Help!! Losing fish

[jpmcousin]

I have a 100 gallon tank with liverock, one 8" French Angel, two yellow tail damsels, one yellow damsel and clown fish. I have a sump type trickle filter with 500 gph pump, with two powerhead behind the liverock, UV light. I recently tried to revive my protein skimmer but stopped because it is making too many bubbles and no foam. I set-up the tank in 1999.

One month ago I had 15 fish, mostly damsels. I bought a new damsels from two different stores within a week. I was away for two weeks of training when my wife said I had some dead fish. She didn't see any symptoms. I had her treat the tank with Seachem cooper and test the tank for cooper. The directions say to keep the level at .15. When I got back I checked and the level was at .10. Then I discovered I forgot to tell her to remove the carbon. I removed the carbon and increased the level to .15. Had to add more drops several days later. The fish were still dying and I panicked. So I did a 25% water change, stopped the cooper and added new carbon. When I did the water change, I noted several small white spots on the angel, looked sort of like a salt spot. After the change the spots went away. The angel looks fine but i'm still losing fish. Last night I added Kick-Ich.

I used to go to a fish store employee I trusted for advice but he no longer works there. I don't have a hospital tank, which is another post I need to make. My pH is 8.3 and all the other test were fine. My clown fish is distressed and I can not see any spots or other symptom other than fast breathing. It is past time to get advice, can someone help me?

 

[Cartman102]

Going to try to help you out as best as I can. Give me all your readings nitrate,ammonia,ect... Your skimmer off shouldn't be a problem but your fish are becomming stress because you are doing something to the water. I would set up a hospital tank, move fish there, leave inverts in the tank, do 30% water change in main tank, treat the fish in the hospital tank for Ich. If your readings are fine then your just stressing your fish to much.

 

[Cartman102]

another thing could be the UV light. I herd somewhere they can go bad and kill fish.

 

[jpmcousin]

My readings are 82 degrees, 8.3 pH, 1.022 sp, 0.3 nitrite, 0.1 ammonia. I don't have a nitrate test kit.

 

[Blinky]

Unfortunately, the copper likely killed off all sorts of tiny invertebrate life in your live rock - things like pods, worms, crabs etc. that you may not even see still live in the rock and the die-off is probably what's causing the ammonia to spike (it could also be from fish that died and weren't removed). It's never advisable to treat the main tank with copper, but if it's a fish-only tank (no crabs, coral, etc.) the only problem I can see is your live rock is now less live than it once was and may leach copper in the future.
Salt-like spots sounds like 'ich', but it's hard to say. At this point if the fish look reasonably okay with no visible signs of disease I'd use a product like Amquel or Prime to neutralize the NH3/NO2, start doing water changes to bring the water quality up and keep things as stress-free as possible. I'd also put the skimmer back on the tank and give it a few weeks to 'break in' - often skimmers don't produce much skimmate for the first while, they take time to start working well. Anything you can do to reduce wastes right now is beneficial, you want to keep ammonia levels as low as you can.
Best of luck, keep us posted.

 

[Cartman102]

Yes, Ammonia and Nitrite are still present. Try and get them to 0.

 

[jpmcousin]

I lost my six year old clownfish yesterday. I thinking of buying a quarantine tank today. I think I should move the fish to quarantine and treat with cooper. I failed at the copper treatment earlier. I was out of town and forgot to tell my wife to remove the carbon. The .15 copper level was not maintained long enough to be effective. I don't have aged water so i want to take water from my big tank for the quarantine tank. Then leave my big tank empty for 4 weeks.

How does this sound? I know it sounds impulsive but I need to take some action to save my French Angel.

I have treated my big tank with cooper numerous times. The live rock only has micro organisms. I doubt my latest treatment raised the ammonia.

 

[Cartman102]

Get a nice size quarantine tank, around 20gal. Fill the quarantine up with about 8 gals your main tanks water and the rest with fresh RO salt water. SO your fish do have ich right, only Ich? How big are your fish? You may need to go bigger with the quarantine. Then just do a big water change on your main tank, the Ich should die since there are no fish to live on. Got any pics of the fish?

 

[dorkfish]

avoid using copper. feed garlic and use freshwater dips to combat diseases, and add garlic to the water to help prevent diseases.

 

[FloridaBoy]

My readings are 82 degrees, 8.3 pH, 1.022 sp, 0.3 nitrite, 0.1 ammonia. I don't have a nitrate test kit.

Jpmc, your seasoned tank should never have nitrite and ammonia, to save the French Angelfish take it to your LFS and have them hold it for you. Although usually hardy, IME marine Angels are sensitive to any shifts or water quality problems and you need to give the system time to re-balance. The angel needs more room anyway, P. paru will reach 15 inches or more in the wild.

You need to slow down and determine the root of the problem; the QT is a good idea and you should have implemented one a long time ago, don't add anything else to your system without at least 3-4 weeks in the QT. Live rock and copper are considered incompatible, I would suggest re-building your system starting with several large water changes, remove all copper with Polyfilters and then add some new live rock. You need to remove all fish during this period to starve any pathogens. Also investigate the substrate and filtration; IMO, most marine systems fail due to substrate problems, and please do have the nitrate checked. If the substrate is chock full of dirt and detritus, you may have found part of the problem.

Take this time out to do a "system tune-up" if needed, examine the filter, turnover rate, oxygenation, gas exchange, nutrient export, etc.... The skimmer should be removing scum on a daily basis, if not then replace it with one that works. Let the tank stabilize for a month or so with the new live rock. During this time you can QT a few hardy specimens and add them as a test after the display runs fallow (no fish) for a month or so. Again, take it slow and see how they do for a month or so.

Lastly, if you plan on keeping more marine angels, take a fresh look at the diet/nutrition; cryptocaryon and other "disease issues" can often be triggered by stress due to poor diet, small tank, etc. The environment is everything, and your fish will often reflect their environment.