livestock dying...why?

[ryanpal]

hello everyone,

i'll try to keep this post brief and use bullet points to sum it all up.

-ich outbreak 3 weeks ago
-fish looked like they were fighting it off
-all eating and seemed healthy besides the white parasites
-didn't net because i felt they would fight it off
-last week BTA got shredded in powerhead
-pbt jumped out of tank
-long nose butterfly hidding alot during day out at night
-quarantined butterfly in seperate tank but died before could receive treatment
-dottyback died yesterday (wasn't able to catch to quarantine)
-clowns were caught and in seperate tank
-clowns had whitish cloudiness and black spots (didn't look like ich parasites)
-still trying to catch yellowwatchmen and damsel
-condy anemone perished and removed 4 days ago
-found pistol shrimp dead
-with all but the exception of the goniopora (which never opened up fully) all corals look great and flourishing

the nitrates were around 20..not ideal but it didn't seem enough to cause this problem. i started to do a vodka dose but stopped because it didn't seem to have an affect and the livestock was perishing anyway. i did 1ml a day for 3 days in my 150gal tank.

other than that i did large water changes (two 50 gal changes) which the salinity changed from 1.023-1.026 for the first one done a month ago. the next change the salinity was kept the same but i also rearranged the rock work which stirred things up a bit.

based on the info above, what do you guys think the problem is/was? the corals are fine but the livestock took a hit hard. the dottyback didn't look like he had signs of ich but died anyway.

any ideas? what i can test for...check etc?

thanks in advance,
ryan

[msn711]

I would put my money on ich. Fish only display the white spots during certain periods of the parasite's life cycle. Doesn't mean you've rid the tank of ich; you just can't see it everyday. If you've lost all of your fish, keep it fishless for 6 to 8 weeks to allow any remaining parasites to die off. If you still have some fish, remove to QT and treat for 6 to 8 weeks.

Make sure the BTA getting shredded didn't cause an ammonia spike.

[Frick-n-Frags]

Ryan, you are quite the busy guy regarding your tank. This may not be in the best interest of your tank. Things really go right when there is some semblance of stability. At some point you will need to let things be a bit.

[ryanpal]

Frick-n-Frags, correct you are. i guess thats the perfectionist that comes out.

things were semi downhill and i thought a water change might help things out a bit. during so, i decided it was the best time to do the remodeling of the rocks because i would have pushed it off for quite some time.

now the rock scape is how i want it (for the most part) and i have most of the fish out.

once i get the others out i'm going to do things very slowly and ensure optimal conditions are set before adding new additions.

...

so ich seems to be the culprit what about the condy? thought they aren't affected by ich

[msn711]

The condy could be anything. Anemones in general aren't easy to keep. Try posting in the anemone/clownfish sub-forum if you really want more help in that department.

[airinhere]

I have to agree you are doing way too much to your tank all at once. It also sounds like you are a fairly new reefkeeper who is still learning the basics. The steps you are taking are all correct for dealing with problems in your tank, but each activity has a cascade of side effects you need to fully understand before you implement them.

just as helpful advice, starting from point one.

Ich is probably in everyones tank. It is more a sign of stressed fish than anything else.
Your decision to include a powder blue tang was likely causal in the stress (their agressive usually) and the fact that they are considered prone to having Ich. PBT are a somewhat difficult fish to keep alive.

Sorry to hear he jumped. Suicide is never the answer.

BTA like to wander around and powerheads like to shred them. Expect it to happen again, and prepare to prevent it by using screen mesh or a closed loop instead of powerheads.

Anems are considered difficult for a reason. Water quality has to be very good to keep them for any long term success. I think you should have 6 months to a year of experience before getting any not because your tank isnt ready, but because you arent ready. Learning experiences like this (I had them as well.) teach you how to maintain proper water conditions. (and yes, I lost my PBT without knowing they were Ich magnets also. Expensive lesson.)

Hawkfish are nocturnal and dont expect to see them much during the day.

PBT was likely pestering your butterfly, but nocturnal activity is not unusual there either.

Good job getting your other fish into quarantine. Most people fail to do this.

Cloudines with dark spots? I hope its just bruising from your fish fighting with each other, but check out brookynelia (sp?) Bad, bad stuff to get in your tank. Even if you dont have it, make sure you could ID it. Hate to bring home a sick fish from the LFS.

Condy, see BTA. Ammonia and nitrite spikes are common when anemones die. Might want to check your parameters.

Abouot parameters, we need these from you to help see what is going on in your tank. We need ph, dKH, Calcium, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and phosphate as a good start.

Salinity is very mportant to keep stable. An obvious, sudden shift is very hard on your (already sick) fish and your corals. Even harder on them is the suddenly different ph value of the water. And even the new temperature of the water has a serious impact on your tank.

