frustrated! fish dead
 

So it seems my tank is doomed to only have 2 fish. My diamond goby and my clown. Seems everytime I add a new fish they die.
I bought a small blue yellow tailed damsel last week and he was doing fine.
I saw him eat. Then 2 days ago he started hiding and this mornig he is dead.
I dont understand it.
That's what happend to my other fish I've added aswell. So strange. =(

Ill do some tests on my water and post them later but my goby and clownfish are happy. =/

The tank is 1 1/2 old now and the salinity is o.o25. I dont have any crabs, I feed the fish once a day at night. they get fed some marine flake. Sometimes I put some shrimp in the tank for them.
I have a skimmer and koralia 2 in the tank for flow. There's no algae in the tank either.

Any ideas ?
asherah

Did you QT the new additions?

.

no i just put them in .. i dont have another tank to quarintine them in . Do you think thats the problem ?

asherah

Sorry for the loss of the fish. I hope the salinity is a typo. When you post the water parameters, maybe let us know what else you have in the tank. Ie. how much live rock, sand depth, type of skimmer etc... This may help someone pinpoint a potential problem. Also maybe explain the "putting in" do you do any acclimation procedures?

Good luck

yikes I may have found the problem .... I just measured the salinity today and its 0.027!!
I dont get it.. it was normal when I changed the water and I just added fresh water 2 days ago so I dont know hy its so high.
Unless I didn't measure the salinity in the change water....:sad:

ok I better get hat down. I want to get one the digital metres.. =/

asherah

I'm still hoping that's a typo, salinity should be between 1.024 - 1.026 or some where around there. Right now you are way too low.

yes im sorry imeant 1.027
sorry about that

asherah

1.027 isn't going to kill fish..

ok. I dont know why he died then. =/
He wouldn't be shocked because its too high or something ?

asherah

What are your parameters at? Ammonia/nitrites/nitrates/temperature ??

Is the one pump enough flow for a 30 gallon with no crabs? I'm sure there would be some pockets you can't see full of detritus and algae

Perhaps your existing fish are used to a possible imbalance, and new fish are dying from the extreme change???

I quote Okguy!

"The tank is 1 1/2 old now"

If this is months not years. This could be the potential problem.
Kevin

Do you just put them in or do you acclimatize first?

ok. The tank is 30 gallons. Currently has 1 occelaris, 1 diamond goby.
about 20lbs of live rock. it has a shallow sand bed. Mostly because I didn't buy enough sand. It's about 1 inch thick.
No corals at he moment, there is also a remora skimmer.
Temp is 76F.
To acclimate the fish to the tank, I float the bag in the tank for about 20 mins to adjust the temperature then add water to the bag and float for about 15 for mins then add the fish to the tank.

AFter I added him he was stayed in plain view in one area of the tank and even ate some food later that night.

I saw him again swimming in the open the next day then I went away for 3 days and came back.
He was again swimming around fine.
Yesterday proceeded to hide then he died.

Ammonia - 0
nitrites - 0
nitrates -5
salinity - 1.027 - usually lower than that.
there isn't algae but there is detrius in the tank.

I want to add another koralia to the tank but ther is a good amount of flow.
I have fake corals in the tank at the moment since I dont' have any real ones. They are on the bottom of the tank and they move in the current.

The tank has been set up for about 1 1/2 years.

asherah

Your params dont seem too bad...

It might be that the water from your LFS is quite different from your own & you need to acclimatise more slowly.

For example, putting a small amount of tank water at a time into the bag & then floating for 10 mins before adding a bit more & repeating this step until the water in the bag has been 'equalised' to the water in your tank.

Have you checked the parameters of the water in the bag?

For various reasons, sometimes a LFS might keep a lower salinity in their fish tanks than we do in our reefs - say as low as 1.017.

In this case it can take some time to properly acclimatise the new fish.

.

ARE you dumping LFS water into your tank when you add new fish? Some stores add copper to their water.

i have also heard of stores getting fihs in water at salenity as low as 1.005

no I don't add the lfs water to my tank. I'm going to hagv to find out what the salinity is at the store.

asherah

Got some hermits and a shrimp the other day from BA's, salinity was 1.030 with refractometer.

whoa!
and I thought mine was high.

asherah

Fish unfortunately do... JUST die.

Here's my 2 cents!:mrgreen:
You should never add a fish to your display tank without first quarantining.
And you should definately get yourself a refractometer. Those swing arm thingys are not very reliable if at all!

All LFS's have a huge array of diseases and parasites and even if the fish is supposed to be disease resistant you risk introducing whatever to your tank.

Quarantining needs not be expensive, all you need is:

Properly sized bare-bottomed tank $10.00 - $20.00
Heater $15.00
Simple Sponge Filter $5.00 and pump $10.00
Cleaned PVC piping or plastic decorations so fish can hide Free at a plumber
A place to put this QT

Generally this is cheaper the the cost of the fish you'll be buying so it's not worth playing Russian Roulette with your fish :razz:

from my experience with my 36 bowfront which was very similar to this setup I would say watch your clown fish very closely.
Mine was a killer and it took some time to actually catch him in the act, but after I removed my clowns and put them into my aquapod, I had no problems with fish dying again.
Just my experience....

wow very interesting.
I wonder if it is him... bwould explain why the wrasse i had hid after 3 weeks...

asherah

What kind of clown is it?

Nevermind, I just saw in your sig.
I'd be very surprised that the clown was the problem...