Everything dies since cannister filter installation

[DavidToronto]

Hi all,

Perhaps you can help me out here, this is the brief story line:

I am new to the hobby set up my first marine aquarium around September 2015. All was going ok ish, had some clown fish, some damsels, wrasse, and even a fire goby, some died once in a while but nothing drastic. I have live rock and sand but no plants or reefs.

Then in December I decided to install a new (inherited from a friend) canister (eheim 2217) filter. I didn't know I had to keep both old and new filters for a while so good bacteria died, ammonia rose and everything died. I left the tank over the holidays to cycle (adding some 'stability' mix to speed up the process) and it seemed ready for life in january so last week I put in a blue damsel, a wrasse, two crabs, and four snails. Two days later the wrasse started to seems sick, had trouble using his 'tail' to swim and seemed to be slow and bloated, I did a 10% water change and added the 'stability' mixture, and tap water conditioner to help them medicate. Both fish were dead the next day and now the crab died and a couple of snails too...salt was a bit low after the water change but besides that no drastically abnormal values, nitrate was a bit high but that has been like that even with previous filter and fish, and they didn't die that quickly, I am now paranoid to put anything new in, not to mention the waste of money. Here are the values from around the time of incident:

KH -180 ppm (mg/l)
PH -7.5
Nitrite -0
nitrate -40 mg/L
salinity - 26ppt or 1.019 spec. gra. (now back to 30 ppt/ 1.022 spec. grav.)

Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks,

David

[Sk8r]

Go to the top of the forum, read the SETTING UP sticky. There's every possibility you've imported a parasite or pathogen from unquarantined fish. You don't mention tank size. No damsel belongs in a tank under 50 except a clown. Clowns are best in singles or pair, no more than 2 because of territoriality. Don't let the lfs sell you damsels or magic potions to cycle, and consider wrasses as somewhat fragile. Do not put any fish in for 72 days. You can install hardy corals and inverts---but they require a salinity of 1.024, which must not vary. You need an autotopoff. Ditch the filters. Sump with skimmer recommended. Quarantine procedures strongly recommended. You can use the filter on a quarantine tank, but you need something different on the main tank unless you're going fish-only, and even so, do quarantine.

[chimmike]

test your ammonia!

[CStrickland]

Were you using untreated tap water?

[Sk8r]

I'd say before we poke about too long in a scarcity of information (with a whole raft of causes possible) ---go read that sticky far enough down to see if there's anything YOU think might be your problem.

[DavidToronto]

Thank you for that, sorry for the late reply, been pretty busy lately.
1) Am reading the setting up sticky but there is so much information there, is there something I should focus on?
2) Tank is 30 gallons
3) Tested the ammonia, 0-0.25. not unusual. Tap water was with conditioner as I have done since day one.
4) Ditch the filters? but it's fish only so far, don't filters help? not sure i am ready for corals yet, and haven't worked with skimmer and sump before, is it really necessary in fish only? And to wait 72 days...so long, I already waited since christmas plus 4 weeks quarantine for the new fish( just so long...
From what I read about how my clown fish behaved before it died (bulging eyes, gasping for air, bloated), and the fact that it killed them one at a time it could have been a parasite, I forgot the name of it, can look it up if needed.
Should I keep doing water changes and can I do something to speed up the process?

Regards,

David

[Dkuhlmann]

If your tank was properly cycled, then your rock is your filter. It's all in the Setting up link that Sk8r pointed out.

[A.Astore]

If you introduced something into the tank and keep putting new hosts in you are asking for it to come back. You are at the point that you are either A) going to need to follow what she has suggested and end up with having fish in terms of the long fallow period by being patient of B) have a lot of dead fish.

There is something in your equation is that not working. Yes, it sucks to look at a tank that has nothing moving in it, but would you rather that no movement be because you are ensuring any parasite is dead or no movement because another fish is dead. This hobby does not have an easy button and patience is one of the things that you must find.

I would strongly suggest you let the tank sit with no fish for the 72 days since the last fish died. Should there be a crab or snail in there still it is fine, they can't host the parasites so let them do their thing. Make sure you are supplement feeding them and the bacteria that may still be present.

During that fallow period I would take the time to read as much as you can on this site. It is filled to the gills with people that know what they are talking about and I promise you that you will walk away with a ton of useful information (I know I have!). You have 61 days from the sounds of it to read, read, read. Well, you could get a fish 4 weeks prior and start the QT process! Which, that too I would take the time to read all the different approaches to QTing so that you are taking a healthy fish from QT and putting it in your display. Yes, it sucks but these are the things that cause new people to the hobby to fail.

Taking risks (not QTing, putting too many beings in at one time, the list goes on and on) will often result in undesirable outcomes in some form. If you want a fish right now, put it in the QT for the next 61ish days and you will know for a fact you have a healthy specimen for your display!

[CStrickland]

It's awfully hard to say what killed a fish. Sometimes there are telltale signs, sometimes not. Since diseases are so common (the supply chain from the ocean to your tank exposes them to many vectors) most will assume that if a fish died in the first month or so it had a cootie. Especially when it follows a pattern of outbreak following new addition. It's unlikely a fish cootie would kill your snails and crab, but an ammonia spike from the carcasses would.

For the canister, they are more common in FOWLR (fish only live rock) than reef (have coral) tanks. They are difficult to maintain properly, and if they get dirty they raise nitrates, which coral don't like. If you are planning for coral eventually, I would say sell the canister and buy a rodi filter and a good skimmer. It's muuuuch better to set up the filtration now than to try to change over later, for several reasons.

I hear you on the sticky. It's huge. I would focus on the basic posts about how to set up a tank, and think of this as sort of a fresh start. Like an opportunity to do it right. This is especially true in choosing fish, a realistic number of small fish will make the tank far easier to keep healthy. IMO in a 30 your looking at 4 small fish max, and you need to choose ones that will thrive in a little tank. We can help with that too.

Good Luck!

[DavidToronto]

Ok, thanks for the replies everyone, will do as instructed

[nicholasb]

Why is your P.H so low. It should be 7.8-8.5. &.% might not kill the fish but isn't helpful.

[OrQidz]

Since you are using tap, are you using a water conditioner that works for chloramine and not just chlorine? A lot of cities are using chloramine. If you aren't using a conditioner that deals with that, you end up with ammonia in your treated water. Just a thought....this hobby has a steep learning curve sometimes, just keep reading and you will get there!

[Sk8r]

Mmm, it does occur to me to ask---you talked about keeping some of the old medium to use with the new, and 'getting the filter from a friend." Was the friend's tank possibly freshwater? If so, it could have spiked ammonia from a dieoff when freshwater filter bacteria got dosed with salt water.

[DavidToronto]

Hi guys,

nicolasb : I am not sure, it fluctuates usually in my tank between 7.5-8 but it might also be that I am not judging the color on the testing strips accurately enough, after your suggestion I added some PH building powder.

OrQuids: Not sure (will check when I get back to town, but I've been using the same one since I started and never had such drastic catastrophe)

Sk8r: No his was saltwater as well, with reefs.

Thanks for the comments and suggestions,

D