Doomed to Crash???

[Rbacchiega]

For those of you who've had a tank crash, what were the signs that led up to it? I've lost two fish in the span of 48 hours, parameters are fine, corals look better than they have ever been. But just now I pulled out my Ember Blenny (nooooooooooooooo!) who was looking fine today and ate this morning. And yesterday I lost the copperband. Mandarin, Foxface, Kole and Cardinal are looking fine, active and just ate.

[Leah]

Oh, sorry to hear about your fish, have you figured out the problem yet?

[Borderjumper]

Is anything different? Change salts? additives? If everything tests out ok ( lots of PH crashes locally lately) I wouldnt worry too much. Sometimes fish just die and copperbands are a tough one to keep anyways.

Keep a close eye on everything.

[Carmen]

Ohh Sorry to hear Randy.:sad: Any ideas yet?

[Delphinus]

Ouch .. sorry to hear.

Generally speaking to me a tank crash is something you can indeed track (ie. NO3, or NO2, or even NH4 in extreme cases). Or there's an off smell to it, or some such. It's usually corals that show distress first. Fish showing first .. arrrgh, I don't really know. But I wonder if it could be that they were both new acquisitions and didn't transition well (and it's just coincidence on the timing), or maybe something more sinister like disease or something ?? :(

I'm so sorry for your losses.

[digital-audiophile]

Once you have smelled a tank that is dying, you will never forget it.

[freddy]

5 weeks ago all my fish died one by one,corals looked great,nitrates were a little high but not dangerous,did your fish have any spoy's or anything before they died.

[originalozzyo]

Mine was caused by a kalkwasser overdose, did a massive water change which stemmed it a bit. But in the end i lost all my nice sps and some smaller fish. I just gave up trying to correct all the water parameters in the tank and restarted in a bigger tank.

[Rbacchiega]

I don't use Kalk, but I'll keep that in mind if I ever do start using it. I have always used the same salt and when I took a look at the blenny I didn't notice anything out of whack.

Just tested water again and everything read where it should. Hopefully this was just a freak occurence because I was just finally starting to like the way the tank was looking. Obviously I'll be holding off on any fish purchases for a while....hermph

[dkcrx]

could be something like internal parasites like heart worms or gill flukes, seems to be a problem that will start by killing off the weekest first and continue, or stop all together if your other fish are in good health. I had this happen 6 or 7 years ago and lost a few one day and buy the time I figured it out I lost nearly all my prise fish "near $1000 worth" had to do a little disecting to find out.

[Whatigot]

were these new fish or fish from an existing system?
how long have you had the tank running for?
how long have those tow fish been in the tank?

[Rbacchiega]

were these new fish or fish from an existing system?
how long have you had the tank running for?
how long have those tow fish been in the tank?

The copperband was from a LFS in Calgary, they had had it for three weeks. The Blenny came from a different LFS in Calgary

This tank has been up and running for around 4 months in the current setup

The copperband was in the tank for just over 2 weeks, the Blenny almost 4

[Whatigot]

any signs of cyanide catching on the copperband?
I think the easiest signs are clouded eyes and pinkish cheeks (or the area slighty behind where I imagine a fishes cheeks might be), like it's blushing?

[Rbacchiega]

I noticed a bit of a cloudy eye a few days after I added the fish to the tank, but seemed to clear up after anothe couple of days. Wasn't aware of anything else.

Today the tank looks good, Mandarin is still nice and fat/healthy looking. Foxface and Kole are out and active as usual.

Wierd

[Whatigot]

hmmm.
Seems more likely it was a fish issue than a tank issue.
I suppose all you can do when your params are normal is watch and hope...