mysterious deaths

sharkey708

Member
over the past several days, I have been literally losing fish. they keep disappearing. I do not know if they are dying due to a disease, or if one of my crabs is the culprit while they are sleeping. Is it possible a crab can be killing my friends?? HELP!!
 

sharkey708

Member
I am fairly new to the hobby and also do not know how to determine if they have been infected with some sort of disease or not or what kind of disease it could be. Are their any sites that troubleshoot for disease w/ pics?
 

sharkey708

Member
tank is 8 months old. 75 gal with 140lbs of live rock. I dont think its the crab either. i think its a disease but dont know what. I have lost a mandarin, maroon clown, psudochromis, and a majestic angel. 1 black & white clown looking like he's on his way out. getting desperate and do not know how to fix. doing 5 gal watrer changes nightly the last 2 nights
 

lionfish28

Member
Stop doing the water changes(water changes shold be done monthly)They might have a dieses?Is there white specs on the fish??
 

sharkey708

Member
yes. some of the fish look like they have little white specs on them, and my black & white looks like it has blotchy white spots on it & eyes are clody. I was doing the water changes hoping to help get rid of whatever was in there. I have 1 boxfish, 1 hippo tang, 1 yellow tang, 2 percs, 1 black & white, mushroom coral, 2 anenomes, plate coral, and another coral (forget what it is)
 

alison

Member
:happyfish Hi, I would agree with the previous person about stopping the water changes. Without knowing what your fish's simptoms are, it's hard to diagnose. Hermit crabs can take down a fish, and in fact it happened to me, but it was a smaller fish like your manderin goby, but a magestic angel probably not. How big is your magestic, is it a baby or full sized? I would guess you have a internal parasite if you can't see any spots like ick or bulging eyes or whatever. If I were you I would ask Bob Fenner directly. He has helped me out greatly with some rare sicknesses in fish. He usually gets back fairly quickly too. Do you have the rest of the sick fish in a hospital tank? Then you can treat more freely. So many of the so called reef safe medications are not safe, and I wouldn't risk it. Bob may tell you to let your tank run fallow for a month, meaning no fish. That I believe kills any sickness. That way you aren't constantly battling the sickness in you fish. That happened to me and I followed Bob's advice with a qt tank, and running my main tank fallow, because I was constantly battling ick. Now I am ick free. Hope this helps. Sincerely, Alison :happyfish Oh, I now see that you added a post about seeing white specs on bodie of fish. Fomulin is a great medication for qt tanks, but again check with bob fenner or possibly banner guy.
 

sharkey708

Member
How do you tell if it is ick? is there anything I can dose directly into the main tank without turning my fish world upside down? I dont have a hospital tank.....I'm getting sick to my stomach about losing all these guys. In regards to the water changes, they have been small 5 gal changes. you still think I should only do them once per month? Thanks 4 your help
 

alison

Member
:happyfish Well, it could be ick or velvet or a combination or that and more stuff. Have you done freshwater R.O. water dips that are ph balanced yet? That would be my #1 step. if I didn't have a Q.T. tank. you could even add a few drops of formulin to the water for freshwater dips. Check on previous posts about how to set up a qt tank out of a bucket or tub with a corner filter. I did that once when I couldn't afford my QT tank, it worked. I don't know exacly what size or stuff to add though. I set up the qt in a 28 gal tub that was brand new. Have you gone to your local fish store? They really can be quite informative about medictions to get and stuff. They sometimes are not knowlegeble about freshwater dips and hyposalinity, and running a tank fallow, and stuff that bob fenner really know about. Hope this helps.:happyfish
oh, I would really stop the 5 gal. water changes. If you do to many, then you can recycle. Doing water changes will help some with getting rid of the ick, but it won't completely get rid of it. The ick is already on the fish, and so they probably aren't so free swimming right now. Ick becomes free swimming after they hatch off the fish in I believe about a week plus. I've heard suctioning the substrate and cleaning the glass helps too, because after they are free swimming they try to attach to stuff like glass, and substrate. Hope this helps too.:happyfish
 

