[yankit3@hotmail.com]

Dear All,

Need your help. I've got 1 purple fire goby, 1 fire shrimp & 2 cleaner shrimps died one by one starting day before yesterday in the refugium at 24" x12"x18". They were there since early April. Th rfeugium was connected to the main display at 48"x24"x24" with a chiller at 27C. The fish, snails and shrimps in the main display are OK. Just don't know why. Would the little white bugs I saw at night bother the fish & shrimp? OR the CO2 released during the night was the cause?
Plase give me your expert advices!

Jimmy WONG
from Hong Kong.

[leebca]

Hi Jimmy. Glad to see you posting and participating here. Don't forget to visit the new Marine Fish: Care, Health and Disease Treatment Forum!

I would have to ask more questions before I would venture a guess on what was happening. If you are willing, please answer the following questions:

What is the lighting on the refugium? From what time to what time are they on?
What is the lighting on the aquarium? From what time to what time are they on?

What is everything you have in your refugium. Please list all livestock (including plants, corals, etc).
Tell us more about the refugium. Do you have a substrate in there? What? What is the water flow in the refugium like?

What have you been feeding the livestock in your refugium? How often?

What livestock is in your aquarium right now? Have you added or changed the livestock in your aquarium during the last 2 months? What changed?

What are you putting into the system (foods, additives, supplements, etc.)? and lastly. . .
Provide us with actual chemistries and water parameters:
pH, salinity (specific gravity)
ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, and phosphates

Am I reading properly that all those fish and shrimp were in the refugium and they all died, one by one?

The small organisms you see are probably copepods. They are harmless and somewhat beneficial. They often hide during the day because they don't care for light, and probably don't want to be eaten. More than likely you would also see them in your main aquarium at night, unless you have a way to prevent them from traveling around in your system (filters, UV, etc.)

To reduce or eliminate the carbon dioxide and oxygen issue, the lights on the refugium should be on when the aquarium lights are off and off when the aquarium lights are on.

Until I have a lot more information, I won't venture a guess. Maybe others would.

[yankit3@hotmail.com]

Dear Lee,

Sorry for the late reply. The refug is lit by a domestic bulb from 5pm to 7 am the next morning. The main tank is lit by a 1x150w MH running from 5pm to 11 pm daily. In the refug (but they wre all gone), there were a purple fire fish; 1 fire shrimp & 2 cleaner shrimps. Macro (I don't know the name) are growing on two pieces of rock with 1 & 2/1 inches of sand. The water flow depends on a cannister filter pulling water from the main display to the refug and down fall to the sump beneath the display. Water returns to the display by an external pump attachd to the sump.
I fed flake & frozn blood worm daily. I have 1 yellow tang,1 hippo blue tang, 1 tomato clown, 1 pecula clown, 1 banggai cadinal, 1 royal gamma, two cleaner shrimps. For corals, I have a button (zoonaiths?), 1 green star & 1 mushroom only. I feed the fish dry food, frozen blood worm, fresh shrimp meat(bought from the market) and nori for th tangs. I did not feed the corals. I did not put any additives nor supplments in the main. As for the water chemistries & parameters: PH =8.3 salinity=1.021 amonia=0 ;NO3=0 (I did not test the NO2 nor PO4). On the 1st day of death of a claner shrimp I had no idea of what happned until when the fireshrimp; purple firefish & the remianing cleaner died then I knew there must be something wrong. Then I tested the water in the display and the refug for NO3. To my surprise the NO3 in the rfug was terribly high. Th colour ( I use Hagen brand) was deep pink like purple, but the NO3 in the display was undetectable (the colour was light,very light pink). I made a 8 gal water change for the refug and do a cleaning for the cannister filter. Upon opening of the filter cover the cause leading to the deaths in th refug was unearthed! The building up of the NO3 was related to the water flow. The propller had not been tightly fixed when I did the last cleaning making the flow deadly slow that I didn't notice! After fixing it, the flow was stronger. I also harvested the marco as well. Then I made a N03 test the next day. The monster was gone! So it was the water flow to blame!
Thanks for your concern.

Jimmy

[leebca]

Jimmy,

I'm glad you resolved your problem. Good job!

I would be a bit remiss if I didn't notice something about the information you provided. That is, the feeding of your fish. The foods you've chosen will not be good to sustain their health and life for a long period of time. Seafood flesh (e.g., shrimp tails) is not the best kinds of foods to feed your carnivores and omnivores. They need whole foods such as krill, plankton and saltwater mysis. In the wild they wouldn't just eat the tail, they would eat all parts of the seafood.

You can get a lot more information on the above from here:
Feeding Marine Fish and Fish Nutrition

Good luck with your system!