50% of new fish die, need help

[BrandonS]

I posted this over on saltwaterfish.com, but all I really got was that my tank never cycled. I don't believe this to be the case because I am not seeing anything other than Nitrates show up on tests. I am using DI water from the fish store and mixing my own water with Oceanic Sea Salt.

Other info that was asked was how I was acclimating my fish. I've been acclimating them per the LFS's instructions. I was floating the bag for 15 minutes to stabalize temp and then after that adding 1/2 cup of my tank water to the bag every 10 minutes for an hour.

Here is the original post. Thanks in advance for any help.

Ok this story goes back to a bit over a week ago when I purchased two false percs. I put them in the tank and all was well the first night. The next day they were fine, but I left and came back in the evening to find the one sucked up against my overflow box. I took him off and he fell to the bottom and kept swimming around all topsie-turbie w/out using his tail fin and breathing really fast. He died shortly after. I checked the water and the LFS I purchased them at did as well. We both got the same readings:

PH 8.1
Amm: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 10
SG: 1.024

So I went two days ago and purchased 3 blue chromis damsels, because I heard they were pretty hardy. I put them in the tank and w/in a few minutes they were swimming around in their small school all over the tank. The next day I came home and one was on the bottom of the tank on his side breathing really heavy. I took him out and disposed of him. Then again today I saw the one was hanging out down in the rock work not moving. I later found him on his side breathing heavy as well. I took him out.

I took my readings today and they are the same as above.

Before all the fish I purchased a Cleaner Shrimp and I have 7 Mexican Turbos. They are all fine. The two living fish are fine and swimming around. I have around 55lbs of LR 40lbs of LS, a protein skimmer, and I'm putting 600gph through the tank. The tank water stays steady at 80.xx all the time. I can't for the life of me figure out what is wrong. There are feather dusters growing on the LR and I'm finding new ones every day so it seems they are multiplying.

All in all everything seems good with the tank except for the fish deing. I'm going to set up a quarantine tank for the next fish I buy, but with only the prior fish I didn't quarantine because I didn't have a tank that would have died.

Thanks for any help and sorry it was long.

Oh the Percs were bought at a seperate store from the Chromis. And the tank has been up for 3 weeks.

Update from what was posted over on Saltwaterfish.com:
I did a 10 gal water change (70g tank with 10g in the sump) yesterday and my nitrates went to 0 and my SG is now 1.025.

[Avi]

From the numbers you report, the water's quality isn't an apparent problem so, of course, you'd have to look elsewhere for the cause of the losses. Even having had 10ppm of nitrates isn't something that would with any likelihood cause the deaths.

I'm wondering if you had food placed in the tank that the fish you purchased, no matter which fish store you bought them from, so you could see if they were taking food before you made the purchases. There are methods of capturing marine fish in some parts of the world that involves the use of cyanide. If that was the case with regard to the fish in question, they may look just fine, but their liver will have been compromised and this is a problem that eventually, even rapidly, proves fatal to the fish. A fish's failure to take food in the fish store may well be a sign that this was at play. In any event, make sure any fish you buy does take food before you buy it.

[billsreef]

With the symptoms of rapid breathing and the speed at which they occured and the fish died, Amyloodinium (velvet) is high on the list of likely causes. It's one of the many troublesome parasites that make the use of a quarantine tank a very wise plan. I would strongly suggest setting up that QT and placing the two survivor's in it, and treating them with copper (cupramine from seachem is my preferred copper). Treat the fish for 4 weeks and leave the tank fishless for that time as well to allow the parasite to die out. Once the fish have run thier course of treatment, place them back in the tank and use the QT for any new fish before they get into your reef tank

[BrandonS]

thanks for the help. I don't have the finances right now to set up a quarantine so I"m going to just have to hope for the best with the fish in the display. They are swimming around actively and eating everything I put in the tank until its gone.

I will however not purchase anymore fish w/out a QT set up. I was going to go to PetSmart and pic up a 10gal I saw that came with lights. I have one of those bio-wheel filters from when I had my cichlid tank and I'll just clean that up and use new filter media.

When I do get new fish and put them in QT what should I treat them with since I will not know what is wrong with them. What do you guys use?

Thanks for any help. It's greatly appreciated.

[Avi]

Brandon....remember to cycle your QT before you put any fish in there or you'll just stress them and subject them to the ammonia spike that's likely to occur if you don't.

If a fish you buy is put into your QT tank, you shouldn't treat them with anything unless you first see symptoms of a disease. If it's parasites, like ick, brooklynella, etc. the treat them with a copper based medication, for example.

