Aquarium crisis

hi guys

i am new to this board and to the marine aquarium hobby in general.. I have had my new 4.5ft aquarium for a month and a half now .. it has well cycled ... live rock getting all nice colours and stuff... was quite happy with it all.. in the past two weeks I have added a damsel to test aquarium and all ok..the fish was so happy in the new environment and full of energy in a weeks time I added a coral beauty and a orange dotted goby together with a camel shrimp and coral banded shrimp..and all was soo fine for a week or so..all of a sudden the goby who was always so active and happy..vanished and till today I never saw him again...on the morrow I noticed that the damsel was not eating heavily breathing and darting in aquarium as if afraid which she never was as a matter of fact i found her dead on the next morning..now its time for the beauty again on the morning i find her all exhausted and not hiding in her usual spot as if troubled or scared, her fins are a bit nipped as well but in the aquarium its only her and the two shrimps which according to various research all say that they are peacful...is this right?

tested all water levels and all is ok i.e. Nitrite, Aommonia, Nitrate, PH, Calcium, salinity...and a couple of other checks which my fish store supplier did for me..

water seems ok but fish are dying...a friend of mine told me that i could have a hidden crab..but if so he s invisilbe as my aquarium is not heavily stocked only some live rock..

am so confused...any suggestions please..

tomorrow I am going to do a 50% water change...in case of any contamination..but I am not so sure about it all...

rob

 

Welcome to 3reef Rob.

Is the LFS doing all your test or just few and which ones?

It is entirely possible that you do have some hitch-hiker inverts, could be a mantis shrimp as well.

Gobies can hide and burrow for quite awhile so that does not concern me, as much.
I can not account for the fins of the coral beauty, a crab would eat the whole fish if it could get a hold of a fin, could it be a pathogen such as fin rot?

Coral banded shrimp can be opportunistic eaters, a sick fish might be fair game.

Other things to consider are: How did you acclimate the fish? Did you get all the tank inhabitants from the same source?

If it were indeed a contamination the shrimp would be the first to fall victim IMO.

Your tank is still very young, the biological filter is developing. I would be hard pressed to say a 6 week old tank is fully cycled. All new tanks are prone to swings in parameters we check and those we do not check or can not check.

I would think that a disease is probably the initial insult but new tank syndrome the factor put your fish over the edge.

 

hi

first of all thanks for your prompt reply.

as for the test I havent bought all the test kit yet.. so I am chectking NO3 at the moment but all the tests are carried at the LFS..he did the tests twice for me all all resulted ok...

though I am not sure how we can determine if there is a virus or contamination of any sort..that is why i opted for half water change.

after the last night the beauty was very weak I found her on her side lying on the bed of the aquarium but during the day she was much better.. and regarding the fins its only the beauty that has such markings the damsel was fully intact but dead. hope the coral banded is not creating a havock during the night as during the day he's all quiet and not moving ..

re goby not its 3 days missing in action...miss the little fella he was so lively...

I have set some traps in case there is a crab or something...but honestly ... i am so confused ..and lack of experience makes all this worst..

rob

 

forgot to answer you re fish..

Yes all the fish were bought from same supplier and the way I introduced them was directly to my aquarium obviously after slowly getting them accustomed to my water...

rob

 

Best thing to do is just go slowly and make one change at a time.

Running some quality carbon will go a long way in removing any contaminants if that is indeed an issue.

Coral beauties in my experience can have difficulty with acclimation ( the first week ).

What type of flow (power heads) are you using?
Difficulty with breathing or rapid breathing can be disease or decreased O2 levels or both.
Did you notice any other signs or symptoms?

At this point waiting a week or two before the introduction of any new fish seems like a good idea.

There are a whole host of disease and parasites that afflict fish but without an image or more signs and symptoms noted, its hard to say for sure even with the common ones such as marine ich.

Hopefully someone else will chime in and offer more assist.

 

Aww. Then I would try to get the next fish at a different source.

 

Hi Robspi,

Welcome and congrats on the new set-up. I would concur with Corailline.

What type of filtration do you have? (Canister, Hang-On O/F with Sump, Built in O/F and Sump?)

I would pick up a test kit, ie (API~Saltwater Master Kit), get familiar with testing.

Check all levels, introduce carbon, do a 20% water change, (50% will definitely kick the tank into another cycle). Possibly add Live nitrifying bacteria such as Fritz Zyme #9 to help seed system and give a little boost.

After 3-4 days check levels again to see if any spikes or if any (NH3) Ammonia or NO2 Nitrite is present. If all is 0, proceed to add a few more damsels to help build the bio-load. Give them at least 1 week to ensure no more problems, at that point you can resume adding fish to your system, erring on the side of caution and not adding too many, too soon.

Good luck

 

thanks to all for your input..

as for type of filtration I am using a sump..
regarding the fish besides heavy breathing and and minimal white spot there are no other visible effects .. except for the beauty that has some part of her fin like torn off..

so i will proceed with a partial water change and adding some bactozye from tetra..
this night i set a crab trab but nothing caught..

one thing that crossed my mind last night was that the shrimps are moving around the aquarium at night..could they be scaring the fish?

I will do the partial change today using fresh sea water as this has some good natural bacteria and adding some water from my ro to redce salinity as maltese sea is quite saline...

fingers crossed that all recovers..as I am developing a kind of phobia towards this new hobby...

once more thanks to all for your suggestions.

robert

 

If you are collecting your own sea water that could definitely be a problem. You never know what kind of parasites,or pathogens you could be adding to your tank. Most LFS that use collected seawater sterilize/filter it before its made available to customers.

 

Thanks for the suggestion re sea water...but I am not sure if I am avoiding the issue here..since I don't collect sea water from the shore I go directly from the local RO implant they get water from boreholes..dug several meters below sea level pumped up in the station..is this better? this type of water usually is very good in all level just slightly low on PH but I'll make up on that adding some calcium..

Actually I have dont a 30% water change yesterday and things are stable so far..

Also I added a moonlight to the aquarium for the night and this seems to help the fish relax more than pitch darkness..or at least that's my impression..

The Goby was found in the Sump little rascal..now I added a protection to that too..

But still I am not convinced re the whitespot thing.. the fish seems to be ok..but at times I see spots and she starts going against the rock..now stable too... the aquarium guy gave me a Tetra treatment (like a multi purpose thing I forgot the name)..is this enough? should I do something more?

thanks to all for your expert advice...I am rookie here..I can help you with dogs if you need anything