Gnome Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 72 Gal with sand, rock, zoas, rics, candy cane, palys, sun polyp, scolymia coral, and mushrooms. CUC consists of nassarius snails, a couple of bumble bees, certh snails, blue legged crabs, cleaner shrimp, emerald crab and a red crab (small). Current fish are black and white clown, carpenter wrasse and pajama cardinal. Remora Pro hob skimmer, 2 koralia 3 and a Cascade 800 canister filter. Since the day my tank cycled water params have been consistently good (zero ammo, nitrates, nitrites and phosphates. SG 1.025, calc 440, PH 8.2 temp 78-81°). Everything in the tank appears healthy and there are no apparent problems. June 27 I added two Blue Reef Chromis to existing pair of Picasso clowns, yellow watchman goby, pajama cardinal and carpenter wrasse. A few days later I found a blue chromis dead. A couple days later the other blue chromis died. A few days later one of the picassos died followed a couple days later by the second. Then the yellow watchman goby died. None of the fish had any marks that would indicate an attack and I found them before any crabs or snails started their cleanup. There were no signs of stress or illness before they died. During this time everything else in the tank showed no ill effects including the pajama cardinal and wrasse. I moved in a black and white clown that had been in my 29gal bio cube and he is still in the tank and doing well. July 23 I put in a Brazilian Gramma and I found him dead July 28. Again, water params test good and all the other critters and corals are doing well. None of the fish have shown any aggression towards each other and everything is getting along quite well. Why are certain fish dying while others are healthy? There are no signs of disease or stress and everything is eating well until sudden death. I have seen no indications of any predators such as a mantis and have checked the tank a few times in the middle of the night. This is bugging me since there is nothing obvious and only a few fish have died while everything else in the tank is in good health. There is good water flow throughout the tank and the spray bar from the canister keeps the surface agitated. Any ideas? Everything in the tank has been purchased from LFS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DennisW Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 What is in the canister filter? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dsoz Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 Where did you get the fish? How long were they there before you got them? Did you QT them for at least two weeks (I do this with copper ick medication and hyposalinity just to be sure) before adding to tank? Chromis are along with damsels are considered "garbage fish" and usually come with all sorts of interesting parasites and diseases. They could have brought disease and parasites into your tank. Wow, you lost some picaso clowns. That would be hard on the pocketbook. My condolences. dsoz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
defigart Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 Chromis are along with damsels are considered "garbage fish" and usually come with all sorts of interesting parasites and diseases. They could have brought disease and parasites into your tank. dsoz The Chromis were my suspect too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gnome Posted July 30, 2008 Author Share Posted July 30, 2008 What is in the canister filter? A sponge in the bottom and some filter floss plus a bag of purigen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gnome Posted July 30, 2008 Author Share Posted July 30, 2008 Where did you get the fish? How long were they there before you got them? Did you QT them for at least two weeks (I do this with copper ick medication and hyposalinity just to be sure) before adding to tank? Chromis are along with damsels are considered "garbage fish" and usually come with all sorts of interesting parasites and diseases. They could have brought disease and parasites into your tank. Wow, you lost some picaso clowns. That would be hard on the pocketbook. My condolences. dsoz The chromis had been at the store for a couple of days. There were 5 total and 2 of them are in a store display still swimming around. One other went with a customer and LFS owner says she has not said anything about the fish dying. Unfortunately I don't have a way to QT so fish have to go into the tank. I felt really bad about the picassos since I had won them in a drawing at the fish store and I really didn't want to lose them. I'm curious though that if something was introduced to the tank why it didn't bother the Pajama Cardinal or the Carpenter Wrasse and now a black and white clown is swimming about, quite happy. Also didn't bother any of the clean up crew including a cleaner shrimp, snails, crabs, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
defigart Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 The chromis had been at the store for a couple of days. There were 5 total and 2 of them are in a store display still swimming around. One other went with a customer and LFS owner says she has not said anything about the fish dying. Unfortunately I don't have a way to QT so fish have to go into the tank. I am not going to name names, but there is a person I know who lots several very expensive fish due to not quarenteening. A quarantenen setup can be a small 10 gallon tank with a filter and some substrate. Just need to make sure you can treat anything the fish may have before introducing it to the entire system. I am not trying to preach here, but this can't really be stressed enough. I'm curious though that if something was introduced to the tank why it didn't bother the Pajama Cardinal or the Carpenter Wrasse and now a black and white clown is swimming about, quite happy. Also didn't bother any of the clean up crew including a cleaner shrimp, snails, crabs, etc. The same reason not everyone who gets exposed to something gets sick. Some immune systems are able to fight off something, that others aren't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kriswaters Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 I myself have no quarantine tank, but do have a goal to set one up before introducing any more fish into my tank. I lost some blue chromis a while back, shortly after putting them into the tank. Perhaps because they are inexpensive fish, the initial handling of them is not so good (pure speculation). So, until I have a qt tank...I will hlod off on any swimming thing! Kris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
180Brandy Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 I have the same problem I can't seem to keep fish in my tank. Not sure what the problem is, I can keep clams, brain coral etc... but no fish..... (scratch) all water prams seem good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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