4 Dead

[scuba girl]

I lost 4 fish in 24 hours. a hippo tang, powder brown tang, yellow tang and ebili angel. What happened. my water quality is great. It's the best its been in 9 months. I thought I had found the perfect mix of fish and inverts and have slowly been introducing corals in to the tank. I had just put a small frog spawn and a purple vase sponge in and with in 24 hours I had lost the above 4 fish. they had all been in the tank for months except for the powder brown, he had just been put in about 2 weeks ago. They all seemed healthy when I went to bed and the brown and the yellow were dead when i got up. The hippo was quick to follow and the angel was 12 hours after that. I also have a small blenny and a 6 line wrasse in the tank and they seem to be fine and healthy. What did I do wrong?

 

[flower]

Originally Posted by Scuba Girl
http:///forum/post/3110116
I lost 4 fish in 24 hours. a hippo tang, powder brown tang, yellow tang and ebili angel. What happened. my water quality is great. It's the best its been in 9 months. I thought I had found the perfect mix of fish and inverts and have slowly been introducing corals in to the tank. I had just put a small frog spawn and a purple vase sponge in and with in 24 hours I had lost the above 4 fish. they had all been in the tank for months except for the powder brown, he had just been put in about 2 weeks ago. They all seemed healthy when I went to bed and the brown and the yellow were dead when i got up. The hippo was quick to follow and the angel was 12 hours after that. I also have a small blenny and a 6 line wrasse in the tank and they seem to be fine and healthy. What did I do wrong?

Welcome to the forum, wish it were better circumstances...
That is allot of tangs. Also angels eat sponges, so with the angel the purple vase sponge would have been doomed.
None of that could have killed all 4 fish in one night. I offer it only as information for you. Now to solve the mystery...we need the following info to start.
What size is your tank?
When was it set up?
Do you run a skimmer?
What are the exact test readings?.. You need to post them.
Do you have power heads..What type and how many?
What kind of filtration and how much rock?

 

[watersalt]

how is your aeration??

 

[roadie996]

was the frogspawn coated in a slimey goo? I've heard if you don't soak them or rinse them before putting them in the tank, it can circulate and since they are stinging corals (right?) it can hit your fish and in result kill them.
that's what happened to me anyways

 

[flower]

Originally Posted by roadie996
http:///forum/post/3110144
was the frogspawn coated in a slimey goo? I've heard if you don't soak them or rinse them before putting them in the tank, it can circulate and since they are stinging corals (right?) it can hit your fish and in result kill them.
that's what happened to me anyways

I have never heard of frogspawn stinging a fish to death? Who told you this is why your fish died?

 

[scuba girl]

ok, it is a 65 gallon tank. 90lb of live rock plus live sand don't remember how much i put it in when i set up the tank. yes protein skimmer. my ph was 8.2, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, don't remember the rest of the readings and don't have them with me. Set up 10 months ago. have 2 power heads, filter is a fluval 350.
I didn't realize there would be a problem with the sponge and the angel. I didn't see him eating it but that doesn't mean anything. lesson learned, think when i figure out what happened, sponge will find a new home.
Frog spawn did not have a slime on him.
Did notice the hippo tang getting in the flow of the power head and rubbing on the sand, but didn't notice any white patchiness that would indicate marine velvet. Maybe I missed the signs. Is there a way to test for it? can I treat it with my inverts, etc in the tank?

 

[roadie996]

Originally Posted by Flower
http:///forum/post/3110149
I have never heard of frogspawn stinging a fish to death? Who told you this is why your fish died?
It was more related to my anemone and all that whole ordeal. I was just thinking anything could be possible with this hobby!

 

[mr&mrs.o]

First, I would just like to say that I know what you're going through...we just lost 5 fish in a matter of about 12 hours. Based on feedback here, we believe we didn't have enough flow which in turn caused an ammonia spike when the LR wasn't doing it's job. So, definitely answer all the questions everyone here asks so you can figure out what happened.
I'd also like to add my two cents...I think that once your fish were full grown, you would have been overstocked IMO.

 

[olemiss]

Have you checked for stray voltage?

 

[deejeff442]

you really need to to do research on fish before you get them.you should not have any tang in a tank that small especially 3 of them.the get stressed easilly witout room to swim .6 foot tank minimum.
how big were the tangs.even being stressed it wouldnt kill them in that period of time.
what are the water readings right after the crash?
not before but right after?
usually when a fish is swimming right in front of a ph and scratching it is usually a disease like ich.
are you sure you didnt see any spots they could have been in thier gills .
if so it would suffercate them .
how big are the powerheads?
how long have the fish been in the tank together ?

