all my fish die

cazmento

Member
thanx for the advice, i will definatly consider useing distilled for my top offs. and as far as the tang goes, no white spots on him that i can see, but since hes the only fish in the tank, with all the rock work, and since he is still new to the tank, he hides alot.
 

donmgicwon

Member

Originally posted by CindySki
i dont know if there is any reason why you couldnt buy minced garlic in a jar and use the juice from it to soak your food before you feed:notsure:

I'm not sure but I think the minced garlic your thinking of has vinigar (thats why it lasts forever in your fridge), I don't know if this will hurt the tank but it might affect PH. Cazmento, can you read the label and let us know what it says?
 

cazmento

Member
kk its got water, garlic, citric acid, potassium sorbate, sodium benxoate
think this is ok to use? :notsure: :thinking:
 
T

tizzo

Guest
I know you said you only have ten lbs. of LR, but could it be possible that you have those isopods or amphipods or whatever those bad ones are called. Have you looked at your fish at night? I hope you DON'T have them, but it could be a possibility.
 

cazmento

Member
i thought if that were the case though, i would have high nitrites. the base rock, really is live rock though, it was just base rock when i put it in about 4 months ago
 

mr. tuna

Active Member
how did you acclimate your clown??
Because to what i am hearing.. your clown
seems to be under stress, and not comfortable to its surroundings.
 

beaslbob

Well-Known Member

Originally posted by cazmento
my tang is starting to breathe heavy i think. or do they generally breathe heavy?

NO!!!! it is a sure sign if distress.
What I don't hear is plant life or refugium, I do hear is turbos and other cleaner crews. Your experience is extremely similiar to mine when i first set my 55g. I added a cleaner crew with mollies and damsels in a cycled tank. As I added any more delicate fish, they either died the next day or lingered on for about three weeks. they would be fine for a week, start developing white spots the second week, start breathing heavy and moving erratic and then die the third week.
My ph had dropped to 7.4 and lower. And all this went away when I added plant life to the system. Since then my yellow tang has trippled in size and recovered from white spots. And other fish have lived for up to 6 months. I did have a few losses about 2 months after adding the macros but overall things are much better and thriving.
I highly recommend you establish a thriving plant life. By not having sufficient plant life consuming ammonia, phosphates, nitrates, and carbon dioxide, You can have many problems. Additionally, the plant life will filter out toxins and even heavy metals. The brown algae bloom is simply because you do not have plant life consuming the nutrients the brown algae is consuming.
It is obvious to my looking back that my new fish were basically sufficating. Because there was not enough plant life consuming the carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide also leads to ph drops.
I highly reccommend you establish a thriving plant life to stabilize, filter, and establish high quality water for your fish. Besides, the tang will really really appreciate some live gracilaria or caulpera profilera to graze on.
Sure protect the plant life. use a refug or even culture it in another container. But get the plant life controlling the aquarium. In short take care of your plant life and it will take care of your system.
 

dburr

Active Member
Most DO NOT use macro in the display. It's just a pain in the ars to get out if you choose to do in the future. Another tank would be best.
My thinking here is: do you feel that adding macro's will fix your problem? I wouldn't want you to get lead on like this without jumping in. Yes macro's are good for filtering and stablizing. But what I see is you don't know what the problem is yet and don't want you to think this will for sure fix your problem.
Anyway, it soulds like you have had some sort of bacterial problem. IMO, wait for 4-5 weeks and then add another fish. If you can't put them in another tank before the display will your LFS hold them for a week? just to be sure they don't die unexpectedly.
Dan
 

cazmento

Member
right now im leaning towards a parasite infection, but im still keeping a close watch, i might treat my main tank with kent rxp, which contains no copper. not sure yet, but i think it might be marine velvet. but its hard to tell on the tang i guess.
 

beaslbob

Well-Known Member

Originally posted by cazmento
can i buy a few plants, and put them in my main tank? any speices recommended?

The main problem with macros/plants in the display is the livestock eats them. For that reason, my first solution was to setup another container to culture the macros/plants in. Then each week transfer some to the display. Over a couple of months the display macros were built up to where the new growth approximately equaled what the livestock was eating.
Another easy solution was to setup an in tank refug such as: https://forums.saltwaterfish.com/t/101556/in-tank-back-wall-refugium . But that requires rearranging your display and uses display voluum.
And yes you probably do have parasites/bacterial infections. they are always present to attack weakened fish. but with healthy fish with strong immune systems, the fish thrive. plant life provides an environment where the fish are more tollerant to those things.
 

cazmento

Member
the clowns each lived a little over a week. they started off eating a variety if foods, flake, frozen, and freezedried brine shirmp. then, they would swim in the same spot all day, not eating, then would breathe heavy. eventually, their mouths would look swollen, seems like they couldnt close them, the last day they would usually stay near the surface of the tank before dieing.
the tang was doing great for about a week and a half, then started to get soem brown and white blotches on him. he would eat well, then he started to scratch on rocks and sand. i had to go on vacation, and the person who was supposed to take care of them, never did, so he died while i was away.
the tang i have now, ate well for the first two days i had him, very skiddish at first. now he does not eat, and hides all day with heavy breathing, and a brown blotch by his dorsal fin. i cant get too good of a look at him though to see if anything else is wrong.
my tank is 78 degrees, as far as filtration, i use a maxijet 1200, and an aqua clear 500. i have a redsea prizim protein skimmer.
i feed flake foods, as well as purple seaweed to the tang.
 

cazmento

Member
would either of those factors affect inverts though?
as far as circulation, thats 750 gallons per hour though? i thought that would be enough? i have quite a bit of surface movement.
i set up a ten gallon hospital tank for the tang, with a small filter, a light, and come copper. i put him in there. he has a few small brownish spots on him, and a white scrape on his fin. i think im going to treat the main tank with kent rxp though, since it looks like a parasite infection. how often should i do a water change in the hospital tank? and what temperature should i set it at?
thanx
 

beaslbob

Well-Known Member
My concern is keeping the biological filtration established in the hospital tank. Just taking water from the display, adding some circulation, does not have the aerobic bacteria to support the tang. Especially if he is already breathing heavy.
Hope he recovers.
 

reefer44

Member
I wouldn't listen to to much of what beaslbob says............have u seen his tank? I am sure you don't want one like that
 

cazmento

Member
well then what should i do?? i thought i did the right thing by setting up the hospital tank... i know its not a big tank, but the tang is small, only about 2.5 inches, seems like he has enough room in there.
 

dburr

Active Member
You prolly know this, but i'll tell ya anyway. The rock and what ever else you put in the 10 gallon with copper cannot go back in the display.
OK, what are you treating? Do you know? Will copper treat it? Have you searched for symtoms of what your fish have? Have you check in the disease forom? Beth would be a great help for this type of stuff.
Also, be careful with copper. It will disapate and can be over dosed.
 
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