ssappington Posted October 13, 2014 Share Posted October 13, 2014 My fish haven't been happy the last week... fuzzy spots ,cloudy eyes... params were ok, so I thought it was just bacterial from the stress of adding a new large fish to the tank... this morning I woke up to 4 dead fish, and everyone else hiding... corals all look great... nitrates trites and phos are all up, which I'd expect from the dead fish... I'll do a 20% water change as soon as the water is up to temp, and another tomorrow... anything else I should do? I'm afraid this is going to turn into a full on crash... my first disaster in 2 years... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rworegon Posted October 13, 2014 Share Posted October 13, 2014 Did you quarantine the new fish? Is the new fish one of the casualties? Have you diagnosed the illness? Do you have a hospital tank you can set up? Make up lots of fresh saltwater, you will need it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reefnjunkie Posted October 13, 2014 Share Posted October 13, 2014 Run carbon if you got it, and have more water ready. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pledosophy Posted October 13, 2014 Share Posted October 13, 2014 Carbon is your friend right now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jadams7 Posted October 13, 2014 Share Posted October 13, 2014 Yep carbon and water changes. Hit me up if you need a hand. I am around today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reefnjunkie Posted October 13, 2014 Share Posted October 13, 2014 Sorry for the short answer earlier. you said nitrites are up, have you checked ammonia? Any disruption in the sand bed (assuming you have sand)-just curious but as mentioned mix up another 20-40% for the next water change and carbon if you got it. Its a guess, but it sounds like something is causing a mini cycle-all the dead fish maybe although they shouldn't decompose that quick to cause the spikes. anything else potentially dead in there (thats why I asked about the sand disruption) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandinga Posted October 13, 2014 Share Posted October 13, 2014 If all the nasty params are up(ammonia, nitrite, trate) then a larger than 20% WC is in order...I'm not sure your tank size, but I'd shoot for more like a 40% change. A 20% change would be more like routine maintenance...40% would be more of an emergency. Then 20% tomorrow, and the following day if the N03 and ammonia stay up. Your main focus really needs to be getting ammonia and nitrite back to 0...those two alone will kill fish and corals and things can spiral pretty quickly. Once the NSW is up to temp, and salinity dialed in, I wouldnt worry about letting it sit...Ammonia and Nitrite are much more toxic than freshly mixed SW. Then later today re-test the trites and ammonia...really got to get those down. Nitrate will come down with WC's guaranteed...but the ammonia and trites can be stubborn. Also, check for any other decomposing matters such as dead coral, cuc's, nems, fish, etc...and get em out asap. dead stony corals are no big deal, but any leathers, or other soft corals that look to be decaying should come out as they have a lot more organic tissue that can take days...weeks to full dissolve. As others have said...carbon...lots of it....I would highly recommend a reactor if you dont already have one... If you have one dedicated to GFO, now would be a great time to swap it out for a large batch of carbon...and I would change the carbon in a couple days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ssappington Posted October 13, 2014 Author Share Posted October 13, 2014 Thanks for all the tips... This is an odd one... thinking it's a fish only disease... all corals look great... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandinga Posted October 13, 2014 Share Posted October 13, 2014 Tank crash? There is no such thing as a coral/fish disease...each is mutually exclusive. Fish diseases are for fish and coral disease for coral. However a fish only disease CAN crash coral as well if the nitrite and ammonia spike...though the disease that caused the initial fish loss will not affect the coral...unless, as already stated, the water quality suffers due to decaying organic matter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emerald525 Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 If the corals are doing fine, I agree sounds like a fish disease. Marine velvet can wipe out a tank that quickly. And like you said all the dead fish could cause nitrates/nitrites and phosphates to go up. Sorry to hear about your loss. I went through marine velvet when I had a Fowlr tank and it was so sad. That's what finally made me decide to set up a permanent QT tank. One of the best investments I made! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ssappington Posted October 14, 2014 Author Share Posted October 14, 2014 Yeah... very sad... thinking this is marine velvet... anything I can do to help the surviving fish that won't nuke the biofilter or corals? I hope at least that the biofilter can handle the extra load and I don't start losing corals, inverts, etc... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goldenbasketreef Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 My fish haven't been happy the last week... fuzzy spots ' date='cloudy eyes... params were ok, so I thought it was just bacterial from the stress of adding a new large fish to the tank... this morning I woke up to 4 dead fish, and everyone else hiding... corals all look great... nitrates trites and phos are all up, which I'd expect from the dead fish... I'll do a 20% water change as soon as the water is up to temp, and another tomorrow... anything else I should do? I'm afraid this is going to turn into a full on crash... my first disaster in 2 years...