Clown Fish help!

[DACJ]

Hi y'all!

Well...so they say, clown fish is the most hardy fish and is great for starters....HOWEVER!!! so far, of all the things in my tank, clown fish is the only one that's been having problems surviving....so I need suggestions...

I have a 29G Biocube, with almost 30lbs of LR, just a fine layer of live sand, not very deep.
Coral Stockings are: 1 xenia frag, 1 zoa frag, 1 green star polyps frag, 1 candy cane frag, 1 flowerpot coral , 1 green hammer coral, 1 bubble coral. ( the xenia has grown so big so fast...not a frag anymore...in fact, i can even make frags of it and trade it in to my LFS...)
CUC Stockings are: 2 blue legged hermit, 1 scarlet hermit, 2 turbo snails, 1 med and 1 small sea urchin, 2 bumble bee snail ( probably dead, 1 shell seems emty, and it never moves, the other one MIA)
Fish Stock: 3 scarlet skunk cleaner shrimp, 1 sixline wrasse, 1 firefish goby, and one some sort of diamond goby of which I cannot yet identify( similar to orange spotted except it's not, on the back fin its got tiny blue spots evened out across, very pretty, and blue and pink lines on across the face(head) I have not yet matched it's type to any picture on the web)

Finally, comes down to false percs....I have introduced 2 pairs of percs at different times, and none of which seems to be able to survive more than 2 weeks....water test shows fine, water change weekly or bi-weekly...3.5 gallon each time. feed twice a day with mysis in the morning and pellets at night....however the bigger perc will always die and the smaller one will follow him/her in the next week....WHY?!

I mean...there is some weak stuff in the tank and living just fine... i believe scarlet shrimp is more senstive than any of the fish in there, and they've starting to lay eggs..."diamond goby" has already shifted one corner of the tank's sand to else where leaving glass bottomed at that specific corner...
As for corals, bubble coral growing slowly, hammer and flower pot not growing but is looking just great...and I think that flowerpot is quite a fragile piece....so can someone generate some ideas and tell me what's wrong with the percs? Cuz I don't think I will try to get anymore of them ....they seemed to be a very good addition until they die....

P.S. I do plan to add 1 more peppermint shrimp to take care of the aiptasia growing in the tank...maybe subsitute one of the male scarlet.

[triggereef]

just a suggestion..

The same thing happened in my tank and about a month after my clowns dies i noticed a crab in there that must of came in on my live rock.. Well i noticed that he wasnt very friendly and thought that might be the cause of their deaths..

mabey you might have the same problem...

[tlo]

my first thought is acclimatization. Did you get the clowns at a different store than the other fish?
What do you keep your Specific gravity at? Some stores keep their sg lower than we would have in our home aquaria. Did you happen to compare the store water to yours?

[DACJ]

triggerreef

I did have a crab in the tank, it wasn't very big and it's always been feeding on algaes, so I didn't want to take it out and kill it...it's got plain color, algae growing on the back of it....didn't really seem harmful to me at all, plus that was way before I got the clowns, and all my other fish does fine along with it anyway, so I don't think that's the cause, unless the crab only picks on percs for some reason. Besides, it's been at least a month since I last saw the crab, not that I tried to find it, but everynight when I look at the tank before I go to bed, I don't see it in plain sight anymore.

tlo

I got the fish from the same LFS, and I did compare the water between the two, was almost a match, PH and Salinity wise. I keep my gravity at 1.023~1.024, almost at highest it can be. I took some time to accilmate the fish, not very long though, I'd say max 15 min as I thought they were much stronger than my other fish, and even for the scarlet shrimp, I only spent 15 min acclimate, which involved 3 times of water drop with a siphon and the bag floats on the tank water at all times.

BTW, I forgot to mension that the last pair I got, the big one, which died first, looked like its skin was peeling, like white stuff, I didn't think it was ick, but shortly after it died, the small one, which was fine before, started getting the white stuff before it died. NOTE! the first pair I got did not have this "ick-like" problem, and still died, so I don't think that is the case, and my other fish are not affected which leads me to believe more that it's not ick. Unless it's because I feed them mysis shrimp O.o? I was told that percs don't usually eat mysis, rather they like brine....but it's not too possible that diet is the cause of their death right?

[ElGuappo]

my perks eat far more mysis then brine. not sure, when they do eat the the brine, if they preffer the spirinela enriched or the normal tho as i mix it all together when thawing. plus normal brine shrimp is like "candy". only they baby brine (and Spirinela enriched) have nutritional value. (from what i have heard)

[skabooya]

you mentioned that there were things missing in your tank that you thought may be dead. This could cause a spike.
Also i noticed you are feeding twice a day. Thats a lot of food in a saltwater tank. This could also cause a spike or water quality issues.
Check the nitrite/ate and ammonia in your tank. There should be none but if something is wrong with this then you have your answer.

[Leah]

Sounds like Brooklynella hostilis

[DACJ]

From what I observed, it seems to be "Brooklynella hostilis"...but I can only find so much information about diagnose and treatment online, not the cause of it...Since both has passed away already....I don't think treatment method will do me any good....
Anyone can explain to me what might have caused it?

BTW!!!!!!!!!!!!

More bad news, as of today, 2 of my skunk cleaner shrimp died.....of HEAT! ....only one left...i hope it's the female...
I've been putting the top-off water in the fridge and adding it in the evening trying to cool the tank, i got a fan blowing at the tank with max power...but the tank is still way over heated....I can't tell you how far up it is.....because my themo only read up to 86...and I don't see any colors on the LED thermo...so it's way way high....even I can't survive the weather....all the corals has retracted....fully....fish seems to be fine...I hope nothing more will die....gonna try to put some dry ice in bag and place it in sump to try cooling...can't afford chiller....I don't know man....summer sux....

[msteele]

I had a 12g nanocube that I struggled with in the heat. Open the lid of your tank and run a fan over it. You'll have to add more water but it will help to keep the water cooler. Last summer I had a tank crash that I had to call my "fish soup" incident due to the high temperature in the tank. Unfortunately that is one of the down sides to an all-in-one contained tank.

With regards to your clownfish, it really sounds like over feeding. I agree with Skabooya.

[rkelman]

"looked like its skin was peeling, like white stuff"

Definitely sounds like brook. You need formalin to treat it. If you are going to buy clowns formalin should be in your medicine chest. You will of course need a hospital tank to treat them. ( a bucket would work in a pinch )