But if they look fine....a twenty-one day quarantine without medication will just about assure that your fish are healthy and ready to be put into your show tank.

One other thing...I found that putting a single fish into a QT will often stress a fish. I found that putting a sole fish into the QT effected them adversely and most often it caused them to stop taking food. Most often brinh alone would also cause a quarantined fish to hide and refuse to eat, even though it had been eating in the fish store. So, you might want to keep a pair of fish in there...something small like maybe a goby and another fish that is small. This will keep the fish from stressing out because there are no other signs of life in that habitat, even though it is temporary. This will also keep the tank cycled all the time so when you do need to put a fish into the QT it'll always be ready for it.

[demonsp]

Do you know your phospate level ?

[BrandonS]

AVI: thanks for that info, that's exactly what I was looking for.
DemonSP: I do not know my phosphate level. I have not tested for it either. Unless my food has a lot in it I would imagine it to be low since I'm using DI water. I do however have a very small diatom bloom in my tank. I didn't think anything of it because I was under the impression that it's normal in a new setup.

Here's a pic to show the extent.

[Shagsbeard]

Nice looking tank/stand. It looks pretty new though... almost sterile. Is that "live" rock or simply base rock? If it's base rock, you need to get some live rock in there and give the whole tank time to adapt... months of time. How long has the tank been up and running?

[demonsp]

Yea looks like it was just filled. I would add cleanup crew before any fish .

[BrandonS]

There is around 55lbs of LR in there. I also have 30lbs of dead rock as well on the bottom. You can see it. The white spots on the LR is actually bleaching coralline algae, which baffles me because I only have NO lights. The purple color is being bleached, but there is this greenish/gray coraline growing.

Thanks for the compliment on the tank/stand. The girlfriend, now wife, and I built the stand in 2004. The tank probably looks sterile because I cleaned it on Sunday and this picture was taken earlier today.

DemonSP: For cleanup I have 1 cleanershrimp and 7 mexican turbos. The snails seem to clean up most of the diatoms overnight, but during the day they don't seem to move. I think they are all noctornal.

[demonsp]

Old pic i guess. I would get more snails and crabs tho. Funny how they die . Are they all being bought from same place ? Also you want a minimum of 75 lbs of rock , the more live rock the better.Your fish would love a place to hide whene scared or sleeping. Rock placement important. Give crevisives , caves , and some shelfs for happy fish.Remeber they have tiny hearts and over stressing them is not good.Turn lights out whene accumulating and keep noise levels low. And remember to add the most aggrasive fish last. GL

[picklepot]

Three weeks is awfully fast to be adding that much livestock to a new tank...

[demonsp]

OK 3 weeks , i missed that. Yea to early. But good time to start adding cleanup crew. Not all at once either.

[BrandonS]

Originally posted by demonsp
Old pic i guess. I would get more snails and crabs tho. Funny how they die . Are they all being bought from same place ?

I think my camera resolution just doesn't pic them up. They were both bought at different stores. I would imagine they'd have the same supplier though; i'm assuming based on it's the same area.

Originally posted by picklepot
Three weeks is awfully fast to be adding that much livestock to a new tank...

That might be the case too. I was told that I could add 2-3 smaller fish the first day, but chose just two clowns. Then a week and a half later I tried the chromis. I haven't seen any spikes in the water and have tested pretty much daily. All that's been going on is nitrates slowly rising which is to be expected.

[barjam]

That is 55lbs of live rock? If so then I have somewhere around 80 or so that is good to know. I never really weighed my rock so I was curious.

Thanks

[BrandonS]

that's actually about 70-80lbs of rock.... only 50-55 of which is LR There is one in the middle that is like 25lbs on it's own. It has the most life in it. Like 5 featherdusters, I've seen bristle worms come out of it, etc.

[MimicTang]

Also try dropping salintiy to 1.010 to 1.012 too ich hates that.

Also keep your QT bare bottom helps with cleaning up all the egg cysts parasites leave behind.

[BrandonS]

I wouldn't want to keep my salinity low the entire time though correct

[billsreef]

Dropping the salinity in the reef is a bad idea, it will kill off a lot of the life on the live rock. However, in a QT dropping the salinty to 1.009 to 1.010 is very effective on ick. Anything from 1.011 and up is high enough for ich to survive. It's a method that requires a very accurate lab grade hydrometer or a refractometer to be effective. Lower than 1.009 is bad for the fish, and anything over 1.010 isn't effective...quite a narrow range.

BTW phosphate is only a concern for excessive algae growth. If there was enough to be a problem for fish, that tank would be looking like algae soup already

[BrandonS]

thanks for all the help everyone