Fish are dying and I don't know what to do!! :(

[Leon821019218]

I'm kinda in a panic mode right now... My tank has been running for almost a year and since the start it has been doing quite well.
But over the last week my fish start dying off at a pretty high rate.

Little backstory, july 11 I did a little rescaping in my tank. I bought a few pieces of dry rock and made an arch (put together with DD aquascape epoxy) and put in a flat piece of rock so I have more places to put corals.
But the new structure and the flat piece took some space and to make room for it, I ended up taking 3 pieces of rock out of the tank (cycled rock for about a year) and put them in another, smaller tank. I also preformed a water change that same day.

A few days later I tested my water and noticed that my nitrates were pretty elevated. 25 instead of the usual 5-10 (I test with Salifert) all the other parameters were ok, just like they used to be so nothing alarming I thought.
This stayed like this for a period of time and I noticed that more green algae was growing on the new rocks and some brown algae on the sand. The coral and fish were doing still ok.

1week later my nitrates were even higher 50 at one point but the rest was still good. I even noticed that my SPS started to show more and more polyp extension so I took that as a sign that the water must be ok, right?

But july 28 I tested again and my nitrates were still high, between 25 and 50 (salifert) I did not notice anything wrong with the fish.

And the on July 30th, out of the blue I found my bristle tooth and Japonica tangs lying dead on the bottom. And my Pseudochromis fridmani and Ecsenius bicolor were also dead.
I was shocked because I look at my tank A LOT! I did not notice anything wrong with them days and even the night before. So that same day I went to my LFS and let them test my water in case I missed anything. They did not find anything out of the ordinary, except high nitrates (25) They could not give me any pointer as to why my fish died.

The day after I did a water change and the day after that I tested the water. Again, no strange parameters, except my nitrate which was now 25 or a little below. I did notice more brown algae on the sand. It looks like diatoms.

On August 4 I lost 2 fish again, this time my Salarias Fasciatus and 1 clown fish. Again I did not see anything out of the ordinary on them, or in their behavior before they died and I could not spot any strange things on their body.

And today ( August 5) I lost the other clown fish... And I worry very much about the last few fish, but thing is that today for the first time I noticed 'something' wrong. I saw that the Centropyge bispinosa had a long white string of poop hanging on his behind. And I saw that the Sigatus vulpinus looks a bit 'pale' and his skin is a bit... I don't know the word but it just seems 'off'... Things I did not see on any of the other fish that died. If they had it, I would have seen it.

So, yeah I'm in big trouble and I feel pretty helpless to be honest...

The last time I put new fish in the tank was April 9th. The last piece of coral went in on July 7th.
The latest ICP test I did was in May and there were no red flags at all.
I feed the fish a variety of foods, frozen foods, mysis, pellets, spirulina/seaweed

It's probably to late to save them I fear but does anyone have any idea as to what is happening to them?!

Thanks in advance!

https://youtube.com/shorts/t7rd5oGWxs0?feature=share

 

[ScubaFish802]

#fishmedic

 

[Nate Chalk]

Ammonia leaving this new rock?

 

[Leon821019218]

Ammonia leaving this new rock?

It was dry/dead rock so I don't think so.

 

[Nate Chalk]

It was dry/dead rock so I don't think so.

It was dry/dead rock so I don't think so.

Sometimes they bleach it . Dunno trying to think outside the box. Ammonia makes nitrates right. Could you do some big water changes?

 

[czoolander]

What is the tempature in the tank?

It is summer time and elevated heat in the tank could possibly be a cause ?

what is the surface agitation? skimmer? is the tank getting enough gas exchange / oxygen in the water ?

Just a couple ideas it could be

 

[Aspect]

Do you have any grounding probes in the tank? Are the coral's polyps still extended?

 

[Leon821019218]

Bleach it?! I don't know if they did this. But is it seems kind of stupid when they bleach a product that is made for going inside a reeftank . I can ask them but have to wait until tommorow because it is the middle.of the night here. Yeah I did a few big water changes. Planning another one for tommorow. It's mixing right now.

 

[Leon821019218]

What is the tempature in the tank?

It is summer time and elevated heat in the tank could possibly be a cause ?

what is the surface agitation? skimmer? is the tank getting enough gas exchange / oxygen in the water ?

Just a couple ideas it could be

Thanks for thinking along!

