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#1
03-17-2009, 11:31 PM
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Possibly bad luck? I have an established tank and still manage to have issues with fish. I belive it's mostly due to the fish being either cyanide caught or stressed from all the transfers they go through. Most of the deaths i've had come within the first month of being added. If they last more than a month, they live a nice life in my tank.
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#2
03-17-2009, 11:53 PM
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premature fish death
did you test for ammonia?
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#3
03-18-2009, 03:19 AM
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Phew that was a lot of information to go through but I believe I have the answers to all.
To start I would like to clarify a few things. Whenever I have bought fish I have always asked for the advice of the LFS and let them know the history of the tank, I always bring in a water sample and I let them know whats in the tank. I would also like to clarify that it wasn't a manderine goby I had in there, (thats on my future wish list) its was a dragon goby...the guy who eats the sand and spits it out through his lungs...or did before he died...He is still in the tank somewhere...do I need to rip it apart to find him or will my cleaner shrimp make short work or him if they haven't already? The tank is 33 gal, no sump with a protien skimmer, in tank fluval, T5 HO lights and a power head. I started the tank on Dec 29th and waiting 9 weeks before I and my LFS (Big Al's) was satisfied that it was cycled. Anytime a fish was added I dripped them for about an hour...maybe a bit longer using some rubber tubing and a chip clip. I am using Red Sea marine lab test kit and the quick dip 6 in 1 test strips. My test results as of tonight are Alk 120-180, pH 7.0-7.4 (hard to tell), Salinity :1.022 Nitrites :0 Nitrates :0 and the one that of course caused the problem I am sure Ammonia : 1.0... After seeing the ammonia test I did a 10-15% water change...hopefully not too much. I have been doing weekly water changes along with the freshwater tank every weekend... I hope I answered everything...maybe the one thing I am missing is how often I am testing and what I am testing for...maybe I would have seen this coming. The odd thing is that all my inverts, corals and my anemone are doing great...everyone just keeps telling me I got bad fish but those bad fish are costing me good money...I hope I can get this worked it but its just heartbreaking and I just feel so defeated after soo many losses. I just need hope that I am not a complete failure at this to keep going! Thanks to all who replied...
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#4
03-18-2009, 03:56 AM
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dont give up hope
The only thing I see that looks odd is your Ph (low) Possibly ph shock. and I get roused everytime I take mine in and its at 8.3 how is the KH? As for the ammonia I assume its more your reading the test strip as nitrates are zero. I myself havent even dared keeping an anenome yet as i hear they are tough to keep. So you are doing something right.
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#5
03-18-2009, 04:03 AM
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Interesting...The pH has always been low which was why it was suggested I use the buff to help increase it...not sure how else to do it...
The ammonia, nitrite and nitrate reading were all from the test kit...only the alk and pH are from the test strips... Thanks for the encouraging words...I just wish my clowns were still around to enjoy the annenome.
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#6
03-18-2009, 04:01 AM
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All very good advice.
Forget about what your LFS is saying. He makes money selling you fish and reselling them when they die. In a small tank you should be only adding one fish at a time once a month. The tank adjusts slowly. If an animal dies you must remove it or is will cause your tank to have an ammonia and than nitrite spike and kill everything. Do not add any fish to your tank until everything stabilizes and do not add any further chemicals. Patience is the key in this hobby, eh
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#7
03-18-2009, 04:03 AM
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Quote:
The point in adding fish slowly to a tank is to build up the bacteria you need...which needs ammonia to form..but a tank can only process so much at one time...the bacteria doesn't keep growing and growing...it grows as more ammonia is added...to much the system cannot cope....so you have to think of it like this...every time you add a fish you are essentially doing a little cycle. also...since you are new...try testing your replacement water for everything you test your tank for...see how everything compares...
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I once had a Big tank...I now have two Huskies and a coyote Last edited by Pan; 03-18-2009 at 04:07 AM.
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#8
03-18-2009, 04:23 AM
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Quote:
I will start cleaning the fluval weekly with the water changes...I do have a CUC in there consisting over small burrowing snails, big (I think Turbo) snails and some little hermit crabs...they are all doing fine. Quote:
Quote:
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#9
03-18-2009, 04:30 AM
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Quote:
The test kits you have are not very high quality, and their accuracy is hot or miss at best. I believe your pH is low (which is often the case in new tanks) I don't believe your pH is that low provided you have aragonite sand in the tank, and use marine salt in your water!  I also don't believe you have an ammonia reading without seeing nitrite. If you have ammonia in a cycled tank you should have nitrite as well. You could have nitrite without ammonia though, but it would be a sign that ammonia was recently present. I believe that either you DO have ammonia, but also have nitrite, or you don't have ammonia and may or may not have nitrite. Doing a water change is a good idea. 10-15% is definately not too much, you can do 90% water changes provided you match specific gravity, temperature, and pH very closely. For smaller water changes as long as you're close on the temp and salinity you should be good to go. Make sure you allow fresh saltwater to mix with a powerhead and heater for 24 hours before using it for a water change. Your specific gravity is far too low for a reef tank, it should be 1.026. Slowly raise it up to that level over a week or ten days. Take your hydrometer (assuming you're using a swing arm hydrometer) to your LFS and get them to check it's accuracy at 1.026 against their refractometer so that you know how much your hydrometer it out by. Almost all hydrometers are out, by as much as 0.008 I have seen!  Your (very) low salinity is likely an attributing factor to your low pH.You need to get a more accurate reading for your alkalinity. 120-160 ppm is a huge gap. 120 is too low, and 160 is barely high enough. Take a quick skim through the chemistry guide and the getting started guide in my signature. You might find some key information in there you are missing. Last edited by Myka; 03-18-2009 at 04:33 AM.
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#10
03-18-2009, 10:57 AM
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That is only part of the problem. The other part is that they are salesmen whose product carries no guarantee and if you need to replace your livestock on a regular basis all the better. A part of it may be bad fish as has been suggested. But if that is what you suspect then a trip to a different store may be in order. If those parameters were what they considered good I would certainly question their knowledge. I would also check the temperature you are keeping your livestock at. Many people keep it at a much lower temperature than optimal. While it may not kill your fish directly, it will contribute to the stress. Finally, don't tear apart your tank unless you do have reason to suspect that there is a rotting fish. The small burrowing snails should be necessarius (sp?) snails. They will usually eat the dead fairly effectively. Good luck with the tank and keep reading. Oh, you likely already know- but be careful how you clean the fluvial- you don't want to kill or replace all of the bacteria on the filter. Which actually brings me to the next question (though unrelated to a complete crash...) how much live rock did you include in the tank?
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"Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else." -- Frederick Bastiat
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