every fish that goes into my tank dies.

[ssssoma]

Alright, I've got a 29 gallon biocube, it's been set up for a couple months now. It has 60 lbs of live sand in it, and roughly 12 lbs of live rock. The tank has never gone through a nitrogen cycle. Ammonia, Nitrates, Nitrites have stayed at a steady 0, ph is around 8.6... salinity is 1.025. I have been using regular tap water, not r/o, as I've never had problems using tap water with my reef tanks in the past...
I originally added all the live sand, and live rock with no fish, and let it sit for a couple weeks, hoping the live rock would initially cycle the tank. When the levels stayed at 0ppm consistently, and I noticed a lot of hair algae growing (no brown algae yet at all), I added a very small pair of clownfish. After a couple weeks of them doing very well, I decided to add a pygmy angel as well. Ever since the pygmy went in, all fish died, along with other fish I tried adding afterwards (a damsel, a lawnmower blenny.) Every fish seems to get ich or some type of fin rot, and dies.
However, I've got a small bubble tip anemone, along with many nassarius snails and hermit crabs... 5 peppermint shrimp and a coral banded.. .and several emerald crabs, all of which are thriving. The peppermint shrimp have grown twice their original size in just a couple weeks.
I'm at a loss as to why fish won't live in my tank and only invertebrates seem to make it. I'm thinking the angel brought some diseases into the tank...

What should I do.. will these diseases die off on their own without hosts?

 

[anonome]

Well since the tank has had ick, I would run it fishless for 4-6wks to be sure to starve the cycle of ick. You are probably right that the pygmy brought something in. The inverts will not die to ick, so the water perameters must be ok. They usually die if the perameters are really out of whack. Hair algae is usually a sign of high nutrients, being from the light, phosphate, or nitrate. Since it is fishless, you can cut the light cycle down and this should eliminate most of it. Let the tank sit idle for a while and most of your problems will disappear. Continue to do water changes though.

 

[janastasio]

ich will die approx after 6weeks without a host. It does not affect inverts. You should keep your tank empty for 6 weeks to ensure all parasites are gone.

 

[ninjamini]

Well no fish for 6 weeks is the trick. In the mean time deal with the hair algae. No fish is going to help ....no food. But you have to go to ro/di or that hair is going to overtake you. What are your phosphates?
Here is a post I created a while back. Its funny because I have gotten alot of free rock because of hair algae. Its easy to beat. Just take away.....
https://forums.saltwaterfish.com/t/255585/do-you-have-hair-algae
Do you have hair algae?
If you have a hair algae problem then read my cure all. I just recently took a tank off someone's hands, a very experienced reefer too, who had a hair algae problem that they could not fix. But the fix is so easy when you understand it. This is the instructions for a established tank. If your tank is under 3 months old read below* first.
Hair algae wont grow if you don't feed it.
1. Use Ro/DI water ONLY. If your not doing this then you are making a fatal mistake.
2. Pick off the big clumps of hair. Pull the rocks out you can and pull pull pull. Dip them back in the water to get the algae to hang down. Turn off the flow for the rocks you cant remove while you pick it off. By picking off the big clumps you remove the nitrates and phosphates from the water.
3. Know why it grows. It consumes nitrates, phosphates and light. Export the nitrates and phosphates with water changes and some cheto. Rember if you test says that you have 0 Nitrates and 0 Phosphates that does not mean you don't have them. It just means that they are consumed. If you have algae growing then you have nitrates and phosphates. Yea there in there.
4. Cut back on feeding. Where do you thing those nitrates and phosphates come from. If you have any really piggy fish then you may want to move them to QT.
5. Turn down the photo period by shutting the lights off and only turn them on for 6 hours a day. Most corals can handle this for a month. Just think of it as the rainy season.
6. Get a emerald and some mexican snails. Yea the big ones. They will both eat the short stuff.
7. Time. Give it 3-4 weeks then start to turn the lights to 7, 8...more hours till your back to a normal amount of time.
Done. Now I have my nano cube filled with sand, rocks, zoos and fish because I was able to follow this plan and he was not. Which is weird since he has an awesome sps tank.
*If your tank is new that is less than 3 months old then the question is not how to get rid of them but understanding that this is only part of the natural cycle of a new tank. If this happened just as your ammonia and nitrites test at 0 then its going to grow. Its the same reason because there is alot of nitrate and phosphate in the water. This would be the time to do your first water change and then add your clean up crew. They will take care of the algae along with water changes.
Remember don.t feed your nuisance algae and it wont grow.
Good Luck

 

[sprang]

I agree with phishcrazy. I'm wondering why you havent had a diatom outbreak during your cycle though? I.m.o I wouldn't trust the tap just due to the algea outbreaks i've seen from it. glad your inverts are still pumping!

 

[ssssoma]

Thanks for all the replies guys
Actually, after all the crabs, snails, and shrimp were added, all of my algae problems have disappeared. The lawnmower blenny (RIP) took care of every single bit of hair algae/green algae growing on the rocks, and I haven't seen anymore since he passed -- a little over a week ago. Theres hardly even any algae on the glass (and I leave the lights on for a good 12 hours a day).
I'm also surprised that I haven't gotten any crazy diatom outbreaks. No cyanobacteria either. I guess I can't be both lucky with algae AND fish at the same time. Haha.
I'm just glad I haven't lost any of the inverts.... and as for the phosphates, I haven't tested them, so I'm not sure how high they are.
On a side note, anyone with a biocube -- how often do you have to rinse your filter cartridge? I'm finding I have to rinse it out almost every day (usually every other day) or it completely blocks the water flow to the pump. Is this normal?