UPDATE Clown died, Chromis now sick, what is going on!

W

Wackydaffy

My favorite fish in my tank is acting wierd. (now dead)

(My clownfish normally swims around and has a great time. Yesterday I saw that he has going to the surface and taking gulps of air. Today he is just in a corner opening and closing his mouth.) Now dead.

Yesterday was a bad day, a chromis went into my overflow box, and my one cleaner shrimp died. Cause unknown.

My water yesterday had slightly low alkilinity, higher amonia, and high nitrates of 90ppm. Not sure why. I did a water change about 3 days before that, top off water. Salinity was at about 1.020


So, got home, did a salt water change. Today I took my water in and had it checked, salinity was at about 1.022-23 and everything else looked great. Still not sure why my clownfish is acting that way. All my other fish are fine.

Jason who works at the store suggested turning off the lights today so I have done that.

Any other ideas or any reasons why it might be acting like this?

Thanks, def. don't want this one to die, my girlfriend loves it.
 
He looks exactly like normal. Just not behaving like normal. With the lights off he is still just in the corner opening and closing its mouth. Mind you it is not sitting on the ground, it is about a third of the way up from the floor.
 
You mentioned having ammonia readings...did I read that right?? How long has your tank been setup, have you added additional fish since the water change and how much LR do you have in your tank.

Cheers!
 
My clownfish died last night. I'm not sure why. Yesterday the water tests were all within parameters. Came in this morning and it was dead. The ammonia had been somewhat high, at about .25ppm, but not something that the clownfish shouldn't be able to live through. I have had the tank for almost two weeks now. Purchased from a couple that supposedly had it up for about a year. Since I have gotten it i have done about 4-5 water changes to get the nitrates down, ammonia, and my most recent change to get my salinity back up. Not sure if that is a normal amount of changes. My orange spotted gobie, cardinalfish, and 2 green chromis seem to be doing fine. My xenia i got like 2 days ago is larger now and doing well. The snails are all alive. Not sure what is going on with this thing. When I purchased this thing the couple told me it had about 150lbs of live rock. So, not knowing anything I was fine with that. Now, I have no clue if that is the amount. It could be 150lbs, or much less.


That's about it. I'll go in and have the water tested again today and see if the test goes well. If it does then I don't know why my clownfish died.
 
_any_ ammonia means that the tank isn't completely cycled. Have you checked nitrite levels, too? Both are toxic in small quantities.

Even moving a well established tank can cause a cycle. Sounds like the tank just isn't ready.
 
Ok...When you say the water tests were all within parameters, what does this mean? You should have a reading of zero for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate in a fully cycled tank. I forgot to ask the size of your tank. It sound like you are having die off from the LR and a mini cycle kicked off. You may want to increase the amount of your water changes to at least 25% in order to get that ammonia level down, I am curious about the other parameters. Do you have your own test kit or do you get your water tested at the LFS? Please post the parameters so others can see if they are ok.

Cheers!
 
Alright, did another 5% change today, saltwater.

Before that took my water to the lfs, and got these results:

Ammonia 0.0
Nitrite 0.25
Alkalinity 6
Nitrate 40
pH 8.1
Salinity 1.021


K, have to raise my salinity. Hopefully this water change will help bring down the nitrates and nitites. Adding some a/b ionic for the alkalinity.
 
Looks like the cycle is not yet done...And or the loss of life kicked up some ammonia, which was changed on over to nitrite, which hasn't yet completely converted to nitrate... You want 0 on ammonia and nitrite at all times. Nitrate of 40 after a water change means to me that your tank is converting some worse stuff over to nitrates.

I didn't see the answer in the above, how old is the tank?

Whoops! found it... 2-3 weeks!!!! yikes! Um, when you added the live rock, unless it was cured, it started another cycle on the tank. I'm guessing you have a 150G tank (based on the amount of LR).

the Chromis should weather this... Not sure on the goby or the cardinal.

The only thing I can see that was done is that you went way too fast. I got very lucky with my tank and the LR I purchased was very well cured. My cycle was literally done in a week. But again, I proceeded slowly at that point (it is a hard thing to do.).

Even at 8 months, I don't consider my tank completely stable and definitely not where I want it to be.

Keep on with the water changes, 10% so you don't shock anyone in there. And keep with it until your nitrites are zero and nitrates are much lower.