stranflow

New Member
What kind of cucumbers do you have? How large are they? I had the brown sort in my old tank and he was around 6 inches long. They release a toxin/poison when they die. I came home one time to the cucumber getting shredded is a powerhead impeller(the cover had fallen off).
Needless to say, the toxin/poison wiped out all of my fish. I would check to see if both of your cucumbers are stilling trolling around. If one of them have died, :nervous: hmmm... you're in a tough spot. I'd consider quanrantining the fish and doing some more water changes.
Good luck.
 

jimbo449

Member
you don't have any Brittle Stars in there do you. I'm going thru the same thing myself right now but I'm suspecting my Brittle Stars are the culprets. I have lost 10 large fish in the last two weeks. these fish were not sick, I would feed them at night and they would very aggressive in eating and looked find . Then the next day one would be gone. so I know all to well about your sick feeling. oh yea i'm playing hell trying to catch these Brittle Stars :notsure:
 

sharkey708

Member
yes i do have brittle stars in there! ya think they're doing it? Anyway, I just got back from wal-mart and bought a 10 gal tank, because there is little white spots on some of my fish. the only thing Im not sure of is, do I put 'em all in at once to treat them? or leave the ones alone that look uneffected?
 

benj2112

Member
You had a mandarin, a maroon clown, a psudochromis, a majestic angel, a black & white clown, a boxfish, a hippo tang, a yellow tang and two percula clownfish all in a 75 gallon tank? If that is right that ends up being about 55 inches (or more) of fish in your tank!!!
First off, I think you have way to many fish in your tank (if you had all the fish I mentioned above at one time and not just having some replace others). When stocking you need to keep in mind the adult size of the fish and not the size when you purchase it. The fish per gallon rule isn’t concrete because some fish want a huge tank to swim in. A place to start with that is about 1” of fish per five gallons. So, by going with that you should have a 275-gallon tank for all those fish.
I would think your fish are all getting sick because they are overcrowded (or introduced one sick fish to the main system) and getting very stressed, which lowers their immune system and leaves them susceptible to things like marine ich. Now you have a lot of sick fish with what could be marine ich. You need to remove the sick fish and QT them till they are better (and all fish in the QT have shown no signs of anything for a few weeks) and like Alison said let your tank sit empty for a month so to make sure the ich runs it’s cycle and doesn’t have anymore fish to infect. With that many sick fish you are probably going to have to set up a few different QT tanks or tubs.
I don’t mean to flame, but I think you are have gotten into a big hole that might be quite difficult to get out of.
So, you need to reduce the number of fish you have and then QT the ones you want/can keep.
One QT thing you could do is lower the salinity to 1.012-1.010 for at least 3 weeks (really should have a good refractometer to be precise enough to do this).
Some people don’t like chemicals but another thing you could do is treat with citrated copper sulfate in the QT. In severe cases you could dip the fish in a solution of formalin (2 teaspoons of 37% formaldehyde per gallon of heavily aerated saltwater) for 10 to 15 minutes before placing in a QT tank.
I hope this helps some and hopefully others will help.
Also, I believe it is good to do regular small water changes (5% every other week, or 5% each week, or 10% every other week…or even 0.5 to 1% daily if you really want to). Large water changes of 25% to 30% tend to be more stressful on livestock and are not recommended for typical marine aquariums except in emergencies or major rescue efforts. When you get all your fish out you might want to do a large water change, though.
 

jimbo449

Member
i'm not 100% sure if your fish have ick but my experience with fish with ick they usually show signs of being sick like swim on their sides or not swim at all. I thought you said that they just disappeared over night. If your fish do have ick you have to remove them all and leave them out of the tank for about a month for the ick to leave the tank:notsure:
 
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