Lost 4/5 clowns within 5 days

[pgsasi]

Hi All,
I need help. I had 5 ocellaris clownfish in my aquarium. 2 of them became a breeding pair and were laying eggs once every 10 days. I have successfully raised 6 clowns of which 3 clowns are 4 weeks and the remaining 6 weeks old. I have them inside a hang on tank in my aquarium.

5 days back, suddenly one night the breeding male fish started moving away from the female and was on the opposite side of the breeding spot with another juvenile clownfish. the following day, it died. 1 day later, one of the juvenile jumped out of the tank (this one was in the tank for more than 2 yrs and has never jumped). day before yesterday, another one turned up dead and this morning one more died. My tomato clown has gone missing for more than 2 days now and I assume he is dead as well. The only clown in my tank is the female clown and he doesn't look healthy. he stands vertical with head upwards in the middle of the tank near where it laid eggs and doesn't eat at all. My other fishes (1 Yellow tang, 1 damsel, 1 watchman goby, 1 banded pipe fish) are fine and eating well. The juveniles are also fine and eating so far (they share the same water). I tested water this morning and found the following readings.

sg 35
PH 8.0
temp 26
Ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate low/high 10/50

(i will be doing the alk test tonight and will post readings)

(same as readings last month and a month before). I make 10% water change every week and I use RO water.

I found a sea urchin in one of the live rocks I bought a few months back (very small one) and it has grown up now (1 inch now including the spine length). Not sure if he is poisonous and to be blamed. but other fishes look fine so am not sure what is causing this.

any help will be much appreciated.

Regards / Sashi

[peacock]

Hi All,
I need help. I had 5 ocellaris clownfish in my aquarium. 2 of them became a breeding pair and were laying eggs once every 10 days. I have successfully raised 6 clowns of which 3 clowns are 4 weeks and the remaining 6 weeks old. I have them inside a hang on tank in my aquarium.

5 days back, suddenly one night the breeding male fish started moving away from the female and was on the opposite side of the breeding spot with another juvenile clownfish. the following day, it died. 1 day later, one of the juvenile jumped out of the tank (this one was in the tank for more than 2 yrs and has never jumped). day before yesterday, another one turned up dead and this morning one more died. My tomato clown has gone missing for more than 2 days now and I assume he is dead as well. The only clown in my tank is the female clown and he doesn't look healthy. he stands vertical with head upwards in the middle of the tank near where it laid eggs and doesn't eat at all. My other fishes (1 Yellow tang, 1 damsel, 1 watchman goby, 1 banded pipe fish) are fine and eating well. The juveniles are also fine and eating so far (they share the same water). I tested water this morning and found the following readings.

sg 35
PH 8.0
temp 26
Ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate low/high 10/50

(i will be doing the alk test tonight and will post readings)

(same as readings last month and a month before). I make 10% water change every week and I use RO water.

I found a sea urchin in one of the live rocks I bought a few months back (very small one) and it has grown up now (1 inch now including the spine length). Not sure if he is poisonous and to be blamed. but other fishes look fine so am not sure what is causing this.

any help will be much appreciated.

Regards / Sashi

only thing i can see is ur sg is high. sg should be 1.025 so it could be that.

[Ninong]

I believe that's a typo. Instead of sg 35, I believe Sashi meant salinity 35.

[pgsasi]

My Apologies... its Salinity...

Just finished the Alk test... using Tetra test kit and it shows 10Deg... within safe limits...

I have just connected an airpump to the aquarium now. the last surviving clown has while thread like excretion hanging from the anus. Is that a sign of something ? does that atleast show that she is eating ? Are there any other tests that I need to do?

Please advise.

Cheers / Sashi

[Ninong]

Sashi,

All of your reported test results are within normal parameters and should not be causing any problems. You reported nitrate as "low/high 10/50." I assume that means that your nitrate test kit doesn't provide exact ppm numbers and instead simply tells you that your nitrate is somewhere between 10-50 ppm. Is that correct? That seems like a bad test kit for reef aquarium purposes. You should use something that gives you a much more accurate reading than that.

For reef aquariums, it is better to keep nitrate below 10 ppm, especially if you are keeping SPS corals. However, many successful hobbyists get by with 15-20 ppm. It's just not recommended because some SPS cannot tolerate nitrate above 10 ppm without it negatively affecting their growth potential.

As far as fish are concerned, even 50 ppm nitrate should not be a problem. The usual recommendation for a fish-only aquarium is that nitrate should be kept below 50 ppm; however, some public aquariums have kept fish-only tanks successfully for years at nitrate levels much higher than 50 ppm.

I'm afraid I have no clue what your problem could be. I suggest you open a new thread in the Marine Fish: Care, Health and Disease Treatment forum.

P.S. -- I think I will simply move this thread to that forum for you.

[leebca]

Sorry for the losses. Situations like this rarely arise. Unless you can see any kind of disease or injury display, the results are usually caused by water quality, environment, or tank mate issue.

Regarding water quality, you have done your tests and all look fine. However there can be another 100 things wrong with the water that we don't test for. I lump them all into the 'poison' category. You are not able to test for it at home, with typical test kits, but there is something wrong with the water that is affecting the Anemonefishes. That it affects one kind of fish is not something to use in order to rule this out. Fishes have different thresh holds to poisons.

Such poisons are either chronic -- affecting the fish over a long time; or acute -- having a more immediate affect. With the multiple deaths in so short of time, an acute poison is most suspect. The only thing to do is an immediate huge water change (over 80%), and then repeat this water change 24 hours later. Since this is such a large water change, be sure to follow these guidelines: How to Make a Successful Water Change

Regarding finding the problem: recheck your source water to make sure it is in fact pure. In fact, to avoid a possible slip of this, you might consider purchasing distilled water or professionally purified water for the large water changes. I don't see where you've listed the size of the tank, but hopefully it is large tank for all those fishes. This suggestion then may not be very practical, but it would eliminate this one possible poison source.

Next review everything that has touched tank water -- old and new -- for any signs of corrosion or sources of contamination/poisons.

Lastly you might want to use a different lot of salt mix (if that is what you use). Salt manufacturers do make mistakes and have killed fishes before through their error. You can use the same salt, just a different lot of it.

Regarding environment, that is temperature, pH, etc. which seems to be okay.

Regarding tank mates, they could have been poisoned or harmed as you have suspected. I cannot tell about this since I don't know the hazards of most invertebrates to fishes. However, a good chemical filter and properly operating skimmer, both of these cleaned and maintained properly, will usually sort out any releases of chemicals from invertebrates into the water that may have harmed the fish. Check the functions of these units.

Report any improvements or changes after the second water change.

[Lucid]

On the thought of poison in the water; check your pump chords. Especially where it goes into the pump's casing. I had one corrode somehow and poisoned my water. HTH

[pgsasi]

Thanks everyone... the last mama clown died last night.... am going on freeze for the next 2 months to ensure that the tank is safe....

I did 30% water change over the weekend. Planning to make further water changes during this weekend.

I have moved the baby clowns to a smaller tank (30L). They seem OK so far. Lets see....

Thanks for all the support..

Regards / Sashi