Tank Deaths

boowho

AC Members
Mar 22, 2006
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I woke up this morning and 4 of 5 of my fish were dead. I have had no problems and all of my parameters were fine. The temp in my tank was 78. Any ideas as to why? 2 of the fish I had since I started my tank. Tank has been running since February 13. Fish lost were: Yellow Tang, Blue Damsel, Strawberry Basslet and a Cinnamon Clown. Surviving was the Lawnmower Blenny. My Inverts are also still alive along w/ the Peppermint Shrimp and a Turbo Snail.
 
Sounds like the aftemath of the amonia poisonig you subjected your fish to when setting up the tank. No matter what the tank is, a fishless cycle needs to be done, or the chances of the fish living anywhere near as long as there suposed to are very slim.
 
I know for fact that it was not ammonia poisoning. I did a water test the night before all of this happened and the test read 0 for ammonia. My nitrate read 0, nitrite 0, alkalinity 300 and the ph level was 8.4. Everything was perfect. I have a 29 gallon Eclipse tank..Marineland 200 filter..Aqua C Remora Skimmer. 10#'s Live Rock.. 4" Live Sand Base. All of the fish were eating well and didn't seem stressed to me at all. As a matter of fact at feeding time they were coming up to the top for me to feed them. I was actually hand feeding my cinnamon clown. He was cool. Well anyway, any suggestions on what to do next? Run it without fish? All answers are welcomed. Thanks for replying............
 
Well, the yellow tang is said to need atleast a 55g (although some people say 75), but I have a yellow tan in a 29g right now so I should'nt be talking, but as long as it's smaller than 4" I think it's ok for short term(and my tank is bieng upgraded to 55 within a month becuase I'm moving). If all the params were perfect, I say catergarize this as MSD and restock the tank, preferably with more peacefull occupants(no damsels or the majority of chromis).

Did you research the ocupants before hand? If not I would consider this a perfect time to start a new with more suitable fish, and maybe turn it into a reef setup(right now all you need is lighting, but I don't know what your current lighting is so I'm not sure). I have links if you need them, just ask.
 
Actually, all of my fish got along great. I had no problems with fighting. I even stayed up late and tuned all the lights out in the tank thinking that maybe something was living in the live rock and came out and killed everything. I had flashlight in hand and was prepared to catch what ever it was. I wished I would of taped myself because I'm sure I looked like a huge dork. The most I caught was the cats chasing the light. LOL
 
IMO, you definatly need to find out what happened and not just let it go. My guess you changed the water with a bad salt. maybe you didnt put in enough salt? or too much? Maybe the salt was jsut bad. maybe you washed out the container with a detergent? Maybe somethign got into the bucket. You need to find out what killed your fish before thinking of restocking. Please. you say these fish were fine before your water change, now after they are all dead. You cannot say that everything is fine. Something happened.
sooo.... what are your water paramenters? lol
good luck
 
ya, but after a few years the damsel would get really agressive and nippy/ teritorial, read some species profiles over at age of aquariums and you will see what I mean. I have even read of them(on other sites) living for quite a while with octipi (wich will hunt down and eat any thing in the tank that moves) becuase of how evasive they are(wich will make any attempts by the other fish in the tank defending themselves useless).

If you want corals, the light will be suffiecient for most if not all soft corals, and maybe some SPS or LPS if they are close enough to the light.
 
dorkfish said:
ya, but after a few years the damsel would get really agressive and nippy/ teritorial, read some species profiles over at age of aquariums and you will see what I mean. I have even read of them(on other sites) living for quite a while with octipi (wich will hunt down and eat any thing in the tank that moves) becuase of how evasive they are(wich will make any attempts by the other fish in the tank defending themselves useless).

If you want corals, the light will be suffiecient for most if not all soft corals, and maybe some SPS or LPS if they are close enough to the light.
???
it doesnt matter what the damsels would have eventualy turned out like. The point is that at some point, weather it still be the case, her aquarium was unsuitable for 4 of his 5 fish to survive in. If she is going out to buy more fish she needs to find out what caused the others to die and make sure it is fixed. Even with damsels, a life is still a life.
And those lights would be good with most softies and some LPS such as a hammer. But i wouldnt put any sps under there.
 
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