 

[scuba girl]

I tested in the morning after i lost 2 trying to figure it out. PH 8.2, nitrites 0, ammonia 0, nitrates 0. I had tested a couple days before and my salinity was a little high but still in the acceptable range. I lowered it a little with a top off. fresh treated water. And when i tested after it was right in the middle of the acceptable area. I didn't see any white spots before they died and by the time i got to them in the morning they were pale. no suprise there. Don't remember what size the powerheads are but when i got them i got more than what i needed for my tank size. The fish had been in the tank together for several months and got along great. No aggressive behavior at all.
I thought that posting and asking for help would be helpful for me and so far all i've really gotten is alot of critisism about how many tangs i had in my tank. I appreciate the opinions but that isn't what killed my fish. They were all relatively small specimens and all got along, If anyone has any suggestions on what happened and how to check to see if that is it or how to treat the problem it would be appreciated.
Any suggestions on what I should put in my tank and what gets along would be helpful as well. This is what I have.
1 sally light foot
2 emerald crabs
1 banded shrimp
1 carpet annenome
1 long tip annenome
a couple sets of zoos
yellow polyps
blue xenia
3 feather dusters
1 six line wrasse that has lived through everything
1 bi color blenny
a xmas tree rock
frog spawn
1 purple sponge
Any suggestions

 

[deejeff442]

did you qt the new tang?
if the fish were scratching and trying to stay in the powerhead flow they are trying to get relief from something.
tangs very easily get ich.
i would say the new tang came with probably ich and when he was added to a small tank to other tangs they stressed out.you dont know if they got along all the time.
just when you watched.two weeks is about the right timeframe for ich's lifecycle to drop and multiply.
sometimes ich is hard to see if you are not lookin closely.
usually smaller fish with scales are not as suseptable to the ick but i would watch them closely for the next two weeks under good lighting.
i had an ich outbreak and my purple cromis didnt get it at all.
also i believe my ich came in on a couple corals i added.it is rare that it happens but it does.
if you want to avoid this problem it is really best to have a qt for the new fish before you add them to the tank and risk an outbreak to the healthy ones you already have.

 

[beth]

Folks, take the attitude somewhere else. No one here knows what happened to these fish, or why they died, so don't throw stones. All of us have made mistakes in this hobby.
From what you describe it seems that everything was doing pretty good, all well, and then everything suddenly started dying overnight?
Notice any aggression between the tangs?
Any chance of contamination, from kids in house, etc.?

 

[scuba girl]

I do have a qt tank and all fish go in it when they come in. Usually only 2 weeks, is that enough time? should I be leaving them in longer? I only keep them there for observation I don't automatically treat for anything.

 

[scuba girl]

Beth, you are right everything seemed be be going great. we went to bed at 11:00 got up at 5:30 with the kids and they were dead.
The yellow would chase the brown out of it's hiddy whole if he wondered in there but that was only the 1st day. After that he knew he wasn't welcome in that spot and stayed away from it. We thought at first maybe they had gotten in to it and both died but later that day the hippo died and he didn't show any signs of an altercation. The yellow and hippo had been in the tank for the longest and were introduced close together and they never showed any agression at all.
I have twin 2 1/2 year olds but so far they can't get high enough to get anything in the tank. I'm very careful about washing my hands before putting them in the tank. I don't think I forgot but I was very excited when my sponge came in. I don't usually put corals in the qt tank and didn't put the sponge in it only because i was concerned about being able to move it again. The acclimation said that it couldn't be in the air at all so the water it came in was also introduced to the tank.

 

[scuba girl]

Should i treat my tank for ich? what product can I use given what is in my tank now?

 

[beth]

Ok, we may never know what happened, but with the info you provided, my guess is that it was tang aggression. Tangs have small razor sharp swords near their tail that extend outward when they are in aggressive mode. These razors will cut deeply and sharply and because they are so sharp, you may not even notice the wounds. I actually has a similar situation happen in one of my tanks once were I had two tangs and other fish. They were all getting along well until one day one tang went postal and started killing off tank-mates.
Your size tank is not appropriate for any tangs. NONE. So keep that in mind when you restock.
Leave your tank empty of fish for a month, then you can start to restock with smaller less aggressive fish.
QT time should be at least 3 weeks.

 

[scuba girl]

Thank you, do you have any recommendations for fish that I should stock. That would be reef safe and get along with my remaining bi color blenny and 6 line wrasse?
How large a tank would I need to be able to have a tang?