Vodka/sugar dosing is a complex issue and something you probably read about and thought you could use to get your nitrates lower with. It does work, but has its own dangers. It doesnt work instantly either.

Make sure you do some verification about anything you read about here on RC. We are a bunch of know-it-alls and forget that while we understand the side effects, not everyone reading our posts is aware there are risks to the methods we sometimes pontificate about.

Reaquascaping while everything was in turmoil was just frosting the cake. The cake was baked already and your tank was commited to undergoe a mini cyle regarless. Probably should have waited, but probably only made the situation slightly worse. And if you like the new aquascape, the pro outweighs the con in this instance. Careful handling rock, stirring up some sediment is the least of your problems to worry about when moving rock around.

My only advice is to stop doing anything. Wait about 2 weeks. Fish that are doomed to die will be dead and gone. Your tank is 150 gal. It can survive a lot. Allow it to develop a healthy biological community for dealing with ammonia and nitrate. Then worry about boosting your tanks denitrification abilities. Do water changes weekly until then. Medicate your QT fish for a month and then put them back into the tank. Keep your QT tanks running. All new fish go there first. Then you never have to deal with this again.

[ryanpal]

airinhere,

great response and well noted. a few responses to your statements. about the pbt and longnose not getting along. when first introduced they had a little "chase act" going on when near each other. after a week or so they were comfortable with each other and didn't show any signs of aggression to one another.

at night i didn't see anyything odd going on either. so im not sure so he was chased out of the tank.

as far as adding the anemones. i added in the condy when i was still pretty new to the hobby but it was doing rather well before this past week. he even woudl go close to ther powhereads but never got sucked in. the other anemone was doing rather well until things got a little topsy turvy.

as far as vodka dosing. i did read the threads on here and did a good amount of research. i even decided to start with small doses (1ml) instead of 1ml per 50gal. i decided to stop this when i was already doing a water change and changing the rocks. i figured i didn't want to put another variable in the equation.

i am still new to the hobby and have learned some valuable lessons. the last ones (with the exception of a few mistakes) i did research but just made some bad judgement calls.

from this point on, it patience and trying to keep changes to a minimum.

you mentioned brooklynella. i see you should treat with formalin. i also see that you can treat ich with formalin. to be on the save side should i opt for this treatment? i'm still uncertain if it's brooklynella or not. the one clown does have a cloudyness over him...not cyst like. i would add photos but my point and click camera comes out blurry.

thanks for your lengthy reply

[ryanpal]

oh yeah i should also add that i found a dead hermit yesterday. all other hermits are doing ok...i know these guys shouldn't be affect by ich so is there someting else that could be affecting all these live animals?

does this seem like an issue if a chemical (perhaps cleaning solution or soap from dishes) were introduced to the tank????

[Dexter1334]

If while rearranging your rocks you stirred up the sand bed deeply you could have released toxins from aerobic bacteria in the sand bed. I made the mistake of stirring up my sand bed and lost most of my fish in the next few days. It was a stable tank and that was the only change that could have accounted for the loss.

[airinhere]

Could have been a molt.
Were there any guts inside the body?
Used to freak me out when I thought all my hermits were dying, and then I finally realized the bodies were just empty shells.

You did mention nitrates. I just wanted to point out that nitrates are like fertilizer. They feed algae and in super high concentrations can be problematic. They are not usualy directly responsible for any ilness or symptoms in our tanks except for algae growth. One of the main reasons we check nitrates is because they are measurable and usually directly correlate into other, udetectable parameters of our water. For my first year of reefkeeping, I thought nitrates were like a slow actig toxin in our tanks. I like to make a point of dispelling that myth whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Back on topic,
Frustrating as this can be, I believe every reefkeeper has gone through something like this at one point or another. I added a PBT and it took out half my fish when it died of Ich, and I bought a flame angel that gave everyone in the tank Ich a little while later. My Yellow Tang survived both outbreaks and is still going strong in one of my 90 gal tanks.

He is a constant reminder to QT any new fish.

[H2OLUVSME]

You stated the trates and sg, but what are the other parameters? temp, pH, amm, trite, etc..

How long has the tank been set up?

[ryanpal]

airinhere,

interesting concept. what you stated was exactly my impression. it's funny you mention algae growth. i do see signs of some on some of the rocks...mostly on the sand actually. its the brown/purple algae on the sand. i was able to circumvent this by changing the powerheads but then it pushing the sand around too much. i have yet to find the perfect flow which skims the top of the sand so that algae doesn't grow without causing a valley that goes to the bottom of the tank.

H2OLUVSME,
temp is 76.
salinity 1.026/1.025
phosphates show 0 but i do see some algae...is this wrong then?
nitrate shows 20 this was even after a 50gal WC. i think the moving of the rocks is responsible
dkh-8
calicum is 440-460 (if i recall correctly)

those are the only test i can perform with my API kit