Die Off

Well, I hate to say it, but I am having a set back with my 120. For some reason, I am having a fish die off. It started late last week with the loss of my Kole Tang....then my Royal Gramma yesterday...and now my lawn mower blenny this AM. The fish went from healty looking to horrible looking in a matter of days - clamped fins, torn fins, and ich spots all over.

I think the Kole tang brough ich in with him...and it spread to the other fish.

I have a Hippo Tang in there that is not looking so hot either.

I am feeding garlic, trying to nurse him along, but not too optomistic.

What is strange is my water is looking great - no parameter changes, all within normal limits. Not sure what kicked this off....but once it started it went down hill fast. Major bummer.

The only thing I can think of is I am not using a ground probe on this tank..or any of my tanks for that matter. I realize in doing some research that that is definitely a mistake. I have ordered one for each of my tanks, and I will get them hooked up ASAP. Not sure if this is the cause of the stress on my fish or not, but figure it was a smart place to start.

Question I have now, is what do I need to do before I restock? If the hippo holds on, I will only have it, and 3 small green chromis in the tank - along with the live rock, corals, etc. So lots of life in there...just few fish at that point.

Should I wait 4-6 weeks for the ich to die down?

I was thinking of putting in the marine pro-biotics that Dr's foster and smith sell to help kill off the ich population. Any thoughts on that?

Should I hook up a UV sterilizer? Will that help the fish? Will it hurt the reef?

Anyone else that has been through this before have any advice for starting over?

I hate that this has happened, and I really want to learn from whatever mistake I made...just need to figure out where I went wrong and go from there. I have been lucky in the past - my 65 reef is 4 years old, and I have only lost one fish in there in 4 years. So 3 in a week is a pretty big shock for me!

 

Mass die off

Sorry to hear about this.

What's your test parameters?

Is there sunlight hitting the tank?

Do you have a clean tank? "like a HT/QT"

Any and all info would help..Anything you can think of to list?

Volt meter this tank?

Sorry for your loss,
Mike

 

Sorry to hear about this.

What's your test parameters?

APC -
PH is 8.4
Ammonia is 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate about 10
Temp is 81 +/- a degree depending on time of day
Salt is 35 ppt.

Is there sunlight hitting the tank?

APC - None at all - I have a fish room in the basement - basically my wife let me have the one room in the basement with no windows for my fish hobby - so it is perfect for a fish tank. - Cool, no sunlight, etc.

Do you have a clean tank? "like a HT/QT"

APC - No, I wish that I did. I mainly keep corals...fish have always been kind of an after thought in the tank

Any and all info would help..Anything you can think of to list?

APC - I wish I could think of something...the only new addition was the Kole tang about 3 weeks ago - the other fish had been in for about 3 months and doing fine. The Kole tang was always a nervous fish though...swiming up and down the glass...like a tiger pacing a cage. I felt bad for it honestly...not well adjusted to captivity.

Volt meter this tank?

APC - I don't have one unfortunately...so just going to put in the ground to be safe.

Sorry for your loss,

 

test

Im thinking of anything it can be.

Your not using test strips are you?

 

Regarding the ich, it probably came with your new tang. I ran into this about 3mon ago. In a last ditch attempt, I decided to remove the fish since they had serious ich on them, but it was too late and they ended up dying in QT. I bought new fish and have them in QT right now. I'll be finally putting some of the fish into the DT this week after about 11wks of it being fallow to kill off the ich. I also bought a UV and feed my fish garlic soaked foods to help things out. I used to never QT, but after this headache, it's part of my routine now. Not sure about that pro-botics, but the most effective way of removing it from the fish is hyposalinity or copper treatment. Best way to rid of it in your DT is to let it go fallow for 4-6wks. That parasite sucks.

 

I am using liquid test kits....not strips.

Yeah, it is very frustrating to say the least.

What also stinks is I am not wanting a lot of fish..I really just wanted these few in there, for movement in the tank...everything else is just corals and inverts.

I travel for work a lot - 2-3 days 48 weeks a year...so I need to keep everything simple so my wife can take care of things while I am gone. I am thinking of restocking with a bunch of different colored damsels...they are hardy, lots of movement, and colorful. Might be just what I need.

I am definitely going to give it 6 weeks before I add anything though

 

I would doublecheck your basic parameters with another set of test kits or at a LFS or something. Are they old by chance?

 

Ick isn't "brought in" by fish, it is always present in fish tanks. The fish immune system will prevent the outbreak from happening to it. The fish could have harbored a fungal infection of sorts though. It's hard to give suggestions on what to do without knowing what is causing the problem. Do you see anything else on the fish that are still alive?

 

Some cleaner shrimp and neon goby might help, mine definitely help out my watchman gobies, koles tang and flamefin tang cleaning them almost daily. I guess they are cleaning off a lot of dead skin/scales also.

 

Test kits are less then 3 months old.

I have noticed that the eyes on my hippo tang are getting cloudy...which is probably not a good sign. Other then that, all looks great. Water is clear, etc.