Isopods or?

[Chaloupa]

HELP! I have a 65g hex with 60lbs live rock, a 3-4 inch live sand base, 1 Frogspawn coral, 2 red bulb anemones, 2 giant feather dusters, 2 Skunk Cleaner shrimp, 1 Coral banded shrimp. All our ALK 10-11, Calcium 325+, pH 8.3, Nitrate 10, Nitrite and Ammonia 0, Temp 80, Remora skimmer, 10g sump with 10lbs live rock, Coralife Aqualight Pro, we water change every 2 weeks and add all our supplements weekly ie Tech A/B etc. Now you know the tank...here's our problem;
got 4 nice clown fish....eat well the first few days, then slowly one by one they stop eating, and 2 days later die....we thought it was because of our ALK and other levels that weren't under control, (we didn't know this until much later), so we tried another 4 clowns...even nicer than the first 4 the same scenario...look great eat well, stop eating and 1 by one they die 2 days later (after stopping eating). So we have had some help getting our levels fixed up (we were very new to the salt water hobby) The levels weren't out of control but not ideal. So all levels now "perfect". We got 6 tank raised Banggai Cardinals. Looked amazing, eating well....same scenario; stop eating and 2 days later they die. OK, this is getting costly. We are completely at our wits end. We have had some suggestions that we have Isopods that came in with our live rock....they suck the blood from the fish and then the fish die. Of course we have never seen any as they feed from the fish at night, and drop off in the light. We have viewed the tank using the moonlights for hours and never seen one. WE NEED HELP! No one seems to know what to do or how to deal with this parasite...IF that is what we have. Any input would be very appreciated! We are ready to take apart the tank and start over. Our next step with the tank is to take out the live sand bed and just put a fine layer of substrate to give the Isopods (again IF that is the problem) less hiding space. Some people have suggested adding a Fairy Wrasse or 6 line.....we are nervous to add them as we have lost enough fish now....other suggestion is to add Lufenuron (Program flea control for cats/dogs) but to remove the shrimps first and possibly the F. Dusters. Our shrimp and other animals are doing excellent. We were also told that if we have Isopods they would also attach to the shrimp and cause them to have the same scenario......HELP HELP HELP! Sarah

[Kabong]

My first suggestion whould be to stopping adding fish in large numbers. If Your fish are dying why replace with 4 more, then 6? One at a time whould be a cheaper and safer test method.

Isopods are usually something youll notice on the fish.

Ther not allways that big but if your looking for them you should find them.

Who are you getting your fish from? safari or hillside i doubt youd get that many bad fish from. Creatures on the other hand you could probably buy by the dozen and they all die off.

My best advice is never put anything into your reef that hasnt been in a seprate quaretine tank for at least 1 month, That way you no if its the fish or something in your tank. If it lives through QT for a month and come's out healthy, Ya put in your reef and 2 day's later its dead. You know there something wrong. The way your doing it now its hard to tell if its your tank or a pre-exsisting condition the fish had.

Any other symptoms whould help in figuring this out though, Were they gasping, flashing, showing any odd coloraion. anything?

[Chaloupa]

Hey Tim-thanks for the reply...actually the first 4 were from Hillside, we got them from Cora and they were great...nothing against her fish at all...she has some nice stuff and thats where we got all our live rock and live sand and information on how to start up our tank. Our second set came from Japarto at Safari...they too were amazing. We actually thought with our first ones that it was the travel time and handling and we were really new at it.....we replaced with 4 more as we thought that it was due to our error.....then once we lost them we actually found a couple in town that are absolutely amazing and they got our water parameters in good order...once our water was in "perfect" condition we then added the fish, not realizing that the issue was a parasite not our water condition because our water was a bit out of whack in regards to ALK and a few other things. This is where we made the biggest mistake. We thought it was our inexperience that was killin the fish. The fish from the people in town are all Q'd seperately for several weeks prior to sale. They are amazing.

Now on to the fish-they didn't flash against stuff, their color was really good and they looked normal until they were lying on the ground...that is when they had more rapid breathing. Until that point though they look fine, they just don't eat.....they would sort of hover over the bottom on the day prior to death though and then lose some color. We have never seen a parasite...that is why we are trying to figure this out......I really appreciate you taking the time to help us and will look forward to more replies!

[Beverly]

Current thread about isopods:

http://www.canreef.com/phpBB2/viewto...417&highlight=

[Kabong]

How much diffrence was there in the Specific gravity of your tank and the tanks at the stores?

Did you use drip method acclitmation?

[Chaloupa]

The SG from their tanks was roughly 1.022-1.023...our tank is 1.022 usually. Our pH was within .1 of the last place we got fish...the cardinals......We did acclimate very slowly with all of the arrivals...not as slow as a drip method but a slow method anyway....what are you thinking in terms of the troubles????

[mid-island reef]

I'm thinking that if this was an acclimation issue, your fish would have died in the first 12 to 24 hours, and would not have eaten at all. I wonder if it's not an issue with oxygen levels in your tank. 65 Hex is a tall aquarium with little surface area. I have one and it's 30" deep. Do you have circulation at the bottom of the tank? or are you just useing your surface skimmer and the remora for flow.
One thing I have always believed in is, no matter how good you think the store your buying your fish from is, even if they quarantine their fish, you MUST invest in your own quarantine tank. All my new fish live in mine for a minimum of 2 weeks before they see the inside of a display tank.

[rickjames]

What salt are you using for water changes? There was a bad batch of Instant Ocean with alk levels through the roof (I assume that your tank is testing at 10-11 dkH, no meq/L). I have heard of one guy in Victoria loosing all his fish. Try mixing up some fresh saltwater and testing the levels in it.

I seriously doubt that isopods are killing all your fish. I also have to disagree that you need a quarantine tank. It is an issue of hot debate lately on reef central as to the benefits/merits of a quarantine tank. Besides, if you are going to use a QT tank, you should really keep new fish in it for 4-6 weeks as this is the amount of time it can take for ick to show up due to the parasite's life cycle.

Just my .02

[Chaloupa]

We have live fish now! One Blue-Green Chromis and 1 Male Gold Sailfin Molly. They are alive and have been for a few weeks now......get this though. We feed our Anemones (that have split and we now have 4 and started with 2!) some prawn or scallop etc....small piece hit the sand...and low and behold the Isopods were hungry! We actually saw them out in the open...we figure that the only reason the fish are alive that are there is they stay at the top and the Isopods stay at the bottom. Sucks to be us.....no REALLY! But our 2nd tank is absolutely stunning for a FOWLR. Very cool!

[Aquattro]

Probably the same isopods that are in my tank. Use a tall narrow vase or glass pop bottle with some bait at night, you can catch a few every night. FWIW, the only time I saw them on the fish, they were right at the edges of the fins, not biting into the fish body at all. And I haven't seen any for a month now, so hopefully I got them all.