My liverock ate my fish!!! Help me.
- Thread starter coolisjade
- Start date
Well if you have ever looked at the fish that die in the LFS they to looked picked apart. Other fish will pick at the fish out of normalcy. Heck even people if hungry enough will eat other people. This has been proven time and time again. Look at the Donner party or even the Rugby team that crashed in the Andes mountains. The same thing happens in nature. Fish eat fish bears eat bears. Its called survival, to them it is food. If he put these fish in the tank only a couple hours/days after he set the tank up there isnt enough beneficial bacteria for the fish to survive. I am betting one fish died and the other lived a little while longer and picked at the other fish until he died as well. I am sorry, yes it could be a mantis shrimp, but in my honest opinion i am saying it isn't.
yeah i started to look at these pics more closely. after doing alot of careful thinking and watching of other tanks i have noticed one thing all fish have in common. If you place a dead fish in the tank all the other fish will pick on that dead fish. Going so far and picking the dead fish up and trying to carry it away from the other fish in the tank. This could explain why the one damsel is partially eaten in the first pic of the damsel. If you look at the second damsel he isnt eaten at all, not even picked on. This further backs my theory that one damsel died and the other began eating him.
now on to the reason why the fin of the one damsel is so elegantly placed on the LR. If you look at pic #3 you will see he has only one powerhead in the tank to circulate the water. This tells me he has poor circulation in the tank to not even move the fin off the rock, hence the reasoning on why it is just sitting there. Hope i dont come off as cocky but honestly i feel that the mistake was the fact he placed the fish in the tank before the water was even biologically ready.
now on to the reason why the fin of the one damsel is so elegantly placed on the LR. If you look at pic #3 you will see he has only one powerhead in the tank to circulate the water. This tells me he has poor circulation in the tank to not even move the fin off the rock, hence the reasoning on why it is just sitting there. Hope i dont come off as cocky but honestly i feel that the mistake was the fact he placed the fish in the tank before the water was even biologically ready.
I think I have two of these in my tank. Mine make noise all the time I seen them. Mine is bright red. I need to get them out but my tank but my tank is 31 inch tall so its hard to get to the bottom .
thank you everyone for your comments. ever since i discovered this website i've been on it atleast a few hours during the day.
UPDATE: after the two damsels died, i went to a fish store in SF 1 day later where there was a firefish for really good price, i was told they were very hardy. i purchased the fish and an extra of 10lb of live rock (17 total now). i woke up this morning to see the fish dead on the sand, no damages to the body. NO MORE FISH FOR NOW until I get this cycle going. I'll definitely take the advice of being patient for now.
i tested my water today and ammonia, nitrate, nitrite all are at "low levels" according to the lfs. the only concern was the ph level being at 7.2. she sold me a buffer to adjust this ph. i've been observing my tank very closely and carefully especially when i was adding the new rocks. i highly doubt that i have a mantis shrimp or even bristle worms in the rocks. i used a red light at night and watched it for hours after placing some food and did not see anything.
as of now: i have 17lb of live rock, and a dead firefish in my tank. should i remove it or will it be good for the bacteria?
btw - i think i have some ok circulation the pump i have is a powerhead 402 which is relatively strong (moves my sand around).
can someone give me some suggestions as to what i should do now? just wait and get more liverock?
thanks again everyone!
UPDATE: after the two damsels died, i went to a fish store in SF 1 day later where there was a firefish for really good price, i was told they were very hardy. i purchased the fish and an extra of 10lb of live rock (17 total now). i woke up this morning to see the fish dead on the sand, no damages to the body. NO MORE FISH FOR NOW until I get this cycle going. I'll definitely take the advice of being patient for now.
i tested my water today and ammonia, nitrate, nitrite all are at "low levels" according to the lfs. the only concern was the ph level being at 7.2. she sold me a buffer to adjust this ph. i've been observing my tank very closely and carefully especially when i was adding the new rocks. i highly doubt that i have a mantis shrimp or even bristle worms in the rocks. i used a red light at night and watched it for hours after placing some food and did not see anything.
as of now: i have 17lb of live rock, and a dead firefish in my tank. should i remove it or will it be good for the bacteria?
btw - i think i have some ok circulation the pump i have is a powerhead 402 which is relatively strong (moves my sand around).
can someone give me some suggestions as to what i should do now? just wait and get more liverock?
thanks again everyone!
Well i'm sorry to say this but if you keep buying fish and adding them to this tank BEFORE it is completely cycled or cycled along far enough to even support life then you will be spending ALOT of money on fish. Your best bet is to be PATIENT like I stated before. Keeping SW fish isn’t like keeping Gold Fish. SW fish are more delicate than Gold Fish. Water qualities in most cases need to be pristine.
Yes remove the dead fish. If not then you will get a lot of bacteria you DONT want.
Also about the power head...any form of current can move sand. You want around 10X the turn over rate for the amount of water. So if you have a 10gallon tank that means you need to have 100 gallons of water being turned. One power head will not be sufficient in a SW aquarium. One power head will create dead spots in your tank for ditrius and other nutrients and such to settle down at creating a feeding point for un-wanted Algae’s.
Your PH is a big worry. The Typical Surface Ocean Value of Ph is 8.0-8.3 (can be lower or higher in lagoons). Also if you can post your other parameters that would be more helpful, Low doesn’t help us much. As for water quality your goal is this:
Ammonia - less than 0.1 ppm
NitrITE - typically below 0.0001 ppm
NitrATE - typically below 0.1 ppm
Calcium - 380-450 ppm Typical Surface Ocean Value is 420 ppm
PH - 8.0-8.3
Salinity - 1.025-1.027
I hope this helps and I hope that you take heed in the idea of being Patient.
Yes remove the dead fish. If not then you will get a lot of bacteria you DONT want.
Also about the power head...any form of current can move sand. You want around 10X the turn over rate for the amount of water. So if you have a 10gallon tank that means you need to have 100 gallons of water being turned. One power head will not be sufficient in a SW aquarium. One power head will create dead spots in your tank for ditrius and other nutrients and such to settle down at creating a feeding point for un-wanted Algae’s.
Your PH is a big worry. The Typical Surface Ocean Value of Ph is 8.0-8.3 (can be lower or higher in lagoons). Also if you can post your other parameters that would be more helpful, Low doesn’t help us much. As for water quality your goal is this:
Ammonia - less than 0.1 ppm
NitrITE - typically below 0.0001 ppm
NitrATE - typically below 0.1 ppm
Calcium - 380-450 ppm Typical Surface Ocean Value is 420 ppm
PH - 8.0-8.3
Salinity - 1.025-1.027
I hope this helps and I hope that you take heed in the idea of being Patient.
