Fish Dying

[Badboyan93l]

Quick questions, did you raise the salinity and lowered the cooper before the 5 weeks and how were you topping off the tank during the time, auto top off manual top off, RODI, tap water) and also did you leave the tank with no powerheads the night you left it soaking in clean water?

It maybe be that the sand might have sucked up the cooper killing the bacteria and or depleted the oxygen.... I'll advise to set up a small tank to quarantine fish with cooper in the future, never a DT.

 

[Badboyan93l]

Quick questions, did you raise the salinity and lowered the cooper before the 5 weeks and how were you topping off the tank during the time, auto top off manual top off, RODI, tap water) and also did you leave the tank with no powerheads the night you left it soaking in clean water?

It maybe be that the sand might have sucked up the cooper killing the bacteria and or depleted the oxygen.... I'll advise to set up a small tank to quarantine fish with cooper in the future, never a DT.

I us to go through this at the beginning of my journey and it was a headache. DONT GIVE UP!

 

[newreef1]

OP, I just reviewed your post history and honestly, I think you started out with more then you were ready for. Almost 2 years ago, you got your very first saltwater tank which is a Red Sea XL750. This is a large tank which requires established knowledge of salt water systems and reef keeping. You immediately started adding expensive non QT fish which subsequently led to a number of posts where you are having difficulty maintaining water quality and have all of your fish dying of ich. There are probably 10 threads where you are experiencing major difficulty with your tank and your fish.

We all welcome you to the hobby and want you to be successful but you need to take a bunch of steps backwards and educate yourself to the ins and outs of the hobby before you start filling that tank up again with fish. I doubt you ever did a fallow period after your first ich experience and that led to subsequent ich experiences and trying hyposalinity followed by treating your whole tank with copper, Your tank will now not be able to support inverts (cleaning crew) or corals because of the copper absorbed into rocks and sand.

Try your best to save your remaining fish by putting them into QT tanks and let your main tank sit fallow for 6 to 8 weeks to hopefully clear out the ich. You can try some media to absorb the copper out of it also.

You are correct that I started and have failed many times. I only have experience of freshwater fish tanks and I met someone after whom talking to I began this endeavor. What I do know now is that I’m more informed now than when I had first started. At first it was simply about having a good looking tank at home, there was no hobby. Now with all the ups and downs and when I manage to have a healthy tank with healthy fish it provides me with an unexplainable feeling. I never thought I’d say this but I’m now a hobbyist (if that’s the correct term).
Also after my Ich issue I did strip the tank and start from scratch again, I’m in this for the long haul so whether that means I have to post several posts to get others who have been here far longer than I have’s input and experience or try things on my own, I’ll do it.

 

[newreef1]

Quick questions, did you raise the salinity and lowered the cooper before the 5 weeks and how were you topping off the tank during the time, auto top off manual top off, RODI, tap water) and also did you leave the tank with no powerheads the night you left it soaking in clean water?

It maybe be that the sand might have sucked up the cooper killing the bacteria and or depleted the oxygen.... I'll advise to set up a small tank to quarantine fish with cooper in the future, never a DT.

I us to go through this at the beginning of my journey and it was a headache. DONT GIVE UP!

I appreciate the encouragement. I did a successful Ich treatment and as of now no fish is showing symptoms of ICH. I have an RODI filter system and an ATO. I tried hyposalinty before I raised the salinity and went with the copper treatment. I treated the tank knowing what I was going into but it was better then letting the fish die. My treatment went very well. Unfortunately I cleaned the tank a few days ago and believe I messed up either the cycle like some people are saying here or with the chemistry because I did smell a funky smell which was bad enough to emanate to the door where I smelled it. I think the sand is the culprit I believe it either stored a lot of debris/gases or held copper which might have leached out all of a sudden and combined with the loss of O2 for a bit caused this issue. What I’m trying to figure out is how to fix the situation I’ve tried several WC which haven’t helped much. I’m putting in new filters and filter socks which I will hope with help with the situation. Thanks again for the reminder to not give up brother I appreciate it!

 

[newreef1]

Dying fish is the only thing that runs up ammonia in a running display tank. If you don’t have fish rotting inside, you don’t have ammonia non control

ammonia does not rise first, to cause the fish kill, theres no biological mechanism that allows that in a running display

ammonia can rise uncontrollably in a low surface area quarantine setup however.

