Help - dying fish

hscott

hscott

New Member
We've had our tank set up for about 8 months and it used to be a home to a Picasso Trigger, Niger Trigger and 6-line Grouper. We've sold them are turning it into a reef/fish tank. We have an E-heim canister filter on the tank and the water is testing perfectly fine (see stats below), but we've lost 2 clarkii clown fish, and then a lemonpeel angelfish. Each died within about 3 days - they wouldn't eat. :( I need help figuring out what might be wrong.
Water Stats
No2 = <.3mg/l
NH3 = 0
SAL = 1.03 (I think a little high)
Ph = 8.0
GH = 10 dH
Calcium = 360
In the tank now we have:
1 red flame scallop
1 orange linka starfish
6 peppermint shrimp
1 camel back shrimp
1 coral banded shrimp
10 Hawaiian zebra hermit crabs
10 blue claw hermit crabs
(and a green hair algae problem we are trying to remedy)
about 12 lbs of LR, crushed Florida coral on the base and lava rock, coral (not alive) and a few other rocks as base rocks for our rock structure.
We also have one filtered power head behind the rock structure.
I took the water to the LFS to see if they could do any other test on the water to help. They basically did the same tests that I already did and said the water was fine. They mentioned that it could be some sort of bacteria (like a cold) in the water. :( Could that be an issue? If so how do I test for it?
 
moopiespoo

moopiespoo

Member
What di the fish look like before they died? Breathing heavy? Did their bodies look unusual? Are you sure your scallop has'nt died. I hear thet release a toxin that can wipe out a whole tank.
 
hscott

hscott

New Member
the one clown swam to top of tank kinda vertical, then laid on bottom breathing hard, and then dissapeared. The other was just gone. Both of these were before the scallop. And I know he is OK because it moved into a new position this morning. The lemon peel never seemed distressed. It hid a lot, but never seemed to have a problem. THen wam, gone. I got the scallop at the same time as the lemonpeel.
 
hscott

hscott

New Member
I used the drip method recommended by Saltwaterfish.com for the Lemonpeel and the clownfish we got from the LFS prior to knowledge of the drip method, and we let them get acclimated to the temp for about 20 min and then added some water from the tank, and let them float then released them. Now as I think about it we probably poured the water into the tank. That could have been bad, huh? But that is how we had acclimated the Triggers and the Grouper.
 
bdhough

bdhough

Active Member
NEVER pour lfs water into your tank. LFS's use all kinds of chems in their tanks sometimes and you ahve no way of knowing what. Those chems are usually lethal to all of your inverts. So if none of your inverts died count yourself lucky :) I would definitely stop doing that.
 
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