Fish Dying After A Week

[c4haskett]

Hello, I was hoping to get some sort of answer and any help is greatly appreciated.
I set up a new tank about 7-8 months ago and cycled it for a month before adding any fish. I confirmed no ammonia or nitrite before adding any fish. I first added a small cleanup crew of a handful of snails and 3 shrimp. A week or so later I added 2 clowns, long nose hawk and a fire fish. All seemed happy and week later all fish were dead overnight. No signs of stress or anything the night before. About 2 weeks later and a water change I introduced 4 chromis as testers. Same thing. A week later 2/4 were dead with no obvious signs of distress. About 3 weeks ago the other 2 disappeared (assumed dead, never found). I added more bio media to my tank (15 Gal waterbox) and another bottle of bacteria. I let that simmer until about last week. I picked up 2 clowns and a red hawk fish. I also picked up a salifert nitrite kit. Clowns are fine but this morning I found the hawkfish dead. No signs of distress last night. I have been testing nitrite over the past week and it has been showing nitrite. I have been adding prime in hopes to remove the nitrite. Im at a loss here. No more fish until I find out why this is happening. I've been reading that some nitrite is normal? I've also seen where prime may be interacting with the copper that was used in the water from the LFS my fish came from. My Ph has also been very low at around 7.4.

15 Gal Waterbox
Ph-7.4
Alk:9-10
Cal:450
Mag:1450
Phos: .2
Nitrate: 3-5
Nitrite: .01-.05

 

[Extremeengineer]

I am no expert, but the first things that come to mind are what was your water source for initial fill, and subsequent changes? What salt and what SG? What kind of rock and how much? Usually you add a single fish at a time in a new tank. Did you test params daily after adding the fish? What is your Ammonia and what has it been trending at? What and how much were you feeding?

 

[c4haskett]

I am no expert, but the first things that come to mind are what was your water source for initial fill, and subsequent changes? What salt and what SG? What kind of rock and how much? Usually you add a single fish at a time in a new tank. Did you test params daily after adding the fish?

RODI water-0 TDS and ESV Salt @ 1.025. 5 Gals weekly W/C. 10 lbs of rock? Started as dry rock. Matured now with coraline algae. I test a few times a week. Nitrite everyday to check for spikes. It stays between .01-.05 even after adding Prime.

 

[Extremeengineer]

What has your ammonia been?

 

[Extremeengineer]

Also your timeline isn't making sense, you started 7-8 months ago and cycled for a month, but your fish timeline that just ended is maybe 6-8 weeks long, so tank sat for months with no ammonia source, or were you ghost feeding or something? Since you don't mention Ammonia, and it seems tank set fallow for a while, and then you threw many fish at it at once, your Ammonia probably spiked, and your largely inactve to that point bacteria could not keep up with the bio-load. That's just my guess with info I am inferring and you have given.

Get a Seachem Ammonia alert before you add anymore fish.

 

[c4haskett]

0

What has your ammonia been?

0

 

[c4haskett]

Also your timeline isn't making sense, you started 7-8 months ago and cycled for a month, but your fish timeline that just ended is maybe 6-8 weeks long, so tank sat for months with no ammonia source, or were you ghost feeding or something? Since you don't mention Ammonia, and it seems tank set fallow for a while, and then you threw many fish at it at once, your Ammonia probably spiked, and your largely inactve to that point bacteria could not keep up with the bio-load. That's just my guess with info I am inferring and you have given.

I had 2 chromis out of the 4 initial chromis up until about 2-3 weeks ago. They were in there for several months.

 

[Jekyl]

This sounds like disease. Can you please explain your quarantine procedure?

 

[c4haskett]

This sounds like disease. Can you please explain your quarantine procedure?

No quarantine. Never noticed anything that looks like ICH or Brooklynella etc.. never any signs of anything really.

 

[revenant]

Wow this is pretty crazy. Sounds very frustrating. A small tank like that is very susceptible to toxins from house cleaners fragrances and such.. Anything that’s in the air ends up in the tank.. do you have any Glade plugins or anything like that in the room with the tank?

 

[c4haskett]

Wow this is pretty crazy. Sounds very frustrating. A small tank like that is very susceptible to toxins from house cleaners fragrances and such.. Anything that’s in the air ends up in the tank.. do you have any Glade plugins or anything like that in the room with the tank?

Very! Nothing I can really think of to be honest.

 

[Jekyl]

No quarantine. Never noticed anything that looks like ICH or Brooklynella etc.. never any signs of anything really.

Any remaining fish you can provide white light pics and a video of?

 

[c4haskett]

Any remaining fish you can provide white light pics and a video of?

Yes, It will be this tonight after I get home. Thank you for helping.

 

[Jekyl]

Yes, It will be this tonight after I get home. Thank you for helping.

When you do please start a new post in the disease forum and read through this before you do. It will get you help much faster.

Some Helpful Hints When Posting or Responding to Threads in the Fish Disease Treatment and Diagnosis Section

Aquarium Fish Disease Problem Solving Determining the best course of action for a problem with your aquarium can be a difficult task. Even advanced aquarists will often need to seek the help of others for complicated or unique issues. Our intent here on Reef 2 Reef is to offer expert advice...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Anemone15]

What's your surface agitation like on your tank? You might be having an oxygen-depletion event. Basically, in an oxygen-depletion event, something dies, a bacterial bloom occurs consuming oxygen, causing other things to die due to lack of oxygen. This generally occurs during "night" hours (when the surface algal films aren't photosynthesizing and producing oxygen, but instead consuming it).

It doesn't have to be a death that starts it, either - just a low level of oxygenation combined with decaying organic matter (think leftover food or fish poop) can cause the first fish to go, starting the cascading event.

Increasing your surface agitation in the tank generally prevents these type of situations.

Kevin

 

[Oldreefer44]

What source of water oxygenation is there? Very quick deaths without any sign of disease can be oxygen depravation. Any chance of stary voltage?

 

[Jekyl]

What source of water oxygenation is there? Very quick deaths without any sign of disease can be oxygen depravation. Any chance of stary voltage?

I think stray voltage had been disproven.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

No quarantine. Never noticed anything that looks like ICH or Brooklynella etc.. never any signs of anything really.

Yeah, with no noticeable symptoms and a bunch of sudden, symptomless deaths, my guess would be velvet - posting with pics and plenty of info (like Jekyl recommended above) in the fish disease forum would be good idea.

 

[Cichlid Dad]

Fyi 15 gal is to small for any hawk fish

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I think part of the problem is that you are overstocking, 4 fish in a 15 gallon too much, and you keep adding them 4 at a time. Its too much too fast.

Your fish choices are inappropriate, the hawk is too small for a 15, chromis should be in a 30 gallon, 2 clowns should be in a 20.... its the wrong type of fish for this size tank.

If you don't have a lot of rockwork then likely there would be aggression with so many fish. I assume you are not QT'ing so possibly disease issue's as well.

You are going way too fast and need to slow down and stock appropriately for the size of tank.