Fish dying....help

[delavega]

My husband and I have a 60 Gallon tank (fish only). Recently we added a clown trigger and a heniochus butterfly to the tank. We bought the clown first and noticed when we got it home that he had ich. We fed it pellets that the guy at the fish store had given us and the ich had disappeared or so we thought. It reappeared again. A couple weeks later, we bought a heniochus butterfly who also got ich. It was the first time we had to deal with this parasite so didn't know what to do. The guy at the fish store said that it was because the fish were stressed out and it would go away. They started to get sick and stopped eating so we figured it was because of our high nitrate level in the tank so we went back to the fish store to ask what to do about that. The owner of the store told us to do water changes. We did ofcourse but our nitrates remains very high. He told us that the ich should be our main concern and told us to read about hyposalinity which we did start but too late. Our butterfly and clown trigger were dead in the tank when we woke up this morning and I'm guessing our blue damsel is too because he's missing. When we retrieved them from the tank, it was like their fins had deteriorated competely. There were pieces out of the butterfly's top fin but we thought the clown had gotten into a fight with it or something but now we're thinking it was the result of whatever killed it. The other fish we have are very light in color now and are swimming at the bottom of the tank. We need advice badly. It's getting quite costly although we do understand it's all part of this hobby. Can someone please offer some suggestions on ich and lowering our nitrates. Ammonia, nitrites, and Ph are all normal. We have definately learned from this and a Qt tank will be set up very soon.

 

[beth]

First off, welcome to Saltwaterfish.com. Unfortunately, you had to come to us with this big problem, but you can certainly get help here.
You say your tank is FO. Before I make treatment recommendations, I do want to clarifiy that FO means only fish in the tank. No live rock, no inverts, no corals....just fish. So, is that you setup? If so, that is good news. You can do hyposalinity in your tank. Please read the Hyposalinity post in the FAQ Thread which is at the top of this forum. The details of the procedure is there. You should get a refractometer which cost about $50 at ----. The refractometer is the best instrument to measure salinity. Get a refractometer that measures both salinity and specific gravity. If you absolutely can not get a refractometer, then use a quality GLASS hydrometer for the procedure. Don't use a swing arm, plastic hydrometer. In fact, if you have one of these, throw it away. They are so inaccurate that they should not be even used for measuring normal levels in your tank. You should be able to get a glass hydrometer from the LFS so you can begin the hyposalinity process. If you will get a refractometer, you can test your salinity/specific gravity once it comes in to be sure that you are at the correct levels for hyposalinity. Hyposalinity is an easy, safe procedure, but it does require precision.
Hyposalinity is very safe, even benefical for stressed/sick fish and it is effective with ich.
As for the nitrates. Water changes is not the answer. You need to find out WHY you have the nitrates to begin with and work with the problem directly. Water changes are only a bandaide when it comes to trying fix a prevelent problem in the tank. How is your display set up? Filters, sand? Give some details. I am going to take a wild guess that you are probably using an undergravel filter or a wet/dry system or perhap a canister filter.

 

[delavega]

Thank you for replying, I'm sure we'll get all the advice we need from what I've read on this forum. YOu 2 are quite knowledgeable about salt water tanks. Sorry about the misunderstanding, I do not have a fish only tank. We have about 50-60lbs of live rock with crushed coral on the bottom of the tank. We have 3 hermit crabs and now only 2 fish because 3 more died last night. We are using the Skilter 400 and the Emperor 400 for filtration. And we are using the hydrometer with the swing arm which we will throw away very soon. I will check out about getting a refractometer or glass hydrometer. Where we live, there is really only one salt water fish store so were limited about what we can get here unfortunately.
I'm not sure why we have such a high nitrate level. I've read if there is extra food in the water, this could cause it. Maybe that could be a reason because when we feed the fish lately, some don't eat so the others don't eat it all up. But we haven't had this nitrate problem before. It's kinda discouraging when everything is going so well and just when we add our favorite fish, they die. I wish I would have knew about this forum earlier because some of this could have possibly been prevented.
We are open to any suggestions. I have read the hyposalinity info and will continue with that.

 

[gatorcsm]

Almost a year ago now, I had a similar problem, where I had shrimp, rock, snails and hermits in a tank, but needed to perform hypo. I had too many fish for a 20g q-tank, so I decided to remove all of my rock and inverts to a big 55g rubbermaid, which I used tank water to fill. I simply made this step into a large water change.
Then I performed hypo on the display. This is a perfect time to do away with the crushed coral and switch to a sand substrate. This could be part of your problem with nitrates, as a lot of waste can get trapped in the cc.
When you go to switch it out, which would best be done at the end of the hyposalinity treatment, use a separate rubbermaid with tank water and a powerhead. Place all of the fish in there, and then remove all of the CC you can. Replace with the sand as carefully as possible to try to prevent too large of a stirup. If you are careful enough with the sand, it will be decently cleared up within 10-12 hours... I had waited until after bringing salinity back up in the display tank. This was beneficial because I could use some of my LR in the rubbermaid with the fish, providing some way of ensuring the water had a biological filter, and providing some hiding spots.
While waiting for the tank to clear, ensure you have all of your system up (flow wise), for some reason, the flow seems to get the water cleared up quicker, maybe someone has some input on the theoretical reasoning behind that.
If it takes longer for the tank to clearup enough to return the fish, that is prob ok, as you have them with rock and provided you supply enough room, they should be ok.
Once ready to return the system to normal, add the rock back first, that way you won't have to worry about crushing any fish.. They prob would get out of the way, but no reason to have to worry about them.
After you finish aquascaping, add your fish back in and you should be good to go. If possible, try to use your hands to capture the fish removing and returning to/from the display tank, to prevent removing their slime coat. To be on the safe side, you could always add a little slime-coat additive while in the rubbermaid to keep a good coat over the 10-12 hours, in case there was too much contact trying to get them out.
Good luck,
Gator

 

[delavega]

Woke up this morning and the last 2 fish in our tank were dead on the bottom. Now what? Our snail and 3 hermit crabs are still alive. We have to start from scratch now but I guess we'll need advice on what to do to get rid of the ich if it will live without fish as their host. I've read a lot these past couple days and it really sounded/looked more like brooklynella than ich.
We also need to know the proper way to set up a QT so we can avoid this problem in the future. Thanks to all who replied, I just wish I would have knew about this forum earlier.
I have attached a pic of our niger trigger that I toke last night, he died overnight.

 

[delavega]

sorry the attachment didn't show up on the last reply