My wife is about to shut me down!

Hurray!

;D

 

I treated popeye by soaking the food in a couple of drops of melafix, worked within 4 days. If the melafix killed your other fish and crab, you are probably dosing it wrong.

I think you are still over feeding if you only have the chromis and clarki in the tank.

Your ph also swings quite a bit, that could definitely be a problem.

Before you continue buying livestock, you need to slow down. I would buy a Ca and Mg test kit. It is important to know dkh, ca and mg as they should be in a ration to each other. Your alk is a little low, but it's not terrible. Get what you have in there healthy and thriving, then considering adding more livestock. If you have moved through 3 different fish stores, the problem is most likely something you are doing or not doing. It could be the way you acclimate the fish or your water chemistry. The fact that you never detected ammonia has me a little worried, particularly if you added all of those chromis first. However, you could have cycled without detecting ammonia.

What is your rock made out of? You mentioned it was fake?

I would explore these forums and learn as much as you can. Is your skimmer pulling out gunk?

 

So how did your "cycling" period go? I.e. the first 4-6 weeks when your tank was up and running with NO livestock? This is a very important period because the beneficial bacteria is being born during this time and is growing strong to be able to fight off toxins. If you went ahead and bought fish at the beginning then your tank didn't have time to mature. DON'T buy anymore fish.

I agree that it is strange that you had no trace off ammonia or nitRITE. Ususally during a cycle you test for these things daily. During a cycle, the ammonia will spike then fall, then nitrite, then nitrate.

Also, your pictures look as though the sand bed is a little deep. Also, "substrate" means the sand. If indeed you bought the "cheaper" sand that is not alive, and did not buy LIVE rock to help you cycle, then you are IN NEED of a good cycle. I would think that after all this time that your tank would have cycled through the livestock in it, but with all the water changes and changing loads, I think it needs to be RE-cycled, or cycle again for the first time.

BTW, I would strongly suggest NOT using strip tests, even though they are cheaper and easier to use. And make sure the test kit you buy is not expired. It's gonna be a pain drip testing all those things, but feel lucky that you don't have THREE tanks, like me, lol.

I would do what the other person suggested and put the melafix drops onto your food. Flakes are great for sucking up liquids. Remember that a fish's stomach is only as big as it's eyeball, so don't overfeed even though they stare at you and act like they are starving.

It is a safe bet to quarentine your new animals in a small tank before putting them in the display tank. I would do this for about a week. But this doesn't apply to you right now because you aren't gonna buy any fish for awhile, riiiggghhttt? jk, but seriously, don't

As for the nitrate issue. It's a good sign that the levels are staying down when you do water changes. During a cycle, you are NOT supposed to do water changes, you just basically leave your tank alone to do it's thing for awile. Low nitrates NOW means that there is no dead fish that you couldn't find laying under a rock. And even if there was, the crabs prolly ate it all by now. I am thinking that maybe your nitrates could have caused some problem for the fish as well. Even though 60 isn't THAT high, when a new fish comes from pristine water to even the slightest polluted water then I am sure it is hard on them. But the parasites you talked about need to be addressed. If you can remember some-what what they looked like falling off of your fish, it would help to study and try to identifiy the different parasites.

Your pH worries me. I am sure tons of people use buffers for pH. Ihave some sitting and expiring slowly in my cabinet "just in case". But I still haven't had to use it. I think it is due to the fact that I bought live argonite sand when I switched from shell and mud subsrtate to sand. I guess the coral in the sand bed acts as a buffer and keeps my pH levels high.

No, the back of the glass prolly doesn't matter much.

I am going to start a thread on the effects of not cycling a tank. I don't kmow if you did or did not cycle so I appologize if you did. I am really interested in the effects of this.

Good luck and please keep us posted!!!!!

 

I agree with others on the LFS and the need to find a new one. And the acclimation part is important too. Make sure you do the drip method, not just floating the bag.

 

Sounds like flukes to me, and once they are there getting rid of them is tricky. They get under the scales, in the gills, and we've even seen in necropsy where a fluke had gotten into the eye of a fish (looks exactly like popeye) and bored through to the brain and was consuming the brain when the fish swam in circles for a minute and started to go into shock (before we had to euthanize it).

It isn't pretty, what flukes do, and treating it is hard. In a reef tank you can try Rally by Ruby Reef which is reef safe (sort of) but will turn your water so it's looks radioactive.

Gin

 

Yeah, try a new LFS!
Bad LFSs exists!

 

Alot of good info here for you... NEW TEST KITS!!! Did you ever officially say how you are acclimating? What do the fish look like in the store before you buy them? Do you ask them how long they have been there? Ask if the system at the LFS is a central system or individual setup.

What flow rate do you have the UV set at? If the water goes through it too fast the UV will NOT kill any parasites. Problem with UVs is this, to kill algae, bacteria or parasites you need a different flow rate for each, they are not really effective at killing all three its one or the others. Parasites could be an issue, before the fish die what do they look like? Are they flashing(scraping on the substrate or decor)? Are they eating? To me it sounds kind of like a hurried acclimation is doing them in. BUT I suppose parasites could be at play if you are seeing some tell tale signs on the fish.

As far as the clark and popeye, I would skip the Melafix and treat with Sulfathiazole or other bacterial/fungal treatment... Melafix is decent but I have seen much better results with say sulfa.

Have you ever just brought in some water for the LFS to test?
If you are spending $$ there and having issues I can't imagine them not testing the water for you and walking you through what to adjust, if they just tell you the levels, well post them here and we can all help.

What kind of water changes are you doing?

 

gosh it's been awhile since i was on. lot of great feedback on there and i am realizing just how little i know. over-freakin'-welming!

it'd be tough to answer all those questions but i'll just say. HOPE HAS ARRIVED!

i finally got a fish to last past 7 days!!!! (not counting Chromis)
Since i got the Nitrite below 20 after frequent water changes for 2 months.
A Clarkii made it 35 days... granted he had a bad popeye the whole time. i spent 2 weeks medicating and it killed everyone but the Clarkii. The eye would go down then come back then i'd start over again. Pain for a beginner.
The New and very helpful LFS offered to take the popeye clarkii off my hands in exchange for a similar one. plus i bought the mate it came with.
So now i've had 2 larger Clarkii's for 11 days (again... progress!)

I've been taking out 5 gallons every sunday and 5 gallons of the LFS's water in.
Protein skimmer is pulling gunk out
UV is finally in. the jet doesn't pump that fast (no clue what setting its on). it's one of the slower jets i think
added a little carbon above my filter pad for the first time.
PH is now up around 8.0
Salinity 1.023
Temp 78
nitrite 0
nitriate under 20
ammonia 0
Alk 140 ish

and yeah... i bought the test strips again (oops)
when those are gone i'll go back to drip
i drip acclimated these 2 clarkii's real well for an hour and they are quarantined anyway for a week at the LFS
i use a tiny spoon full of Aragamilk every morning as well

FINALLY HOPE!

ps... my cleaning crew is low.
3 different kinds of starfish have survived and are well
1 tiny snail
about 10 little crabs
thats it

thanx all

 

Glad to hear things are starting to work out. Good luck!

 

happy to see some good going your way..keep us up to date..maybe some pics of the new guys..