The water is 25.5 degrees. I manage to keep it on the right temp fortunately. I have no skimmer, I do weekly 15% water changes. I have a gyre which is pointed at the surface and 1 Tunze that is also pointed toward the surface so I would say there is much water movement.

 

[Leon821019218]

Do you have any grounding probes in the tank? Are the coral's polyps still extended?

Grounding probes, what do you mean by that? The coral polyps are extend yes.

 

[Aspect]

Grounding probes, what do you mean by that? The coral polyps are extend yes.

Ground probes will draw any stray current out of the tank, but since your corals are fine I doubt that is the issue. It is likely the Angel has internal parasites considering the "string white poop" you mentioned.

 

[Leon821019218]

Ground probes will draw any stray current out of the tank, but since your corals are fine I doubt that is the issue. It is likely the Angel has internal parasites considering the "string white poop" you mentioned.

Oh okay, no the corals look fine. At least something that's going right... Yeah, parasites seem possible. But I wonder if that was what killed the other fish since I never saw anything strange and none of them had white, stringy poo..

 

[ScionFRSguy]

It must be the new rocks you put in there. Did you cure them before adding them to the tank? I try not to use any dry rocks unless they're the ones I used in my tank. This is the only way I know that it's safe. The last thing I want to do is buy live rocks from a tank that's having some kind of bacteria problems or disease. This is why I asked if you cured your new dry rock before you use them. Even if I feel like the rock(s) comes from a good tank, I would still cured it for about a month with some waste water from my display before I add them in. Water permeates deep into the rock so it's important to cure them for a long time before use.

I would 100% take out the new rocks right away. Sorry to hear about this, I don't really have any good ideas other than that. Good luck!

 

[czoolander]

The super strange thing is that i see a cleaner shrimp in one of your pictures. If it was a water quality issue you would assume the shrimp would die first before the fish. Your corals also look fine which again you would see symptoms typically in corals before fish with water quality.

I am really thinking your looking at a fish disease here........... do you see any laboured breathing? lethargy? loss of appetite? white spots??

 

[trainbob]

If inverts are fine and fish are dying the most likely reason is disease not water parameters

 

[Leon821019218]

It must be the new rocks you put in there. Did you cure them before adding them to the tank? I try not to use any dry rocks unless they're the ones I used in my tank. This is the only way I know that it's safe. The last thing I want to do is buy live rocks from a tank that's having some kind of bacteria problems or disease. This is why I asked if you cured your new dry rock before you use them. Even if I feel like the rock(s) comes from a good tank, I would still cured it for about a month with some waste water from my display before I add them in. Water permeates deep into the rock so it's important to cure them for a long time before use.

I would 100% take out the new rocks right away. Sorry to hear about this, I don't really have any good ideas other than that. Good luck!

You mean dry rock as in something that came out of water all ready? The rock I bought was man made, dead, dry as a martini kind of rock. Fake as you will So I don't think I have to worry about disease that came with it. But I did rinse the rock of with ro/di water to remove any debris or dust or whatever. But there may be 'something' on or in it from the processing/making of the rock? And thanks man!

 

[Aspect]

Corals/Inverts would be the first alarm of water quality issues. If they are fine, it almost most certainly a parasite of some sort.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Something likely leached from rock to raise nitrates and possibly ammonia levels. You may have also developed a parasite outbreak as rabbitfish has many diots from Mucus spores and likely cryptocaryon (Marine Ich). problem you have with this is that is accelarated stress and not treatable with conventional means such as copper. Rather, you have to reduce any stress the fish will be subject to and as trophants will be dropping to sand to regenerate, Siphon Sand every morning until the rash effect on fish subsides. A high watt UV sterilizer unit may help with this until the parasites lose their life cycle.

 

[Leon821019218]

If inverts are fine and fish are dying the most likely reason is disease not water parameters

That's a thing that crossed my mind. Inverts do not handle poor water very well indeed..

 

[Leon821019218]

The super strange thing is that i see a cleaner shrimp in one of your pictures. If it was a water quality issue you would assume the shrimp would die first before the fish. Your corals also look fine which again you would see symptoms typically in corals before fish with water quality.

I am really thinking your looking at a fish disease here........... do you see any laboured breathing? lethargy? loss of appetite? white spots??

Not that I have seen. They look fine, good color, eating well swimming around the tank and the next day there dead I did see on the foxface something as you can see in the picture I posted. It does not look good if you ask me.