Marine Fish Problem
Disney Trivia Ron
tank, I have it set up as a marine/fish tank with approx 75lbs of live rock,
sand substrate, wet/dry filter with submersable protein skimmer, 3 power heads
in tank for water circulation. Tank was established approx 2 years ago and
inside I have several corals, blue leg hermits, turbo snails, 2 sand sifting
stars, 1 cleaner shrimp, 1 coral banded shrimp. 1 velvet damsel and 1 neon blue
damsel.
The Problem is.....Lately it seems that every time I put new fish in the tank
they dies not too long after. Last week I placed 2 percula clowns in the tank
(Which died within 5 days) Now, last night I put a new fish in (Kona Tang) and
tyhis mornign he has ich. I took all necessary precautions to acclimate him
including usugn a stress coat treatment in the tank. The salinity is perfect,
all other water tests came out fine (PH good) zero ammonia, zero nitrates)
And, my current fish are alive an well and have been for the past year (At
least) It just seems new fish dont make it.
I know I should probably have a hospital tank to treat the fish as soon as I
bring them home but I just dont have the means to set one up right now so I
would appreciate any ideas or suggestions on what is going on .
Pl,ease email back to me at captai...@aol.com
Dragon Slayer
your parameters (NO3 especially) to me it sounds like the fish in your tank,
over the past year they have been in the tank as you stated, have slowly
become accustomed to the tank conditions. the only "fix" I can recommend,
without knowing the exact cause of new fish deaths, is to do some water
changes over the next few weeks. do 25% a week for a few weeks and this
should remove any buildup in your tank that "may" be the cause. id remove
the wet portion of the wet/dry if not both and just use it for circulation
as your LR and DSB (you didn't mention depth of sand so this is just an
assumption) do a more efficient job of the nitrogen cycle, and the wet dries
tend to build up NO3. although you mention having "several corals" you did
not mention the type, as most corals will not tolerate a buildup of NO3 this
throws a kink in my guessing game. I have also had problems getting perc's
to live for long at the time lately and its not just me, its everyone who
gets from the only LFS here we have, even the owner has stated problems with
keeping them alive in his setup and has therefore stopped carrying them for
sale. the claim was the method of capture on the "wild caught" ones is
causing either stress or other related problems that tend to kill the fish
within a week or so. your only other mention was the ich on the tang, which
is a commonality of tangs, they are easily stressed. I have seen this many
times and usually it clears up fast, your coral banded shrimp will help at
this. with all fish, tangs especially, when I introduce them to the tank
after acclimation I leave all lighting off in the tank and only dimly light
the room for the remainder of that day then let lighting return to normal
the next day, this tends to help with the stress of all newly introduced
animals.
"Disney Trivia Ron" <captai...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20030517085509...@mb-m16.aol.com...
Todd Nicholson
posting them here so we can all see what's up. Also, please describe you
acclimation method for your new fish.
-Todd
"Dragon Slayer" <koi_man(nospam)@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:ba5ji7$eqgb$1...@news3.infoave.net...
Disney Trivia Ron
>posting them here so we can all see what's up. Also, please describe you
>acclimation method for your new fish.
SG was 1.023 last check about an hour ago, Ammonia at 0, Nitrates 0 PH is good
in parameters. Acclimation process I did was:
FLoated bag in tank about 20 minutes
After that I added about a 1/2 cup tank water
Waited anbother 15 minutes and added a cup of tank water
Then after about 10 minuted I emptied about 90% of water from the bag and I
emptied the rest and Tang into my tank.
I had the light off and kept it off for about an hour after putting him in.
He looked fine last night but was hiding a lot behind live rock. he didnt come
out to eat this morning after I notcied the ich present on him so I did a
garlic tratment into the tank with the hopes of clearing the ich from him
before it got much worse. I did put a stress coat treatment into the tank just
before adding him and shut off my protein skimmer. I also add Coral Vital to
my tank once a week in addition to my calcium treatments.
Steve "Srfmon"
>just a suggestion............you may want to get a new test kit and recheck
>your parameters (NO3 especially) to me it sounds like the fish in your
tank,
>over the past year they have been in the tank as you stated, have slowly
>become accustomed to the tank conditions. the only "fix" I can recommend,
>without knowing the exact cause of new fish deaths, is to do some water
>changes over the next few weeks.
