChemiPure eh do you run that in a reactor type unit or just in a bag?

J

[christyf5]

Jason, if you have another loss before Tuesday, put it in the freezer in a ziploc and I'll come over and show you. If it happens on Tuesday or during the week PM me and I'll come over. Fresh fish are best but frozen will do.

Chemipure can be run in a reactor or just as it comes in the sump, IMO it works best in a reactor as you get better flow through it.

[Chin_Lee]

sorry to hear jason. chemipure comes in its own bag and you just put it somewhere with good flow.
i lost a wack load of fish to a bad case of ich and i know what you are feeling. I'm in the process of setting up an 80W UV sterilizer to be turned on when I introduce fish. My theory is there must be various parasites we cannot see with our naked eyes so a UV sterilizer is the only way to get rid of these parasites. From herein, i will do a freshwater dip to get parasites off the fish before adding them to my system.
I lost 14 fishes in two weeks including my achilles tang and emperor angel - worse two weeks of my life.

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

What they said.

As long as the water flows through the ChemiPure bag, it doesn't matter too much where you put it. You can even stick the sacks into a hob filter.

Anthony

[Jason McK]

I picked up some chemiPure and was able to cram it in my phosban reactor. Thanks Anthony

Chin I was thinking about a UV but I believe Zeovit and UV don't work together as the UV will kill the good bacteria.
I hadn't added a fish in over 6 months and I'm still loosing fish.
I still can't get over your losses Chin, I just hope both our fortunes will change now.

J

[Chowder]

I lost about 7 fish in one night about a year or so ago. All the fish were healthy and eating before it happened. Ín my case it was poor water quality a oil slick from feeding frozen and my pump on my skimmer shut off. Needless to say a O2 problem. Hope you solve your problem soon and good luck. Also sorry to hear about your fish problem too Chin.

[Sebae again]

Have you done anything different to your fish room in the last 2 weeks ? Do you close doors or windows to it at night? If you have a large exhaust fan you need to have sufficient make up air. Is the co2 ok? I had some bad phosphate remover one time. Just some thoughts.

[Jason McK]

Thanks Sebae and Chris. haven't done anything different with regards to the fish room. Just the addtion of the 30G frag tank.

J

[Reefer Rob]

40 gal water change in your tank's not very much. I think you should shoot for more like 50%. Sure sounds like chemical contamination of some kind. Did it start before or after you rock slide?

Chin, look into fresh water dips more before you try it. It won't do anything for Cryptocaryon. I'll never fresh water dip again after I lost my Achilles doing it :redface:

[Jason McK]

Hey Rob, I'll do another 40G tomorrow but I just don't have the ability to do a 200G water change.

It was occuring during the rock slide. But i to am thinking it could have contributed to it

J

[Salmon King]

I had a mystery disease a few years ago that wiped out 6 large fish in a couple days.Everybody said copper/marycin 1 and 2.My gut feeling was moroxy.It was moroxy that cured them.There was no visable signs of that disease

[christyf5]

Dare I ask for an update?

[danny zubot]

Jason, do you have a sandbed?
Do you have a CO tester in you house.
Just thowing out ideas.

[Pier Pressure]

I lost five fish and three shrimp overnight in a nine hour period so I know how you feel. Everyone was looking good and eating when the lights went out at eleven, and by nine the next morning all those creatures were dead. Kicked it around on here and on Alberta Aquatica but never really came up with a solution. The only fish that lived is a firefish, and all shrimp died. Corals were all fine and so were hermits, snails, anemones, sea apples and an emerald crab.

I have since started to restock and have not run into any problems with my new fish or cleaner shrimp. Alive and well and healthy. I will let you know if we ever come up with the reason it happened.

Suggestions I received: Hitchhiker, oxygen issue, water quality issue or contaminant getting into the tank. We found some bristle worms but only small ones, oxygen issue would have taken out the corals and crabs too I believe, water quality was tested and appeared fine, and as for a contaminant I cannot think of anything that was sprayed near the tank.

Yours are dying slower so I think you can eliminate oxygen as an issue. Water quality I have heard corals and inverts feel it first. How about a hitchhiker? Even if you have not added any new live rock recently, some hitchhikers have to teach themselves to catch a fish and that takes time.

Really sorry for your loss.

[Delphinus]

Corals were all fine and so were hermits, snails, anemones, sea apples and an emerald crab.


What anemones do you have?

Mixing anemones is a dicey business. You get things like allelopathy and chemical warfare that isn't obvious but produces weird random things that leave you puzzled as to what's going on. Not always a problem, in fact, it's more often not a problem, but there's "potential."

In the case of some anemones, for example Heteractis magnifica there is potential for the anemone to cause massive tank death. Probably some kind of defense mechanism triggered in times of stress, but lethal in a closed system. I've had no fewer than 3, possibly 4 (I've lost count) lethal events where I've lost 100% of my fish due to the anemone being moved. (I didn't clue into what was happening at first.)

[Jason McK]

Well I'm happy to say all is well right now. the Angel was my last loss on Saturday. 40G water change on Saturday then another on Monday and I'll do another one tonight. I'm left with just my bigger fish although the Angel and the Black Leopard Wrasse were bigger fish as well.

Thanks for all the help. I'm hoping I never need to investigate further :)

J