Help, fish death!

[daniella3d]

I doubt it's marine velvet. did you put the water from the bag when you transfered the snails?

Your salinity is very high and it could be higher if you are mesuring it with a hydrometer.

Are you using a good calibrated refractometer to mesure your salinity? If not, your salinity could be much higher than you think it is.

Also what is your temperature? At high salinity the dissolved oxygen is lower and if your temperature is high and your bioload is high, some fish could die from lack of oxygen. How many fish do you have in what volume of water? temperature?

Originally Posted by syncro

I could some some diagnostic help.

The situation:
- Found 1 dead benggai cardinal fish stuck to the MP10 today
- Other cardinals and clownfish are NOT eating
- Introduced 9 cerith snails + 1 hermit last weekend (no quarantine)
- Prior to that, last livestock change was 4 months ago (from quarantine)
- No white spots on surviving fish
- Water params reasonable and stable
- Last weekend, installed an ATS (really just put a white plastic mesh in the sump horizontally and a light bulb)
- Water params stable, using controller for ATO and temp
- ph: 7.7 - 8.1
- Ammonia/nitrite/nitrate: 0/0/0
- salinity: 38ppt (I have been lowering at rate of 1ppt/week)

Have I introduced marine ich or velvet? Other possibilities?

Thanks!