I definitely didn’t have any dead fish because I did a deep clean of the tank. After this I also cleaned the debris in my sump. Maybe more nitrifying bacteria if that helps the tank cycle again?

 

[brandon429]

No, that can’t help you. That would help an ammonia issue only and display reefs dont have those unless the power is out and things die

nobody knows what aspect of sandbed disturbance kills fish, it’s not ammonia though/ sandbeds don’t store ammonia it’s a byproduct that comes from animal respiration. Post a full tank shot of your reef we can use it to proof some things about your cycle

 

[brandon429]

**did you add copper to the display vs a quarantine, into your rocks and sand? I just read that captioned above, that’s atypical for sure / against the rules. No telling what that might cause for sure


we have some thread examples of people dosing copper into a display reef and it didn’t recycle the tank, but it sure is against the rules. Any consulted reading source for copper treatment would never advise it

 

[newreef1]

I definitely didn’t have any dead fish because I did a deep clean of the tank. After this I also cleaned the debris in my sump. Maybe more nitrifying bacteria if that helps the tank cycle again?

Just got home and noticed another fish died, this was the sick one. I attached some pics of it to hopefully see if it will narrow down the issue. Sorry it’s a graphic pic probably the most I’ve ever seen. It’s heartbreaking

 

[newreef1]

Just got home and noticed another fish died, this was the sick one. I attached some pics of it to hopefully see if it will narrow down the issue. Sorry it’s a graphic pic probably the most I’ve ever seen. It’s heartbreaking

With this all my new fish have died.

 

[brandon429]

Base of the pectoral fin, tissue erosion lesion, now we begin to steer away from sandbed poisons and into common disease vectoring although sandbed stirring may have kicked up/ expressed the disease. That was a helpful diagnostic pic

vote=uronema but it’s just a guess

 

[newreef1]

Hey guys, I’m back to share my turmoil and maybe get some support again from you all. My tank was doing great after my last post regarding treating my tank with copper and raising salinity. I had done a few water changes after my copper treatment and copper was down low to a 0.69 ppm. All the fish were great and eating well, healthy etc. I was so busy with work I couldn’t do a water change for around 5 weeks. The fish were eating and swimming fine but my tank didn’t look very good. So on Friday I did a normal water change (40 gallons), my RedSea wavemakers were reallly dirty with low flow so decided to follow the Citric acid method and clean all my powerheads including mp40s. I kept them in clean water overnight and also rinsed well. Suddenly my naso tang wasn’t looking right and died the next day. Within the span of a few days I’ve lost several fish. I removed the wavemakers and rinsed again thinking there might have been Risidue on them and did another 50 gallon water change last night. My tests were all normal for my tank, no ammonia, nitrites, nitrates around 40 which has always been my case. I could not figure out what was causing my fish to die suddenly until I read about disturbing sand bed as if it’s not moved weekly can store toxic gases and toxic nutrients? I did see some bubbles on the side of my tank with the red and green algae on the bottom corners of tank but I cleaned and scrubbed to remove them. I removed all my live rock, and moved my sand bed to evenly distribute the sand, for some reason my sand moves all over the place leaving some spots that show the tank floor. Is wit possible for the sand bed to kill so many fish. I don’t have any sand sifting fish so the sand is only moved by the pumps. I found two fish stuck to my mp40s not sure if they were weak or just got pulled in? Any suggestions or any information is greatly appreciated? Should I move my sand around weekly? Get a goby? On my LFS guys insistence I retreated the tank with copper currently reading 1.98 ppm with copper power he believed the sand could have released some ich eggs or something I don’t believe so because the fish that died was so fast and none of them were sick of showing any signs of prolonged illness. I added the copper in hopes of a remedy before I read about the sand beds. Please help me find what’s going on. Thank you.

Ph 8. Ammonia 0.25. Nitrite 0. Nitrate 40 (this has always been this high). Results as of this morning.

 

[brandon429]

That's a normal api reading for a stocked tank, no ammonia distress here. It's not going to be zero using that kit.

 

[newreef1]

That's a normal api reading for a stocked tank, no ammonia distress here. It's not going to be zero using that kit.