Next discussion should concern your sump/refugium/filtering equipment... All the fun stuff I had to redo once I got things going.

- W
 
Now one of my chromis is bad. It is swimming vertically in a corner of the tank near the top. It seems to have a slight bump/abrasion under its mouth, and the lower part of its tail half of it is missing, and little parts of the upper tail is missing.

In the tank I have 1 xenia

1 hermit crab

1 orange spotted gobie

4 snails

75g tank

I have no idea what is going on.
 
@Wackydaffy wrote:
I have no idea what is going on. said:
Hello..anybody home. Your tank appears to be cycling . That is bad. Your water quality is bad, 5 gallons water changes are not going to help you, you will need larger water changes. I hate using chemicals but you may need to use some in this case. I would suggest buying test kits if you don't have any so that you can monitor your own tank parameters.

***edit*** You should stop dosing anything to your tank, your salinity also appears to be jumping around way too much.

Cheers!
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My suggestions would be as follows:

I would immediately start running carbon in your system until you get things under control.
You might also want to consider using Amquel or similar to lock-up the ammonia.
Continue doing water changes and work on bringing up your salinity in the process.
Do not add any more livestock to your tank until you get your water parameters corrected.
If your fish seem to be struggling to breathe, you might also consider adding an air pump/airstone into the water flow.

Good luck.
 
I had to add to this issue but the Alkalinity is low also I believe. Alk. plays a big role in providing your buffer during changes in your water. Mine is normally high.
 
@ironbird456 wrote:
I had to add to this issue but the Alkalinity is low also I believe. Alk. plays a big role in providing your buffer during changes in your water. Mine is normally high. said:
He needs to get the basic water parameters/husbandry in control first. IMO

Cheers!
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Big big water changes. Seriously like 50% everyday for a week. Get the cycle kicked without killing anything else!

Add nothing new. Amquel in between wtaer changes is not a bad idea just in case. Polyfilters and carbon will help also!

Your in crisis mode now. Forget alk or anything else!
 
@kwl1763 wrote:
Big big water changes. Seriously like 50% everyday for a week. Get the cycle kicked without killing anything else! Add nothing new. Amquel in between wtaer changes is not a bad idea just in case. Polyfilters and carbon will help also! Your in crisis mode now. Forget alk or anything else! said:
I am not sure I would forget alk or anything else. Bottom line is that your going to get 20 different opinions. Look through them and put together your own game plan.
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You can believe what you want but two points.

1) With massive water changes Alk and other parameters will by the very act of water changes fall inline (unless you have a bad batch of salt of course)

2) Fish could care less about alk. Most fish only tanks have very very low alkalinity and they do fine.

Alkalinity is simple a measure of how much acid the water can absorb without changing pH. It's vitally important to stony corals and much less importart to anything else. No one here is saying it's not important it is just nothing to worry about at this point and 6 for sure is nothing to worry about right now. While not ideal everything can easily live at 6 dKh.

I would be changing water like a madmand and testing ammonia and nitrites and that's it. Once those are consistently zero then I'd do the rest.
 
I agree with Keith, do massive water changes until that ammonia and nitrite get to and STAY zero...

IMHO worrying about low alk while there's ammonia and/or nitrite in your tank at ALL is like complaining to your doctor about a sprained ankle while they're wheeling you in for life-saving open heart surgery...
 
You might have a "chat" with your LFS about holding your critters for you until things get stable. Otherwise, I fear you're going to be replacing them all soon...
 
@kwl1763 wrote:
You can believe what you want but two points. 1) With massive water changes Alk and other parameters will by the very act of water changes fall inline (unless you have a bad batch of salt of course) 2) Fish could care less about alk. Most fish only tanks have very very low alkalinity and they do fine. Alkalinity is simple a measure of how much acid the water can absorb without changing pH. It's vitally important to stony corals and much less importart to anything else. No one here is saying it's not important it is just nothing to worry about at this point and 6 for sure is nothing to worry about right now. While not ideal everything can easily live at 6 dKh. I would be changing water like a madmand and testing ammonia and nitrites and that's it. Once those are consistently zero then I'd do the rest. said:
This post sounds much better than your first post. I was just pointing out something no one else mentioned. I was not trying to say Alk is the be all end all. I just did not think it was a good idea to toss everything else out the window. That was my point.
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