Next step after fish disappearances???

[kristin]

I have a 180gal with 150# of LR. It's almost 4 months old. My water parameters have been good, both by my home testing and testing at the LFS.
I'm losing fish, literally.
I started with 5 chromis, and eventually all but one disappeared. I took every rock out of my tank and looked, but only managed to find one body (in a sock). I attributed it to the lone survivor, who is a bully.
I have since added an ocellaris pair, a foxface, a bangaii cardinal, and a clown fairy wrasse. Everyone was getting along great for weeks with no problems.
Then my male ocellaris disappeared

I was really stupid, and put two firefish in there last week. I drip acclimated them, and they were eating and swimming with the rest of the fish when I went to bed. My tank is completely covered, so I know they didn't jump for it. Now, I can't find any sign of them. My clean-up crew is small (1 sand-sifter starfish, 5 hermits, 1 cleaner shrimp).
The other fish are all healthy and doing well. I did find two small bristle worms in my socks when I cleaned them last week.
What could explain this? What do I do

???
I don't want to kill any more fish.

 

[dawman]

What are your water parameters ? You should invest the little amount into a quarantine tank and keep the new fish for 2-4 weeks to make sure it is ok and doesn`t spread anything in your display tank .

 

[earlybird]

Yep you need a qt. Not to mention a much larger clean up crew. Anything could have happened to your fish in that large a tank. I'm surprised that your clown is gone b/c they can hold their own with a chromis. I suspect critter or disease but impossible to really know for sure. Please tell us more about your tank. Just curious why cover the tank? That's a big tank that needs good oxygen exchange.
Equipment (sump, powerheads, skimmer, filter, lights, etc.)
Temp
SG/Salinity
pH
Ammonia
Nitrite
Nitrate
Phosphate
Alk
Cal

 

[vicegrip]

could even be a mantis shrimp.
Do you hear a random click from your tank at night?

 

[kristin]

OK, so my firefish emerged today, a few times. At least they are alive. I haven't seen them eat anything since Wednesday, though. Any tricks to getting them to come out? My lights are normally off. Oddly, they showed themselves when they lights came on, today.

pH=8.2
Temp=80
Sal=1.024
NH3= 0
N02= 0.05
NO3= 20-100
Alk= "normal"
I haven't checked Ca or Phos yet. It's a FOWLR. Do I need to?
I have two sumps. One holds a Quiet One 6000 and a Quiet One 4000. The other contains a Super Skimmer 220. My lighting is basic Nova 28w, 2 actinic/2 white.
My tank is noisy. The LFS who set it up made acrylic covers for it to help keep the noise down. It also has a canopy. The lights sit between them.
How do I tell if my oxygenation is too low? I have the outjets pointed out and above the surface of the water. They create quite a few bubbles. Right idea?
No clicking at night, that I have heard.

 

[bigblue69]

Does your tank have overflow? Sometimes a fish will jump in there and you may not be able to find them.

 

[earlybird]

Originally Posted by Kristin
OK, so my firefish emerged today, a few times. At least they are alive. I haven't seen them eat anything since Wednesday, though. Any tricks to getting them to come out? My lights are normally off. Oddly, they showed themselves when they lights came on, today.

pH=8.2
Temp=80
Sal=1.024
NH3= 0
N02= 0.05
NO3= 20-100
Alk= "normal"
I haven't checked Ca or Phos yet. It's a FOWLR. Do I need to?
I have two sumps. One holds a Quiet One 6000 and a Quiet One 4000. The other contains a Super Skimmer 220. My lighting is basic Nova 28w, 2 actinic/2 white.
My tank is noisy. The LFS who set it up made acrylic covers for it to help keep the noise down. It also has a canopy. The lights sit between them.
How do I tell if my oxygenation is too low? I have the outjets pointed out and above the surface of the water. They create quite a few bubbles. Right idea?
No clicking at night, that I have heard.

Even with the cover I think your doing good with your pH. I'm surprised that your pH is that high with a cover. It's obvious you are getting good gas exchange through your skimmer and sump.
Your nitrites should be zero. Tells me that something died or not enough live rock or over feeding. Depending on the ammonia and/or nitrite spike as a result of any of the above could be the cause of death or even stress that is causing your fish to hide. With 150 lbs. of live rock you should not see the elevated levels of nitrite imo unless something was wrong.
Your nitrates are very vague 20-100? Do you have an exact figure? If they are close to 100 you need to do some pretty big water changes. I still recommend you do a big water change to get your nitrites down fast.

