Disaster in my marine aquarium
Wee Gim Theng
for about 3 years already. There were only few fishes left namely a blue
tang (4in), a maroon clown (3 in), a clown wrasse (4 in) and a boxing
shrimp. I did not test the water quality at all though I did perform periodic
water change.
About 2 months ago, I decided to add in more fishes. Over a period of about
2 weeks I purchased a wimple fish (banner fish), doctor fish, fox-face
wrasse(?) and a large (6in) Majestic angel. As usual, the new fish would
develop some white spots all over the body. (This funny phenomenon would happen
whenever I add new fish to the tank. Some new fish would survive while some old
inhabitants would surcome to the white spots and die.) However this time round,
all the fish died including the old inhabitants, except the shrimp!
I understand that new fish usually develop whitespots whenever it is
stressed especiallly in a new environment? Is this true?
Question is how can I avoid this problem again? Why did the whitespot occur
whenever a new fish is added to the tank? (or maybe it wasn't whitespot ??)
Thanks for your advices.
Mark Wee
Craig Bingman
>I have a 4ftX18inX18in marine tank using the wet/dry system. I have the tank
>for about 3 years already. There were only few fishes left namely a blue
>tang (4in), a maroon clown (3 in), a clown wrasse (4 in) and a boxing
>shrimp. I did not test the water quality at all though I did perform periodic
>water change.
Low fish load for a long time, with a nitrifying filter that should have
been fairly high capacity. OK.
>About 2 months ago, I decided to add in more fishes. Over a period of about
>2 weeks I purchased a wimple fish (banner fish), doctor fish, fox-face
>wrasse(?) and a large (6in) Majestic angel. As usual, the new fish would
>develop some white spots all over the body. (This funny phenomenon would
>happen whenever I add new fish to the tank. Some new fish would survive
>while some old inhabitants would surcome to the white spots and die.)
>However this time round, all the fish died including the old inhabitants,
>except the shrimp!
You put in a lot of new fish, four, including a fairly large angel in a
relatively short period of time. For a fish-only system, with a wet dry,
the nitrifying filter should have been able to handle this steady state
load. However, there Might have been a problem with nitrification over
the short run.
>I understand that new fish usually develop whitespots whenever it is
>stressed especiallly in a new environment? Is this true?
It certainly isn't always true. Yes, stress makes the fish more susceptible
to parasitic infestations. In many cases, the water quality in your system
is better than the fish store's (for while I will inevitably get hate mail
from fish store owners... but the situation is entirely understandable,
it just would not be profitable to hold fish in stores at densities that
work well in Berlin filtered reef systems, you can't use copper on systems
with live rock on them, etc etc.)
Fish don't always develop whitespot when you put them into your aquarium.
>Question is how can I avoid this problem again? Why did the whitespot occur
>whenever a new fish is added to the tank? (or maybe it wasn't whitespot ??)
I think this may be partially responsible for what happened. When the fish
load on a system hits a certain critical density, it becomes a lot more
susceptible to chain reaction parasitic infestations. The density of hosts
is so high that dilution no longer slows down the infestations, and they go
completely out of control. I experienced a problem like this many months
ago, and for a few days, lost a fish a day. It was pretty ugly. And it
was prompted by adding One new fish, which was probably cyanide caught and
severely compromised. That one got one hellishly bad infestation in a couple
of days (which sort of caught me unaware, because the fish came out of a
coppered system, and I thought it was probably safe.)
The only protection you have from situations like this is to 1) not overload
your aquarium, and 2) Always, always, always hold the fish in some sort of
quaranteen for at least a week before you add them to your aquarium. Different
people have different philosophies about whether or not to use copper in these
aquariums. Some will set up a small tank with live rock, protein skimmer,
and add the new fish and simply watch it for a week or two. It will get better
or not. Others use prophylactic copper... which is not without its downsides.
In those cases, you need a conventional nitrifying filter in the aquarium,
but can use a protein skimmer in either case, just turn it off when hydrophobic
medicines are used. Copper is ionic, and not strongly removed by skimming.
The other thing this will do is keep you from adding four new fish in a
period of two weeks. If they go through quaranteen individually (as they
should, always, except if you get a mated pair) then the rate of addition
would have been 1/4 of what you actually followed. That also gives the
main system some time to catch up with the higher fish load, so any ammonia
spike such as might occur when the nitrifying filter is playing catch up
will be minimized.
You also might want to ask around for how people maintain quaranteen tanks,
there are a number of philosophies, and you probably should find one that
you like, and stick with that advice.
Four new fish in a ~70 gallon aquarium two weeks was just too many, too fast.
Gary V. Deutschmann Sr.
One of the pre-requisits of maintaining a marine or reef aquarium is the use
of either RO or glass distilled water only as your add water.
Several other water chemistry maintenance programs must also be initiated
and done on a regular basis.
Anytime you add a new specimin to your aquarium, no matter what type of
aquarium, the water quality changes drastically until it can once again
obtain equalibrium.
Most fish that have been in your aquarium were slowly acclimated to it's
steadily declining quality like increasing nitrates, phospates, etc.
With the addition of new animals, they probably immediately went into toxic
stress and secumbed. The aquarium water probably took a sudden nosedive
that even your old inhabitants could not endure and they also succumbed.
Gary