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Hi all, i am having a few problems with my QT.
Basically i had a dwarf fuzzy in there and was fine the first day quite active for a lion then the second night i came home to find him dead.
I firstly presumed it was the fish due to the store i got it from their 2 died too.
now i got a yellow tail damsel that is not looking in too good after 30hours..not swimming and breathing quite laboured.

its a standard 3ft tank. some reading reveal
temp- 24c
Salinty- 1.0023
Ammonia- 0
nitrite- 0
nitrate- to low for a reading.

Biggest thing that has me stumped is what can kill in a little over 24hours?
I thought maybe shock but they were drip acclimated and my expiernce is shock normally kills in a matter of hours.

I thought it was also very quick for it to be some kind of parasite but then i havent had theat much expierence with sick fish i seem to get luckey

the only other fish that have been in this tank is a pair of clowns abouts 2-3 weeks ago.

Any help i would be greatful for

PS i cant find the vial for my ph i will get that done tomorrow

Patchy

Please do get the pH test done...that's one of the most important tests.

I've arranged for someone to post on this in depth later...

(Yes, I'm lame...I know )

Even though you drip acclimated, the shock for them at the store, and then just hours/days later at your house might have been too much for them. It doesn't sound like you're having a problem with your water quality, so we have a couple options here.

Either...

It was a bad batch of fish. It happens. Unadvoidable...I see it happen at my work all the time.

Shock...lions are fighters-they dont give up easily IME. That could explain why it took him a little longer to pass on then most of your fish from past experiences.

HTH a bit.

-Formerly known as the Ferretfish

Id say it was stress induced as well.....whether it was due to acclimation or not, I couldnt say but its a very good chance. With SW fish, and especially inverts (shrimp, hermits, etc) it can take weeks for the stress from acclimation to finally do them in.

What are your water parameters (dkh, ph)?

What test kits are you using?

What method of drip acclimation do you use?

How long do you drip acclimate?

How much water from your tank do you drip (double, triple, etc the amount of water the fish was bagged in)?

Lets start there and then move on to more questions if those check out



Last edited by DarkRealm Overlord at 08-Nov-2005 19:03

Ph-8.2. i will have to go to lfs for dkh after work

placing fish in a bucket (fish only bucket of course) using airline to drip in (tied of at top to limit flow rate) i double the water in bucket then empty half and did this 5 times with the damsel and lionfish. overall a little over a hour acclimation

i have got some more base rock in there so they have more opitions of refuge from currents. i also picked up some geoliqiud from a friends reef store which he highly reccomended to remove small chance of outside toxins being added some how.

thanks for taking time out to help

Its happened again, this time to a chromis. only difference is the chromis' swim bladder is gone. is swimming all kinda weird ways.

does this sound like some kind of toxin being introduced? the chromis made it 48hours before this occured... in dire need here thinking about flushing tank and starting it over

Im totally out of ideas....Only thing I can think of is acclimation, other than something being wrong with the tank.

the only problem i have found anyone having similar to this, is someone's puffer died in their tank and nuked all of the fish but not the inverts.
puffers toxins was kept inside coral sand. so im presuming ive carried something in my coral sand. even though their is hardly any at all

the problem struck my display tank too, we have a theroy going on what was wrong.
i stripped down both tanks and no have them refilled with Freash tap water.(letting cholrine kill any possible parasites)
i more than halved the substrate in both as i found out it can be bad especially with smaller varities.
and my display tank when first setup rusted my reflectors so i presumed this is what affected it.(even though i took them out as soon as i relised).

hopefully it all goes well this time.
thanks all for giving me a hand and cross your fingers for me

So what's the theory...?

-Formerly known as the Ferretfish

after reading about small coral sand if compacted will create pockets that build up toxins mainly sulphate from memory. which are released into tank. usually happenings in long term tanks but its all we go going.

i was gunna empty anyway it was only way to be sure

the sulphate theory is just a myth.....if your sand bed was releasing enough to kill your fish, you would smell it, and most likely be getting sick from it.

I had a long talk with Anthony Calfo about this "theory" and he said it was bunk

Either way, its been done and measures i have taken should fix it up soon.
i would of just liked to know for sure what happened though

Update
after both tanks being heavily cleaned and finally filled again for a couple of days.
I added a damsel to test how it was going. ( i know some of you will hate this) and has been doing great for last 36 hours which is a good sign. so hopefully this has finally over