Almost total devestation

[cmbarnes10]

Okay so I decided to get into this hobby not realizeing how expensive and addictive it was...but I also did nto realize how har it would be to keep fish. Out of my first 4 fish, one jumped out of the tank, another just died mysteriously and the other two ended up being too mean for our tank and we returned them for two more clown fish(the first two that dies were clowns) and they died....so we waited a month(granted before I added fish I cycled...and it was a long cycle at that) We got a yellow clown goby, two clowns(again), and a royal gramma, well the royal gramma got stuck in the rockwork and died so we got another royal gramma to replace it... now a month after the new fish were added...one clown died I belive of clownfish disease(did hypo in a qt but he was too sick),last night and today I cam ehome at lunch time to finsd my royal gramma and my other clown as crab food....I love this hobby but it is getting way too expensive!!!! I now have decided that I am done with clowns or at least false perculas and may try a tomato clown.....AHHHHH!!! I do not know what could be the probem....any suggestions????

 

[whitey_028]

Your case is not the norm. You shouldnt be loosing as much as you have in that short of time. there is something wrong. What do your water test come up with? what are the stats? Tank size? lighting? Something is out of whack. either something is wrong or you have really really really bad luck.

 

[cmbarnes10]

temp: 78
pH: 8.2
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite:0
Nitrate:0
I have the 65 watts of lighting, a 20 gallon tank
All my corals, invertabrates are doing well as is my yellow clown goby.
The only fish that ever visiby has something wrong with it was the one clownfish with the parasite and we put him in a QT asap...

 

[tangs123]

when you say crab food; what kind of crab is it?
most crabs are scavengers and the clowns are just an easy meal if they are caught sleeping

 

[hot883]

Do you QT all the fish before placing them in main tank? SHOULD. Did you buy all your fish from the same store? I would not. What are you feeding them? Should not be brine only as it has NO nutritional value. Do you do water changes? What is the salinity at?

 

[cmbarnes10]

Crabs are juts the blue legg hermits andscarlet hermits(about 10 all together)
No not all the fish were from the same store. I did n ot QT before hand but now that I have a Qt I will(I didn;t have one before I jumped into this blind)...I am feeding them frozen brine and then another flake food. Not sure on the name of it. I do 35% water chages once a month, I use RO water for them as well. Salinity is at 1.023.

 

[debbie]

What you might want to do is just be patient and see how the clown goby does for the next while. Then add another fish a few weeks later and see how it does. Alot of times I think we just want that breath tank with fish and corals "yesterday".With saltwater we must learn patience, especially when one is having problems with so many fish deaths and see what is going wrong in the system.
Sorry to hear about your losses, I hate loosing fish as they do cost a fair chunk of change but just go slow now and see how things do by adding them one at a time.

 

[cmbarnes10]

that was my plan....to tak eit slow. And even if I get the impulse I am low on cash so it will be awhile before I can get another fish...