2 Trigger & Puffer All Dying & no reason Why..

[justine_sf]

posted March 11, 2002 12:10 AM

[hr]
We have a niger trigger, clown trigger, porcupine puffer, hermit crabs and some damsels all in a 55 gallon tank with some live rock and coral. All get along amazingly well and have been in the tank for over a month now.
For two days now, all have been experiencing heavy breathing, the puffer has been lying on the bottom of the tank, which he never does, and his coat looked almost as if it was rotting off for a bit yesterday (although it wasn't and got better after a water change.) there are no spots or obvious symptoms like with ick, actually barely any symptoms except for the fact that it seems like all these fish might be dying.
they don't eat, barely swim, and are all lying close or on the bottom.
the nitrate level was a bit high so we did a water change and the fish started moving around again for a little while. But all three are very very sick and at the moment, the niger trigger can barely even move and is lying on the bottom of the tank: still breathing but heavily.
the tests all show a normal ph,ammonia and saline level (although the nitrate level is a tiny bit above normal, but nothing dangerous) and the temperature is normal.
Has anyone ever heard of or experienced anything like this?
it's probably a chemical agent that has contaminated the tank but we've done about five water changes with purified water in the past few days just to keep the fish breathing, and it seems to help but what else can we do?
if you have any ideas, please let me know.
thank you!
justine

 

[fmarini]

Justine:
If you saw some relief w/ a water change then you might consider doing a number of small frequent water exchanges and maybe add carbon or a polyfilter to the water. Since all the fish are experiencing the problem its either in the water, or you have a very infectious agent (amyloodinium comes to mind).
Please try to address Eds questions
Ed: All great points
frank

 

[justine_sf]

thank you both.
I just took a sample of the water to a trusted friend at an aquarium store, and it has been determined that the ammonia and nitrate levels are too high, and so we are going to continue with the frequent water changes and have put in a bunch of live rock to provide bacteria and oxygen into the water. also putting a protein skimmer into the mix,
so far the puffer is looking weary but swimming around to make sure we keep on paying attention to him, the niger trigger is still lying down but we think the worst is over.
thanks again guys.
sorry i wasn't so adept at responding to the questions you asked, ed. i guess i was just a little frantic at the time but am very very appreciative of your attempt to help.

 

[jakob4001]

sounds a lot mroe like the LFS was trying to make a $$$ AGAIN..they SHOULD have known your tank was not ready or adding more LR will cause minicycles of its own or that you were over stocking your tank...each one of those will outgrow that size tank at some point...you could alleviate things best by getting a larger tank or downsizing the bioload; maybe adding a sump, but that would end up being possible 1/3 the cost of the tank...

 

[orwolf77]

I just had the same thing happen and lost all my fish except for a damsel. Is it true that if the nitrites are to high the fish will have a whitish film on them. I'm a little upset with my LFS, because it sounds like they knowingly let me overstock my tank. They knew I had a clown trigger, flame angel, damsel, purple dottyback, and then sold me a butterfly fish in a 30gal tank. They said they would be fine. It's my fault to for not doing more research and taking there word.