Dead fish

[dab4u2]

I am not having any luck keeping fish in my aquarium. I have had a total of 5 fish to die in the past month. All of my levels are perfect. I lost 3 about the same time so I thought maybe I put too many in at once. I did a 25% water change afterwards and another 10% water change a week later. I put in a pecula clown Friday night. He had white spots yesterday morning so I did a fresh water dip which cleared him up completely. He was dead this morning when I checked on him. I have 10 snails, 2 crabs and 2 stringy starfish that all seem to be doing fine but I guess they are pretty hardy. Do I have too many inverts?
Ammonia - 0 ppm
Nitrite - 0 ppm
Nitrate - 10 ppm
Salinity - 1.025
PH - 8.0 <

[hr]
Have had a difficult time trying to raise this.
Temp - 78
55 Gallon
No live rock but about 60 pounds of rock from LFS.
Crushed Coral Gravel

 

[bang guy]

You don't have too many inverts.
What are you feeding your inverts?
How much water flow do you have?
Your Clownfish died of either a disease or a parasite, or both. I would suggest leaving the tank idle for a few weeks to starve out any parasites.
Check out the stickies in the Disease forum. There's a lot of good information there.
You're not doing anything wrong that I can tell so this is going to take some time to diagnose.
Bang
Just an FYI on terminology - 1.025 is a Specific Gravity reading, not Salinity. a S.G. of 1.025 at 78F is a Salinity of about 35ppt (parts per thousand). This is perfect but I just wanted to point out the terms

 

[dab4u2]

Thanks Bang for your help. Honestly, I am no feeding anything to my inverts. The snails suck on the glass all day, and I assumed the crabs and starfish consumed waste off of the bottom.
I have another question though. If it is disease or parasites, can I safely do a massive water change without having to recycle the aquarium. And if so, will it stress the inverts to death?

 

[dab4u2]

My water flow is about 500gph with an overflow and a sump.

 

[bang guy]

A massive water change won't get rid of parasites unfortunately. Just do your routine water changes and hold off on fish for a few weeks.
Start feeding your inverts. Over the next 3 week slowly build from what you feed now (nothing) to what you would feed your next fish. This will build up the bacteria necessary to remove the Ammonia produced by the fish once you put it in there and there will be no Ammonia spike when you add the fish.
A Clownfish is an excellent first fish. Just be sure it's healthy before you place it in your display tank.
edit - Does the tank have any fish in it right now? If so you should set up a hospital tank and follow the hyposalinity treatment outlined in the Disease Forum.

 

[dab4u2]

I do not have any fish now. I am assuming from your comments that the parasites will not bother the inverts and will eventually die from a lack of food?

 

[larrynews]

i had the same thing happen and as i thought it was ich i just let it run its course and waitied 30 days before adding anything...its now been 2 weeks since i added my 2 new clowns and they are doing fine...i lost about 350 dollars worth of fish..so just be patient and wait it out it will be worth it...good luck

 

[dab4u2]

It's frustrating because I have read that if you are lazy not to get into this hobby. I feel like I have done everything that I can do and I still lost my fish.
I am learning that patience is the name of this game. I appreciate everyones help.

 

[bang guy]

Originally posted by dab4u2
I am assuming from your comments that the parasites will not bother the inverts and will eventually die from a lack of food?
Yep.
IMO you didn't do anything wrong other than not quaranteen your fish before adding them to the display tank. That's a judgment call but highly recommended.
Sometimes things just don't work out right away.

 

[bigbobsull]

Sorry if this was mentioned before in this post, but what is recommened for feeding the snails and crabs? I got 2 snails, and two really small hermit crabs. I only have been feeding the fish, I assume they feed of the tanks waste?

 

[bang guy]

Whatever you were feeding your other fish will be fine. The main thing is to keep your bacteria thriving (but don't overdo it).