Chromis illness (white spot?)

[smilliej]

I am new to the marine tank world, and have only had my tank setup for around 8 months. I recently introduced 4 blue-green chromis to my 60ltr tank. The tank has been fishless (only containing inverts) for the past 5 months, after a recent bout of whitespot whipped out the fishes in my tank. I do not have a QT tank, and am now starting to realise the importance of it. I floated the new fish of over an hour before releasing them in the tank. After about 5 days, I noticed a kind of yellowish marking on the top of the bodies, just above the eyes. One had a much larger marking than the others. I have so far lost 2 of them in the past couple of days. The others are still quite active and eating well, but also have the small yellowish marking.
It doesnt look like the whitespot that I saw previously. Was it whitespot? What can I do to treat the other fishes?

 

[beth]

Can you provide more descriptions of this, or a picture?

 

[smilliej]

Unfortunatley I didnt take a photo. The marking was a yellowish white mark that was just above the eyes. One of them also had a pink type marking on it's side which looked like it had scales missing, it died last night. The 2 remaining fish had the same small mark above the eye, but it is much smaller than the others. I will take a photo of the others tonight (at work currently).

 

[beth]

Does the yellow look like part of the fish flesh, or is it like a slime or something attaching to the fish?

 

[smilliej]

It seemed to look like it was slime on the scales, as the yellow colour seemed to be in between the scales, so the shape of the scales were still visible.
In any case, the other two chromis died the following day, so 4 all together within about 5 days of being introduced to the tank. Im feeling pretty discourged about my tank. My first lot of fish were all killed by white spot, and the most other inverts i have put in there have died for one reason or another.
I have had my water quality checked by my LFS, and aside from the pH being a little low, everything else was normal.
My 60ltr tank consists of:
- an undergravel filter
- an internal spong filter with power head
- about 6 kg of live rock
- around 5cm of crushed coral on the bottom.
- a twin tube light system with both blue and white light, both set of 10hrs per day.
- temp is 27 degrees
I have a large amount of green algae which I am trying to control with Clearmec plus phosphate and nitrate obsorbsion, which has been in the tank for 2 weeks, no visible improvement of green algae yet. I am also treating the tank with PurpleUp, a coralline algae accelerator.
I have a few questions:
1) should I clean the filter out weekly, and with fresh or tank water?
2) could the lighting have something to do with the excess algae, and also the stress of on the fish that causes the white spot?
Anyone that can help out, i really enjoy my tank, but feel terruble remorse when one of the little guys dies, and am feeling i should switch to fresh water... help....
Jenny

 

[thommyboy121]

the red mark on their side is very common...and according to my lfs....he said that it all depends on the way/ place they are obtained from....he said fish from the philippenes are usually improperly obtained and that Chromis (although they are hardy fish) will probably die.....

 

[sepulatian]

If you are floating your inverts as well, then there is the problem. You are only temp acclimating these animals. They need to be drip acclimated. Have you tested the water that the animals are coming out of vs. your tank water? If the tank was fish-less for five months then no parasite is alive in there. What are your current readings for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, PH, SG, and temp? Please remember that these fish cannot take drastic changes. You don't quarantine, so the chance is very high that they are already stressed, then deal with a big difference in water parameters. Inverts won't tolerate it. Some take awhile to die though. Fish, such as chromis will struggle to adapt.