Please Help

Ok here we go. I have now gone thrugh 3 fish from petco. Three strike and I want to give up. First fish (royal blue gramma) died 2 days after I brought him home. Ok, maybe a sick fish so I called and the manager went and replaced it, not something petco usualy does but I guess this guy cared. So I picked out a nice tank bread clown. The clown did fine until I uogaded to a larger tank and something happend that I lost the fish and my corals. He it happens to new guys right? So I let the tanks sit and do its thing for a month my dad sent me some new corals. They were doing ok so I went to petco and bought another royal blue gramma. He was doing fine ate good and ince he settled in he actually spent alot of time out of hiding. Now a month later and my fish died again... The onlything I noticed is one he started rubbing on rocks and tank walls. I thought maybe he was eating pods?. Then 3 days ago he went into hiding, but I thought it had something to do with my day light ballast going bad. I was still running enough light to keep my corals alive. Today my ballast came and I fixed my light, did my water test, and did my monthly water change. Now tonight my fish is dieing. My corals are alldoing fine. So I dont know what is going on, why cant I keep fish?

 

Rubbing on the walls is a sign of a parasite. Petco tends to be utterly infested with everything imaginable near me; I doubt it's different anywhere else.

 

+1 same here. The fish at the local petco here always appear sickly to me

 

Some times it is just the fish or the way they are being cared for at the store. I would suggest another store or biting the bullet and ordering online from a company with a 14 day guarantee. Just try and provide the best quality water and make sure you have plenty of aeration. Point circulation pumps at the surface to get good gas exchange. Feed high quality food. Test for a cycle when you add fish often so you can treat it quick.

Most of all hang in there until you find a store that does well for you. I would suggest finding out what day Petco gets its fish and buy the fish before they put it in the tank.

 

Have you tested for ammonia?What are your params?The scatching on rock and walls sounds like the onset of ich or a parasite of sometype.Params would help some on here to help you.

 

Ya beat me to it.

 

Kinda vague story swampman but how old is this tank? Why are you buying fish ONLY from PetCo? How long after this upgrade did you wait to add anything? Did you cycle first? How long was the cycle?
Also, parameters....are you taking parameters regularly? What kinda water you using? What is the usual temp? How big is the tank compared to LR or LS?

I wouldn't buy anymore anything until I was sure the tank params were stable. I'd also switch to a decent LFS that has some employees that will help & have a return guarantee.

 

I was just going to suggest the same thing. How long did you wait to cycle your tank?? It might of not been long enough. :-( IMO

 

thanks for all the help here are my param....

spec grav 1.026
Temp 78
ph 8.4
alkal 161.1
ammon 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 0
phosphate 0.25
calcium 440
magnesium 1060

I run around 40 gal of water. 20lbs live sand and roughly 25 lbs of live rock. I do have coral gsp,xenia, kenya tree, and some mushrooms. My params are pretty stable and the cycle was about 4 weeks. Short do to switching tanks.

 

Sounds like you need to find a different source for your fish.But i would go fishless for 6 weeks to let parasites die off before adding more.