In the past I’ve had the kit read lower. I’m just going to change my filters and filter socks completely. I have purigen and carbon which I will be putting back into the tank and purchase some chemipure to hopefully get any toxic nutrients out of the tank and follow with weekly water changes for the month by adding seachem stability. I had added copper as suggested by my LFS but with the water changes will be removing that as well.

 

[newreef1]

That's a normal api reading for a stocked tank, no ammonia distress here. It's not going to be zero using that kit.

What test kit do you recommend?

 

[averagesteve]

I didn't see anyone mention this possibility, but did you have any snails/inverts? I believe dosing copper into a main system can (will?) kill inverts, and if you had a bunch of turbo snails or something in there with some size, the mass die off of snails could spike ammonia? Though it seems to be that the initial problems were not because of ammonia and rather of disease, however, that could be what caused that one high ammonia reading...

 

[newreef1]

I didn't see anyone mention this possibility, but did you have any snails/inverts? I believe dosing copper into a main system can (will?) kill inverts, and if you had a bunch of turbo snails or something in there with some size, the mass die off of snails could spike ammonia? Though it seems to be that the initial problems were not because of ammonia and rather of disease, however, that could be what caused that one high ammonia reading...

I don’t have any inverts or snails. What’s surprising me is that my two older fish died immediately after my WC, that night and the other one in the next morning. I had gotten new fish the next day not knowing this would happen and had cleaned the tank in preparation for them and they all died. So that would mean that they were all sick, which I find hard to believe. Also not so experienced but with any disease I feel like the fish shows symptoms and it’s a slow sometimes fast but still a couple days before they die. All my fish were healthy, eating (not counting 2/3 of the new ones) that died. So I honestly believe it’s something in the water. Not sure though.

 

[averagesteve]

I don’t have any inverts or snails. What’s surprising me is that my two older fish died immediately after my WC, that night and the other one in the next morning. I had gotten new fish the next day not knowing this would happen and had cleaned the tank in preparation for them and they all died. So that would mean that they were all sick, which I find hard to believe. Also not so experienced but with any disease I feel like the fish shows symptoms and it’s a slow sometimes fast but still a couple days before they die. All my fish were healthy, eating (not counting 2/3 of the new ones) that died. So I honestly believe it’s something in the water. Not sure though.

Is it possible there was a contaminant in the container you use to mix your water for your WC? I know you said it's been 5 weeks since you did one, maybe a contaminant could have gotten into the mixing container in that time?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Just got home and noticed another fish died, this was the sick one. I attached some pics of it to hopefully see if it will narrow down the issue. Sorry it’s a graphic pic probably the most I’ve ever seen. It’s heartbreaking

This fish was likely either mauled to death from aggression or CUC started to work on it but the mouth hanging open often suggests low oxygen within the tank and may be elevated levels of ammonia, nitrate, ph.

 

[C4ctus99]

I missed the part in the OP where you said you rinsed the rocks off. Fresh or saltwater? Tap or RODI?

If you did fresh water or tap, it could have killed the bacteria on the rocks, recycling your tank that night causing amonia issues and that then spiraled into stress and deaths and a whole slew of other issues in the tank after.

Sorry you are going through all this, I know it sucks and props to you for sticking with it! My tank is currently in a couple different tanks now cause I brought home a fish with Ick

 

[newreef1]

This fish was likely either mauled to death from aggression or CUC started to work on it but the mouth hanging open often suggests low oxygen within the tank and may be elevated levels of ammonia, nitrate, ph.

I don’t think it was aggression by any other fish because the only fish I have left are my old ones and I’ve had them since the beginning of my tank, they’ve never exhibited aggression till date. I’m not as knowledgeable as others here but for some reason I just have a gut feeling that’s it’s not ICH or disease but something to do with my water parameters or water chemistry. Not sure if maybe the copper leached into the sand from the last copper treatment or somehow the no water change for over a month dropped the water quality and I can’t seem to detect something in the tests. This is my plan as of the moment. I’ve always had a white cloud even when my fish were healthy, apparently that’s not very good. I got some finer felt socks 100 micron, media pads for clarifying water (the white polishing pad), phosphates pad, and nitrates pad. I will add purigen which I don’t have at the moment but generally do, carbon which I took out due to the copper I had added last week and I just purchased Chemipure which I will be adding to tank as well. I’m going to do weekly water changes for a month to get the water clarity up. I’ll update this forum after a month or so. What do you think of the plan?