Mysterious disease

[michika]

We've never treated copper in our tank.

Most recent fish added were a foxface, and a male mandarin. The male mandarin passed away yesterday, Thursday. The Signapor Angel died on Monday, and today, Friday my Lemonpeel was gone.

All readings are normal
SG at 1.024
pH 8.2
Alk 9dkh
Ca 400
Nitrate 10ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Ammonia 0ppm
phosphates were 0.25
All water changes etc is done with RO/DI

All our corals are starting to flourish again, all the polyps are out and extended. Figures, I have a bad rash of coral die off in which I lost 90% of my corals, and now my fish are dropping off.

I wonder if a lack of cleaner shrimp could be contributing? We've always had cleaner shrimp until about 2 months ago.

[KrazyKuch]

Kinda like an update but, we have lost 2 more fish....We lost our big Tomato clown and we just lost our other mandrin Goby.....Both of which have died after adding the cleaning shrimp...

Could our Fox Face be killing our fish??

[Ruth]

Holy Cow that is sad! I don't know about your foxface as I have never owned one but have never really heard about them being aggresive like that. I would be looking more towards water - or something that got into it. I know about a year ago I lost a couple of fish and just couldn't figure it out until I caught my son with the Raid container getting ready to spray the room. Turns out he had sprayed a couple of days before my fish died as well. I would look towards pesticides, insecticides or cleaning products somehow getting in your tank - not directly added in but staying in the air long enough to settle on the water. I know that I have heard of really bad things happening when people have used Windex or Fantastic in the same room as their tank.
I'm just throwing a couple of things out there for you to consider and don't know if it is at all related.
I hope you don't loose any more fish or anything else for that matter.

[KrazyKuch]

Very sad, never thought about cleaning supplies doing such a thing but it is something to look into, but I don't think we have used any such chemicals around the time that death started to occure!! I'm not sure if its the water quality cause my corals and clams are open more then I have ever seen them!!!

[Murminator]

Hmmmm maybe off topic but being a snowmobile/atv enthusiast things run the best right before it blows up . I think it's the water, does someone live close to you that can pop over with their test kits to confirm?

*edit* Just a quick count you lost 9 fish? or maybe a couple are counted twice. How may fish do you have in a 77G? I realize you have 150G of water with the sump maybe it is a little too close for comfort tempers flare. If you lock 10 poodles in a closet chances of all 10 living pretty slim tempers flare survival of the fittest

[TheReefGeek]

It is still possible, but if it were fish killing each other you would see damage on the dead fish, and probably the surviving onces, any marks, torn fins, etc?

[Go Lions!]

My condolences man that really sucks. What are you feeding them? anything that might not be so fresh anymore? Do Foxfaces exude poison into the water as a self defence measure? possibly a power failure in the night that you didn't know about?

[Bill]

Hey,

May or may not be a fish disease, could be water or air contaminants that somehow entered the tank. I would do a series of water changes over a few days and clean / inspect all filters, pumps, and sumps. I would also run extra carbon and ozone if you have it. If you have UV, I would get that going also.

[michika]

Murray,

We've only lost 5 fish total. I doubt its water quality, as our corals are thriving, clams are fully open. The gsp we got at the meet is thriving for the first time in two years (I'm so excited over this!).

I do have to say that I suspect it may be death by rabbitfish. They are poisonous and our rabbitfish is a bit, um twitchy, in that he is constantly flaring the moment anything moves in his line of sight.

We had, originally 13; LemonPeel Angel, Singapore Angel, two Tomato clowns, Ocellaris clown, regal tang, 4 chromis, fox face, two mandarins. All the fish that have died, LemonPeel, Singapore, large tomato, and both mandarins all frequented the rabbitfish's favorite areas to hide. The large Tomato was allow quite agressive when anyone approached the anemone.

Assuming it is a water quality issue, would I not see signs of something? None of the fish are breathing hard, nothing. They've all died sometime throughout the night, never lights on times. What illnesses attack at night? What type of symptoms should I be seeing?

Does anyone know what symptoms rabbitfish poision bring on? Or how long it takes to become fatal?

[Beverly]

If the deaths happened after lights out, I suspect a nocturnal predator. But then you'd see wounds on the fish from the predation, or possibly some sort of slime covering part or all of the fish if water flow is not really high.