Newbie and already lost six fish

[chickendirt]

On advice of aquarium store owner that my tank was ready after six days I bought six clowns from the same stock. Fish were babies about the size of my thumbnail. He also advised that I add in about twelve pounds of live rock. Long story short the love rock created a massive ammonia spike and killed all six fish in about 45 minutes.

so out 200 in fish.

I thought my tank was cycled as it did process ammonia, nitrite into narrate. Apparently I didn’t cycle enough ammonia to handle the kind of spike the addition of twelve pounds of live rock would create.

The good news it that 72 hours later my nitrites and ammonia are back down to zero. Nitrates are high. I’ve added Stabilite and Microbe Lift to add more microbe.

Last night added two jumbo shrimp in a mesh bag to create more ammonia to cycle. I’m thinking of leaving it in as long as I can.

Is the cyxle a good time to play around adding more sea gunk stuff to the tank to build more bio filter? Have some Dr Tim’s stuff coming as well.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

I wouldn't add any fish to the tank until it is fully cycled, sorry that you lost 6 clowns though!

 

[Sharkbait19]

Live rock wouldn’t cause an ammonia spike - it would help to process it. The clowns would cause a spike after being added though. 45 minutes seems really fast for that though.
How large is the tank? What are your parameters (including salinity)? How did the fish act before dying? How were they acclimated?

 

[Bucs20fan]

My best advise is pause what you have. You need to research what the ammonia cycle is and when it is finished. Second, read up on live rock and how to add it to prevent an ammonia spike. Third. Research clowns. I am very sorry for your loss, It always sucks to lose fish. But these fish dying from ammonia prevented them from dying slower deaths from killing each other. Clowns should be 2 per tank in most cases with exceptions to exceptionally large tanks.

 

[PotatoPig]

What type of water are you using? RODI/tap/from the LFS?

Also what size tank?

Everything immediately dying like that seems odd. The live rock shouldn’t have spiked anything unless it had die-off but it sounds like you got it from the LFS so I assume they pulled it from a big tank and you promptly put it in your tank?

 

[brandon429]

live rock transferred among tanks does not produce ammonia, ammonia didn't kill your fish. there are about six other unstated causatives not reviewed here, it's not cycling, cycling always gets blamed but that's not the case.
any ammonia readings you get from a non digital test kit are in line with the thousands of non digital test kit readings for false alarms. live rock transfers run every reef tank convention ever produced, for forty straight years.

sellers at the reef tank convention know how to move fish and acclimate them without loss, it's not ammonia. your tank was cycled because live rock transferred in skip the cycle *this is why reef tank conventions are able to produce hundreds of complete reefs by the start date* vs some of the entrants having to wait six weeks out in the parking lot for a 'cycle'

#1. acclimation. not stated. your lfs holds clowns at low salinity, you intro'd them to high and if you bag float acclimate, that's bad and harmful. if you skip acclimation on juvenile fish, that's harmful.

#2. no disease preps ran, fallow and qt and observation fully skipped so far.

 

[Tcook]

I’m curious to know what your salinity is and what the stores is. Then, how did you acclimate these fish?

 

[brandon429]

this tank should not have rotting shrimp it in, live rocks don't use that or need your bacterial help, the additives given do nothing to prevent the matter, you're adding rot to your tank via the shrimp degrading. this new tank was set up 100% backwards, but the live rock moved over harmed nothing, nothing died off, it's a skip cycle setup just like all convention cycles. key difference: they know when to look past cycling issues and into the ones that matter.

 

[Crustaceon]

Last night added two jumbo shrimp in a mesh bag to create more ammonia to cycle. I’m thinking of leaving it in as long as I can.

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I've never been a fan of rushing the cycle and going off of a zero ammonia reading because you can get fluctuations during the process that give the false impression that the cycle has sufficiently completed when it really hasn't. Not enough to keep fish anyways. For example, your tank was cycled to handle the load of not having fish. When you added fish, this massively increased the bioload your tank was conditioned to handle. This is why I like using raw shrimp and waiting weeks to months before adding livestock. I just think it creates a more robust bacterial population. Also, live rock can absolutely produce ammonia if it's allowed to get too hot/cold/exposed to air and allowed to dry too much. How the LFS packages the rock and how it's handled when setting up a new tank/adding it to a "cycled" system is important. It's like transferring sand. If you siphon it into a bucket and allow the bucket to get too cold, you'll likely have a cycling event after adding it to a new tank. I wouldn't be surprised if these show vendors who do the "instant setup" were bringing their live rock in heated and aerated containers.

 

[SkinnyMcGinny]

Nothing good happens fast in this hobby. Go slow. Especially in the beginning

 

[LordofCinder]

unfortunate there is no further feedback from the OP.

Really hope the OP just STOPS buying fish, and do a lot of research before buying any more livestock.

Research should include filtration methods on a saltwater tank, as well as fish compatibility and fish tank size requirements (most would advise against more than 2 clowns per tank for example, if the clowns had lived, they likely would have killed each other off until only 2 remain).

 

[chickendirt]

unfortunate there is no further feedback from the OP.

Really hope the OP just STOPS buying fish, and do a lot of research before buying any more livestock.

Research should include filtration methods on a saltwater tank, as well as fish compatibility and fish tank size requirements (most would advise against more than 2 clowns per tank for example, if the clowns had lived, they likely would have killed each other off until only 2 remain).

been a busy last few days.

still here.

Haven’t bought any fish yet. I actually followed the advice of a marine biologist that’s pretty well known in the Boston area. And you can have more than two clown fish in a tank as long as you introduce them at the same time and preferably from the same stock. Which I did. My tank size is 75 gallons.

My issue is that my tank was not cycled enough.

 

[chickendirt]

I wouldn't add any fish to the tank until it is fully cycled, sorry that you lost 6 clowns though!

I’m gonna use the time to experiment. Add all sorts of sea snot and gunk to add bacterial variation. The water gets changed out anyways so why not? I might even get some fish from the supermarket, put it in a zip lock back and let it sit in the sun. Throw it in for a few days.

see where I’m at in a few more weeks.