 

[kristin]

Thanks, Earlybird, and everyone else.
Yes. My current nitrate test kit is vague. I have a new Salifert one on order.
Today, my nitrate tested 10-50. My older kit and my Salifert tested my nitrite at 0.05. My NH3 was still zero. Would overfeeding explain this? I feed them flake in the am and pm, but my cardinal will eat only frozen seafood, so I usually feed a small piece of that, too :bad: All the food is gone within a few minutes, though?

The firefish showed themselves several times today, and came out to eat during feeding.
I did a 15gal water change today, and did not disturb the sand. The last time I did the change (about 12 days ago), I siphoned the top 1/3 layer or so. Could this account for the rise in N02/N03?
-Should I leave the sand alone?
-How do I improve my clean-up crew at this point?
-Is my 15gal/2 weeks not a big enough water change?
I know, too many questions in one post...

 

[skipperdz]

my tank is covered two but i still found my hawaiian blue puffer and lawnmower blenny in my overflow yesterday!

 

[sparkee61]

My tank is currently 6 months old and I have also lost fish even though all peramenters were fine. Three months ago, I purchased 2 clowns,2 fire fish and they were gone the next day.No carcass or remains anywhere. Had water tested and again everything was fine. Two weeks later, I purchased another set of clowns and 3 chromis. Woke up the next morning....gone.
A few days later, I hear clicking nose coming from the tank.I'm sure its the mantis shrimp that killed the fish.I have researched everywhere about getting rid of this monster, but no luck.I'm not about to break down my 75 gallon tank with 150 lbs of LV. I'll just have a coral tank for now.

 

[earlybird]

Originally Posted by Kristin
Thanks, Earlybird, and everyone else.
Yes. My current nitrate test kit is vague. I have a new Salifert one on order.
Today, my nitrate tested 10-50. My older kit and my Salifert tested my nitrite at 0.05. My NH3 was still zero. Would overfeeding explain this? I feed them flake in the am and pm, but my cardinal will eat only frozen seafood, so I usually feed a small piece of that, too :bad: All the food is gone within a few minutes, though?

The firefish showed themselves several times today, and came out to eat during feeding.
I did a 15gal water change today, and did not disturb the sand. The last time I did the change (about 12 days ago), I siphoned the top 1/3 layer or so. Could this account for the rise in N02/N03?
-Should I leave the sand alone?
-How do I improve my clean-up crew at this point?
-Is my 15gal/2 weeks not a big enough water change?
I know, too many questions in one post...

It sounds like you are overfeeding. This may be hard but cut back to feeding every other day or every 3rd day and only feed them once. Believe it or not, you're fish can sustain themselves on the different critters and microfauna on your rocks. It will also keep your fish active. Ditch the flake food most are not good quality foods. Buy a few packs of frozen foods and switch up the feeding. It's better to under feed than to over feed but every other day is not under feeding. I alternate between 5 different frozen foods including some homemade food.
Yep, leave your sand alone unless battling cyano. I'm experiencing another diatom bloom on my sand b/c I messed with it a few days ago. I'm not touching it now and if I have to, I need to be more careful and use a smaller tube.
I would increase your water changes to 10-15 gallons every week.
You can greatly increase your clean up crew and I recommend it. You can get away with a lot which makes me jealous. I love my inverts.
50-75 assorted hermits maybe even 100
50-75 Astrea snails
50-75 Nassarius Snails
25-50 Cerith Snails
10 Mexican Turbo snails
You can have a few peppermint shrimp, cleaner shrimp, and fire shrimp. You could have a few larger reef safe crabs as well if you like. I really think my numbers could be on the low side but to give you an example in my 29g I have 10 astrea snails, 15 hermits, 1 mexican turbo, and 10 nassarius snails. I might have to buy more b/c my peppermint shrimp is mean and loves my nassarius snails. I also have a cleaner shrimp and I'm going to get a blood shrimp this week.
Good luck.

 

[petjunkie]

It sounds like all that was lost was chromis and one clown? Chromis have been known to pick each other off until one is left, it's pretty common, and the clown could have just been unhealthy or maybe something picked on it, sometimes fish just die but with the chromis I would bet they did it to themselves and your cleanup crew finished the remains off.