I agree sometimes fish get accustomed to water conditions that are
out of whack (I've had this situation before myself) & a new fish can't
tolerate the sudden changes. Also consider a Quarantine tank. That is the
best way to avoid bringing in unwanted disease. I know you don't have the
room but maybe with proper planning you could cycle it before adding a
fish - it's more of a hassle that way but I've cycled the same tank 5 times
because for a while I wanted the room. I finally got tired of that & now the
QT is always running. It is a worthwhile thing to have.
Steve
--
Check out the Reef Tank Webcam (24hrs - Live) at http://srfmon.camarades.com
"Dragon Slayer" <koi_man(nospam)@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:ba5ji7$eqgb$1...@news3.infoave.net...
Todd W
established reef.. My current fish have been in the tank more than a
year and a half. I have tried adding new fish several times and
nothing has survived for long. Yellow head gobies, a mandarin gobie,
and a powderblue all died within a week of being added. Nobody likes to
be the new kid on the block. I have read that moving your LR around and
setting it up different just before adding a new fish can help. That
way every fish' s home turf is disturbed and the new guy will have to
adjust like everyone else. I haven't tried it but it makes sense.
Todd
Teeb
not allowing enough time. The drip method works better.. a much slower
process than you are currently using. Use about a 2 gallon CLEAN bucket, one
that has never had ANYTHING in it unless it's a salt bucket.. (one you might
use for tank refills) several feet of airline tubing, a couple rocks (to
weight down the tubing.. rubberband them to each end) and an air pump and
stone. Drop one end of the tubing into your tank, tie a loose knot into the
other end, then start a siphon (you know.. suck it out.. be careful or you
get a mouthful of tank water) then when it starts, pull the knot tighter
until it's just coming out about a drip a second.. set it down into the
bucket (bucket on floor or at least lower than the tank) so it drips in from
ABOVE the water.. don't let the end go underwater or you can't keep track of
it.. and pour your fish AND the bag water into the bucket. Drop in the
airstone.. let it alone for a few hours then scoop out about a third of the
water from the bucket and toss it out. Once the level has risen again and
there is still enough for the fish, scoop out some more. I usually set
something over the bucket so the fish can't jump out. Try and be patient
enough to do this over about 12 hours. By then you will have pretty much all
tank water in the bucket and the fish has had enough time to truly
acclimate. This is the method that most stores that ship marine fish and
critters recommend.
teeb
"Disney Trivia Ron" <captai...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20030517125310...@mb-m18.aol.com...
spike
aqua c and their skimmers and tech support is awesome. I also would
get rid of the bio balls in the wet/dry.
JR
don't say your PH is "good in paramenters" please tell us
what it is. It might be PH shock do you know what the PH is
at your LFS? TIA>
I had a fish given to me awhile ago and when I
checked the water the fish was brought to me in the PH was 6.8.!
During acclimatoin I was bringing up the PH by .2 at a shot the fish would
try and jump out of the bucket... My friend who also got a fish
from the same guy at the same time didn't check the PH. The fish
lasted 45 mins. using the drip method of acclimation.
JR,
Teeb
method should not kill a fish that fast.. unless something is wrong with the
water in the tank to begin with, even if it's used to being in that much
lower a Ph.. someone please correct me if I am that much mistaken in my
faith in this method??!!
Teeb
"JR" <jrcl...@rap.midco.net> wrote in message
news:vce0efo...@corp.supernews.com...
JR
And the fish tank was well established 150 gal tank with proper
maintenance, PH 8.3, amonia 0, Nitrites 0, nitrates 20. All of us
standing there were dumb founded. So on the way home with the
fish I was given I decided to check the water in the bucket that the
fish was in. PH 6.8, Amonia off the scale, nitrities 0, Nitrates 150 or
more.
I put in some amonia detoxifier, and added PH buffer a little at a time
for 6 hours. My fish lived more than likely because of the amonia
detoxifier.
Being that the low PH protected the fish from the amonia, it started to
get sever gill dammage as soon as th PH started to go up.
I believe that the drip method is a good method for acclimating fish
but you should know what the water is like first, you could actually add
to the stress of the fish if not done correctly.
JR,