Vacation disaster

[Boston]

Hello all:

I had a vacation disaster, and I was wondering if anyone could help me figure out what went wrong:

Tank: 10 gallon, salt water, immersible heater, filter, no live rock or coral. Had 2 clowns, 1 chromis, 2 snails, serpent star, 1 tiny gramma.

The tank was fine. I went on vacation for two weeks leaving it with timer lights and autofeeder (flake food every 2 days). Did a water change before I left, reducing the salinity by a very slight about anticipating evaporation in my absence.

When I returned both clowns were dead, and the gramma had vanished. Two days later the chromis began to swim very erratically as if it was agitated, and it died the next morning. The star is behaving oddly, holding itself above the gravel and sitting on top of rocks, instead of hiding beneath them.

I checked the water and it was fine. Ph, nitrates, nitrites, ammonia, salinity, temperature etc were all OK. I've checked it several times and it's fine. My LFS has checked it several times and they say it is fine as well.

I just put in two new clowns. One seems to be swimming erratically, even by clown fish standards, but maybe I am not just overly sensitive.

None of the dead fish had any marks or discolorations on them -- they all looked normal. There was never anything obviously wrong with the water -- it keeps passing all the tests. Does anyone have any idea what's going on?

-boston

 

[YoFishboy]

How long was the tank running before you left? Any environmental issues - ie. near anything that puts out fumes, new carpet, paint, etc?

 

[OrionGirl]

Anything new introduced to the tank before you left? Have you checked that all equipment is functioning properly (ie, no broken pumps or heaters)?

What does 'fine' mean? Numbers? That's a lot of stock for a small tank.

 

[FL Knifemaker]

My 18 is bio loaded to the max (amoninia and Nitrate) with 2 tiny fish and minimal cleaning crew and I have about 40lbs of LR in the system. I can't go more than about 4 days without adding water either. I hate to say this but that many critters in a 10 is going to be serious challenge!

 

[Boston]

Hi:

The tank was running for about 5 months before we went on vacation. It took a while to get the cycles going and we were pretty slow in adding new stock.

There were no environmental issues that I can think of, no new paint, fumes, etc. The house was empty for 2 weeks, no one came in it.

The equipment all seems to be functioning correctly. The pumps and filters are working alright. The temperature is OK. In addition, since the water is OK I'm not sure how to troubleshoot the problem.

When I said the tank was "fine" I meant that all the fish looked pretty happy and healthy. We had the gramma (the latest edition) for a month before leaving.

As for the size of the tank -- yes, it is small. I know 4 fish is a lot, but the fish are not large (chromis was about 0.75 inches, each clown is an inch and a quarter, the gramma was smaller than the chromis). The guy at the fish store (who I trust -- he's very good and really cares about fish) said that we should be OK with the 4, but no more.

I will double check the equipment.

-bosotn

 

[YoFishboy]

Wow..that's bizarre..a few more questions....how much water did evaporate while you were on vacation, and did you test your water before or after you topped it off? Any trace of the gramma corpse? was the feeder working properly?(Although they should have survived even if it didn't). The plot thickens!

 

[skippy2]

Could be oxygen depletion.

 

[Boston]

The normal amount of water evaporated over the 2 weeks, so salinity was a little high, but not crazy high. I usually change water every week, and when I did the water change before leaving I reduced the salinity slightly, so 2 weeks later it was where it usually was after 1 week.

New info: I bought 2 new clowns (so the tank now has 1 star, 2 snails, 2 clowns). The clowns began doing OK, but are now doing poorly and are obviously stressed. Their swimming is frantic and erratic, one has what looks like thin film hanging from its front fin, and the other has what looks like a funy donut surrounding its eye. They have been in the tank for about 2-3 days. Something is going seriously wrong -- I'm going to check the water again.



very depressed

-boston

 

[Boston]

OK, I just checked the water again.

Salinity -- fine
Ph -- fine
Ammonia - zero
Nitrates - High
Nitrites - zero

The high nitrates may just come from being end of cycle.

I suspect that there maybe some contaminent in the water that is not part of the normal tests. Maybe the cleaning lady used some spray close to the tank that has contaminated the water.

My current plan is to do daily 20% water changes. If there is some contaminent in the water, hopefully this will dilute it out so that it stops stressing the fish.

any thoughts?

-boston

 

[OrionGirl]

I'd probably be a bit more aggressive than daily 20%. Larger water changes will help, and as long as you're matching paramters, aren't harmful. I'd do 2 50% changes back to back, then monitor, and maybe follow up with dailies.