[/quote'] Steve, usually when outside extreme temp change the barometric pressure also fluctuate. The fish sense this and may lower their immune system. When temp of water gets colder, marine velvet and ick that stays in fish gut can become active to attack fish. If you don't have coral in the tank try to bring up the temp around 89 deg and pay the attention to your fish body for powder coating appearance and cloudy eyes. If you see this then malachite green and formaldehyde combination in one package is good for treatment. Pure copper sulfate (non chelated one) also can be used if you don't plan to put coral in the tank. Copper stays in the tank and absorb to the live rock and stay for good. I hope you can control this sooner. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goldenbasketreef Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 Set up quarantine tank, this is a must if you have fish. This way you don't have to treat the whole tank and easy on the cost of med when you have smaller quarantine tank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scubasteve Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 Just had an explosion in my tank as well.. only new fish was after triple nuke qt. And woke up to 2 doas tjis morn... hm barometrics, new fish, and boom crap shoot? 30% water change, fish came out, eating and much better tank dinamyic.. and just did another 30% ... will see what the finnys do in morn... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emerald525 Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 Yeah... very sad... thinking this is marine velvet... anything I can do to help the surviving fish that won't nuke the biofilter or corals? I hope at least that the biofilter can handle the extra load and I don't start losing corals' date=' inverts, etc...[/quote'] Here is a link to some good information. Google marine velvet and see if it fits with what you are seeing on your fish. Also look up Brooklynella. Those are 2 of the diseases in my experience that wipe out fish quickly. http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-07/sp/feature/index.php Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emerald525 Posted October 17, 2014 Share Posted October 17, 2014 Any updates? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ssappington Posted October 17, 2014 Author Share Posted October 17, 2014 No crash yet... all corals/inverts are fine... most fish are dead, I have three that appear unscathed, two that are sick, but appear to be recovering, one one that may still die... Lessons learned I guess... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emerald525 Posted October 17, 2014 Share Posted October 17, 2014 No crash yet... all corals/inverts are fine... most fish are dead, I have three that appear unscathed, two that are sick, but appear to be recovering, one one that may still die... Lessons learned I guess... Sorry to hear about the fish(sad) I know most won't quarantine but I had such a sweet QT system. Jose has it now. I felt like I had a little fish store. It was great when I was providing fish for the Tanks for Teacher school because I could also let the fish acclimate and make sure they were feeding well and got used to people before exposing them to a bunch of children. I'm glad the coral and inverts did fine. What type of fish survived? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ssappington Posted October 17, 2014 Author Share Posted October 17, 2014 Thanks for your interest! Still not sure what to do about QT in the future... my mistakes this time I feel were adding new ones too fast/ to close, and adding a fish of questionable health... I would QT if I lost everyone, but now I'm not sure of the value... will definitely wait a couple months before adding anything new... Two tangs look like they will make it, a leopard wrasse and two chromis appear untouched, and my fire clown looks bad... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emerald525 Posted October 19, 2014 Share Posted October 19, 2014 Thanks for your interest! Still not sure what to do about QT in the future... my mistakes this time I feel were adding new ones too fast/ to close, and adding a fish of questionable health... I would QT if I lost everyone, but now I'm not sure of the value... will definitely wait a couple months before adding anything new... Two tangs look like they will make it, a leopard wrasse and two chromis appear untouched, and my fire clown looks bad... I never took fish out to treat them because I didn't have much luck with removing a stressed fish out of a large tank and they usually ended up dieing anyway. The benefit I found was just keeping a fish for several months in a separate tank so they didn't spread disease to the fish in the main display. I also held fish before adding them to the TFT tanks so i didn't wipe out their display. At this time I agree there's probably no point in treating if the other fish look like they will make it. Don't beat yourself up too much. I did the same thing with my FOWLR tank. I added too much fish too quickly. It's easy to do because you go to the store and see a cool fish and just want them all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ssappington Posted October 19, 2014 Author Share Posted October 19, 2014 Thanks for your kind words and support! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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