i am a virgin

[rsedatec]

i am a virgin :help: :needhelp: when it comes to this saltwater fish. i need help big time. :help: i have a tenecor tank in it i have a protein skimmer , a wet/ dry system 2 power heads for flow and a magum 350 filter( i was told i didnt need it but better safe than sorry. i have about 60 lbs of live rock and crush coral for my base. my tank ran for two months. before i added my fish. test the water every two days for over 4 month all is good.nevr had any spike of anything in all that time. i started two put fish and they seemed happy. all of a sudden my fish began to die off,1 at a time .i am down a good amount of money and lost some beautiful fish. inotice that just before the fish die they seem to hide in the rock and they look like they cant breathe. please help i really like my new hobby and dont wish to be the killer of my fish.

 

[dmc888]

What are your exact levels ph,ammonia,nitrite,nitrate,sal,and temp?
Also how long do you acclimate the fish?
How long do the fish live?
What kind of fish too?

 

[rsedatec]

my levels are ph 8.0, nh3 &nh4, 0 no2, 0.3 temp is 80. the fish are now lasting about 3 days. i acclimate them by drip it take about 1 hr. as for the fish they were a naso tang, ayellow tang , a small queen angel, a fire dart fish, clown fish and a andthais.they were some others to many to remember.

 

[aufishman]

First of all, since you admit to being a "virgin", I'd stick to hardy fish that are easy for the novice to deal with (like the clowns). It sounds like you are going way overboard with the fish. Patience is more important than any high dollar piece of equipment you buy for your tank. It’s hard to tell what’s going on with the description you’re giving (although the water quality parameters you’re giving are fine). Give some more detail about what your fish are doing before they buy the farm. It sounds like a pathogen issue, although it should take longer than a couple days for your fish to succumb to most anything you’re going to run into. Is your tank new or used? Have you used any chemicals in or around it? You say your fish look like they’re having trouble breathing? What are they doing? Are they flaring their gills? Any rubbing against the substrate/rocks?

 

[rsedatec]

first let me thank all in advance the fish swim fine for a day or two, then they hide in the bottom of the tank. then stay there and all i see is, them opening there mouth like they want air. on the third day they die. what is pathogen? the tank has been running about 3 months. and no they are not rubbing against the rocks. and what if they are , what can it mean.

 

[malounsbury]

How big is your tank? As far as the tangs and angel, since they are generally larger fish, they should have a larger tank, 75ga plus. They do not do well in smaller tanks, because they need a lot of room to swim free and will get stressed in smaller tanks.
Also the tank you have, was it used for fresh water fish? If so, was any medicines used in the tank? Such as copper?

 

[rjmang]

Don't EVER start a post with a title like that!! Unless it is followed by: 22, new to KC!

 

[fishieness]

how long did you wait before adding each fish? You had a lot of fish for your size tank, and a lot of delicate fish, and you also said there were too many other ones to remember. All the fish you listed, except the clown and the dartfish need a larger tank than a 75, or they do as long as they are sharing it with other fish. So with all these, then the other fish that you couldnt remember, my guess is that there were way too many fish and they got stressed out. Were all these fish in there at once? How many would you guess wer in the tank at one time?
A pathogen is an forgein piece of matter. This would be a chemical, but is most commonly refered to a parasite or virus. And its good that they are not scratching against rocks. This would mean that they have some type of external parasite on them such as ick(looks like little grains of salt, or white dots)

 

[rsedatec]

my tank is a 110 and was use for saltwater fish , no medicines

 

[rsedatec]

wow it seems like you know your stuff. thanks again for the info. there seems to be like tiny air bobbles, i guess you can call them little tiny white dots. and when i find them they are always in the rocks maybe they are tring to scratch. what is ich and how do you get rid of it. i had a total of about 12 fish and they seem to get along well. they were added two at a time in a 2 month period

 

[fishieness]

12 fish for a 65 is a huge amount of fish! you added about 2 every week. you should add like 1 every 2 weeks or longer to get your system caught up, but you levels seem to be fine so thats not the problem. My guess is just from overcrowding all those fish.
and on ick. no, those probably are air bubbles on the rocks. Ick is a free-floating parasite that you can often get from the water in your local fish store. It attaches to the fish when they are stressed, then when it gets to its maximum size, dropps off and divides, producing more icklettes that will attach onto your fish. The fish will scratch on the rocks to get the parasite off of themselves. If indeed the fish do have ick though, i suggest proforming hyposalinity. over a period of about 48 hours, do a bunch of water changes to bring you salinity level down to about 1.009. The fish can survive this as long as it isnt done all at once, but the parasite cannot. If you have any inverts too like corals or anything like that, starfish eve, then this cannot be done because they will die too. In that case, you can use rid-ick or prevent-ick. Go to your lfs and try to find something that says it is reef safe, or it will not hurt the biological filtration in your system. you can find a lot more about this in the disease and treatment thread. The 2 locked ones on the top shoudl provide a lot of info.
a picture would be best to try to see what the problem is. Try getting a close up with a digital camera on your sickfish. or you can once again, go to the desease and treament forum, and by lookinn at the pics in the locked thread, you can decide for yourself.
are there any other symptoms? how do their eyes look? their coloring?