Death of a Clownfish

leftyblite

leftyblite

Member
I need some help here. I've had my 12G nano cube up and running for over 6 weeks now. I waited until amonia, nitrate, nitrite was down to 0, then did a 50% water change and waited until everything was 0 again. I put in a cleanup crew 2 weeks ago. Last week I bought a percula clownfish and a cleaner shrimp. Everything was going fine until today. When I checked water parameters last night everything was at 0. The clownfish was eating normally and the cleaner shrmp is currently being hand fed. This morning the clownfish was dead. The shrimp seems do be doing fine. Local lfs double checked my water and said everything is OK. Any ideas, would like to get another clownfish but don't want to lose another one. :help:
 
mikeyjer

mikeyjer

Active Member
Originally Posted by leftyblite
I need some help here. I've had my 12G nano cube up and running for over 6 weeks now. I waited until amonia, nitrate, nitrite was down to 0, then did a 50% water change and waited until everything was 0 again. I put in a cleanup crew 2 weeks ago. Last week I bought a percula clownfish and a cleaner shrimp. Everything was going fine until today. When I checked water parameters last night everything was at 0. The clownfish was eating normally and the cleaner shrmp is currently being hand fed. This morning the clownfish was dead. The shrimp seems do be doing fine. Local lfs double checked my water and said everything is OK. Any ideas, would like to get another clownfish but don't want to lose another one. :help:
Did you notice any sign of disease? Do you have a power head? :happyfish
 
murph

murph

Active Member
I have had a few overnight losses myself since setting up my tank in July. Whatever it is it hits and kills quickly. Within a 24 hour period the fish become inactive and there respiration goes up. Never any signs of external parasite and the high respirations would indicate an ammonia spike or some other chemical contaminate such as chlorine but the other tank inhabitants go unaffected and testing rules out any kind of ammonia or nitrite spike. The fish is usually dead or near death within 24 hours.
The only thing I can figure is some sort of internal parasite or internal damage due to dubious collection methods, rough shipping or the presence of high doses of parasite inhibitors in various holding tanks. Your guess is as good as mine.
Finding a local/quality source for livestock can sometimes be one of the more difficult aspects of this hobby. If it were not for the 80 dollar minimum purchase from this site I would have a go at mail order. Hint hint
 
murph

murph

Active Member
Fedac has a good point on the acclimation. Many LFS keep there SG vary low for various reasons so the recommended length of a drip acclimation is sometimes not enough.
At the vary least use your hydrometer to verify that the SG in your tank and acclimation bucket has evened out and the stress of adding the fish to a tank with an SG much higher than the LFS water is avoided.
This could easily double the acclimation time needed from the low SG (I have seen them as low as 1.018) of the LFS water and the high SG present in most reef tanks.
 
leftyblite

leftyblite

Member
I used the drip method and checked water until SG the same. This is what the LFS also said to do when acclimating. I do have a powerhead in the tank. The LFS I went to was receommended by several of my friends who have saltwater tanks. Thanks for the help
 
fadec40

fadec40

Member
I had a similar problem, but fish didn't die off that quickly. I am now into my 2nd week of running my tank with no life in it to kill whatever was in the tank. I am being patient and giving it 6 weeks before adding fish again. in the mean time, I am getting a QT ready.
 
leftyblite

leftyblite

Member
The LFS said my water was fine but that I should probably wait a couple of weeks before adding any more fish, in the meantime I'm getting my QT tank set up. :joy:
 
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