Lost 2 Fish in 2 Days ??????????

[Black Phantom]

As if one wasn't bad enough. Now I've lost my best fish in the tank. Yesterday I found my Naso Tang doing the "deadmans float". I figured he probably just died of natural causes as I've had him for about five years.
Today my prized Foxface was doing the same thing.:sad: For some reason he got stuck to the intake of my Tunze pump yesterday. I figured he had been there for about an hour. When I shut the pump off he seemed to be fine and even picked at some food. This morning he looked ok but an hour later was toast.
All my other fish and corals look just fine.
Does this sound like coincidence. I've had the Fox for about five years as well.
Nothing in my tank is new or has been changed in the last year.
I have had a bit of an Aiptasia outbreak but I'm sure that couldn't have been a factor.
Any help would be appreciated.

[fishoholic]

Sounds like it could of been from old age, sorry for your losses.

[Drock169]

give us your water parameters, tangs can live up to 20 years, so there may be another cause.

[Der_Iron_Chef]

I don't think a healthy Foxface could be sucked to the side of a powerhead. To me, that's the key that something was already wrong, that it was weakened and already failing.

[Drock169]

I agree with Drew

[Black Phantom]

I'm at work so I will have to check the water when I get home. The fact that all other animals in my system are doing just fine is strange.
When a fish passes away from old age what signs do they show?
Both of these fish looked ok two days ago and I know that both of them have been eating as they were both fat and sassy.
If my water parameters had strayed then I'm sure some of my more delicate corals would be showing stress and they are all good.
I certainly agree with Iron Chef. No healthy fish would get stuck to a pump.
It really sucks to lose two nice fish at the same time. Especially as they were both the first inhabitants when I set up this tank 5 years ago.

[Der_Iron_Chef]

What are your other inhabitants?

[marie]

Migrating intestinal worms can do damage to internal organs and i suspect that this is sometimes the cause of mysterious fish deaths

[Black Phantom]

What are your other inhabitants?


Hippo Tang
Lemon Tang
Clown fish
Sargeant major
Misc Anthias
Misc Damsels
Dottybacks

The rest of the tank is all LPS and softies. Everything is open and looking good.
Now that I think of it I did add a Torch Coral about three weeks ago and I have started feeding my corals Cyclopeze
Nothing thats going to make any difference in the fish.
Marie, you talked about intestinal worms. Do they stay present in a tank for a long period of time.
The last fish I added was my Hippo Tang from Golds and that was around two years ago.

[marie]

...
Marie, you talked about intestinal worms. Do they stay present in a tank for a long period of time.
The last fish I added was my Hippo Tang from Golds and that was around two years ago.

It's possible that one of your wild caught fish came in with them and seeing as how tangs are known poop eaters (my foxface eats poop as well) they could of picked up the worms from eating poop.
I don't know if intestinal worms can live freely in a tank but there is no reason the foxface (or the tang) couldn't have had them for the last 5 yrs and showed no outward symptoms

[naesco]

They require highly oxygenated water and will be the first to perish if the oxygen gets low from a warmer than normal tank.
Place a powerhead near the water line to raise the oxygen
level.
Thanks

[Black Phantom]

Well I got home from work tonight and so far everything else in the tank looks just fine. I'll run some water tests tomorrow but I don't expect to find much. All the corals are wide open and the rest of the fish are eating as usual. It's too bad I didn't keep the fish as I could have done a little fish autopsy and checked for worms.
Hopefully nothing else will happen and I'll write this up to a real bad couple of days.

[untamed]

I wonder if they both ate something that disagreed with them? You haven't changed foods in any way (beyond the Cyclopeze...)?

[Black Phantom]

It won't be an oxygen issue at I have a huge water turnover through my sump as well as two Tunze pumps in the tank itself. And from experiance it takes about a week of really hot weather around here to bring the tank temp up and that hasn't happened. Temp is right on 79 as usual.

I think if they had eaten bad food then the rest of the tank should be showing some stress as well. So far everything else is ok. Checked on them the first thing this morning and my other Tangs are fine. I'm wondering if I got an ammonia spike from the first one passing away. If my Foxface was a bit weak then that might have been what did it to him.
Who knows :question: