Fish Dieoff

[rzande1]

SALT 1.0245
NITRATES 5
NITRITES 0
PH 8.0
AMMONIA 0
PHOSPHATES 0
CALCIUM 520
TEMP 79
GALLONS 29
When I fed my fish this morning everyone was alive. I come home from work and now my longnose butterfly, my baby blue hippo tang, and one of my gobys is dead. (goby actually jumped out of the water) I dont know what happened. My Javanese Damsel is still alive of course along with another goby and my sea urchin. It is driving me nutty already. I am tired of my tank dying off.

 

[spiderwoman]

How many fish did you have in the 29gallon tank? How long have you had all of the fish in there, especially the butterfly and the Hippo?

 

[rzande1]

Originally Posted by SpiderWoman
http:///forum/post/2550822
How many fish did you have in the 29gallon tank? How long have you had all of the fish in there, especially the butterfly and the Hippo?

For a while. A few months. I have overkill filteration so before it was never a problem. I have a wet dry eheim system and a magnum hot canister filter.

 

[rzande1]

I swear I am almost to the point of just getting a school of clownfish and just doing that.

 

[clownfish11]

u can only have 2 clowns...but a hippo tang is to big for ur tank and most likely so is the butterfly...they may be small now, but they get HUGE and fast...so try it over again without hte tang and hte butterfly

 

[aquatica-tech]

The canister and the wet/dry can be a problem too, might want to switch that out with a sump if you can

 

[rzande1]

Tried the sump. That was a disaster.

 

[snakeblitz33]

schools of clownfish don't work. Usually, if you can get two juviniles to grow up together, they will do well. Clownfish do not school.
If you wish, get some blue reef chromis. They will school.
That's way too much of a bioload anyway in a 29 gallon tank. I wouldn't have suggested any tangs in less then a 100 gallon, due to their long swimming nature. Don't buy any fish that you can't keep for their entire lifetimes.
I suggest doing some research on saltwater aquariums before jumping into them.
I also suggest getting rid of your canister filters and getting an emperor biowheel and a nice sized protein skimmer such as a coralife super skimmer.
Do some regular water changes and check your water parameters with a different test kit. If you are killing a bunch of fish, there is a reason why!

 

[granny]

Many of the gobies are jumpers anyway, so you must have your tank sealed tightly.
I dont think your filtration system has anything to do with it. You said your nitrates are only 5 which is plenty low not to cause death.
You do have far too many fish in a 29 gallon tank though.
-you could have stray voltage that is causing immense stress. put your hand in the water and touch your light or put your body against the tank and see if you feel a tingle.
-also some inverts can cause major posining if they die-such as a cucumber or a starfish. Did this happen?
-Could your power have gone off and the tank been oxygen deprived and or the temp dropped while you were gone?
I have a battery powered pump with a hefty airstone attached for the times my power goes off and we dont have the generator turned on.
I would suggest just a few hardy fish though, like a clown and a damsel and maybe one small gobie tops in your tank maybe with some shrimp for additional interest.

 

[rzande1]

Nope no power failures. My network batteries would have gone off like nuts at night if that happened and would have reported it. No voltage either. i put my hand in all the time and never have felt it. I had two starfish die. I took them out.

 

[granny]

Did the starfish just die? Had they deteriorated at all? If so, you needed to do a major water change adn add some amquel to the water immediately.
Are you doing regular water changes , premixing, heating and aerating your water before putting it in the tank?
Concerning the voltage, you need to touch something like the light canopy or your heater or something to make a conduit. You can also buy or perhaps borrow a voltage tester to check it.
When did you last check your Nitrates? Since the starfish died? Do you change/clean out the canister filter media weekly when you change your water?
Are you running chimi pure and charcoal in your system?
Lots of questions, but the best thing is to do a large water change, find new homes for some of your fish and stick with a very few hardy specimens for a while.
Good luck!

 

[rzande1]

The starfish legs were slowly crumbling and I pulled it out when it stopped moving. Those water results were after the die off. WHen I do water changes I premix the water or use containers of actual sea water. I preheat and aeriate the water before. I checked. There is no voltage going through the tank. I clean out my magnum and ehieim every two weeks since I use the rock designed for live bacteria rather than a paper filter. I dont have any pads in the system when it runs. I use them on the water going in. NO chemi pure or charcoal. I really dont have anyplace to put them since both the canister and the eheim run strictly that rock. The only real mechanical filter is the blue filter sock on my magnum which i clean weekly. I dont have any place to put my goby and damsel. I used to have more tanks but I had to settle on one. Normally I premix my salt water but in an emergency I go to the lfs and buy the 4.4 gallon ocean water containers and dump those in. That is how I beat my nitrate problem a while ago.

 

[rzande1]

I finally got a copper testkit and it shows zero copper in the water. I also went out and got a titanium probe for the water to ground it out. I have been thinking and my plan for the tank will be as follows. My damsel, my goby, my sea urchin are the current survivors. Eventually I want to add in a clown fish or two. Also maybe two cleaner shirmp or a cleaner shrimp and two snails.

 

[rzande1]

Ok I think I figured out what I wanna do. How does this sound?
1 mated pair of clownfish
1 damsel
1 goby
1 sea urchin
1 chocolate chip starfish
2 turbo snails

 

[sh00tist]

First of all you need to figure out why so many fish met their end in such a short period of time,it will only happen again. If must have been something dramatic sounds like some sort of chemical poisoning,like from perfume or air freshener,fresh paint? I dont know for sure but I do know healthy fish dont just die overnight and certainly not in large numbers. If they are just dying may as well keep them in a fish bowl so you dont have to reach so far to retrieve the bodies. In this case fresh water would be fine,live rock and substrate are optional.

 

[rzande1]

I just dont get it and btw I am not going to quit like you would advocate I would. THe water parameters are just fine. My damsel, goby, and urchin are doing just fine. If it were chemical poisioning or any issue with the water everything would have died. Not just some but all. Then I could see ripping everything apart and starting over. The thing is there was no chemical poisioning. We havent painted. We dont use those stupid air freshener scents. No perfume around the tank. If I wouldnt have wanted to keep fish I wouldnt have spent thousands of dollars on equipant and stuff over the years. Dont try and sell me on some stupid fish bowl.

 

[rzande1]

OMFG you are not going to believe what it was. You may thank my magnum canister filter. It is the culperit. Hardly any water coming out of it and the motor was getting louder. I came home and my other goby was dead which stays close to it. The things that survived would stay away from it. I pulled it out and now everything is fine. It must have been shocking once in a while. I pulled it and replaced with an eheim canister. I also decided to go crazy and bought an octapus protein skimmer.

 

[sk8shorty01]

Originally Posted by Granny
http:///forum/post/2550976
-you could have stray voltage that is causing immense stress. put your hand in the water and touch your light or put your body against the tank and see if you feel a tingle.

This is a pretty bad idea. You should NEVER be testing for any type of electric current with your body as the conductor. That could be fatal if you got a bad enough shock. Also, just because you are sticking your hands in your tank and you don't feel a shock does not mean that there is not stray voltage in the tank. Think back, did you have your shoes on when you were doing this? The rubber soles of the shoes would keep you from getting shocked, so this thought could be misleading. I would get a volt meter so you have one on hand, as any time you suspect voltage might be a key, you can pull it out. You can get them at any home improvement or automotive store and they are cheap. It is well worth the 10 bucks, as you won't have to put your own safety in jeapordy in order to check your tank.
Glad to hear you found the problem, but I just thought I would point that out, as someone could take that advice later on down the road and get seriously hurt in the process. Hope you continue to persue the hobby and end up with a great and beautiful tank, as it is well worth the time and money in my opinion.