About half of my fish are dead within three weeks

[bgs522]

Okay, here is my interesting case. I have a 75 gallon aquarium with a t-5 lighting fixture, 2- koralia 4s. I use to have an emporer 280 and a prizm protein skimmer for filtration but recently changed to a large reef octopus skimmer rated for 150-200 gallon tank because people use to say that my tank was underfiltered.

What I have inside the tank:
75lbs of live rock
40lbs of substrate (crushed coral)
20lbs live sand

Fish:
2 Clown fish (1 died)
Madarin Goby (died)
Blue hippo Tang (died)
Yellow Blenny (died)
Diamond Goby
Copperbanded Butterfly (died)
Yellow longnose butterfly (died)
Green Spotted Puffer
Porcupine Puffer
Lawnmower blenny
Wrasse, its blue and black and suppose to eat the parasites off the fish

Inverts:
Cleaner shrimp
Peppermint Shrimp
Emerald Crab
4 snails
4 small hermit crabs
Sandsifting star
Sandsifting cucumber
Urchin


The fish all did well until I added the two butterflies. After about two weeks it looked like a case of ich. So we started with a freshwater water with RO/DI water. That stressed the yellow blenny too much and he died. We then started treatment with KENT Rx-P. Which did nothing for about a week and did a 20% water change and then switched to Ich Attach for a couple about a week. No results from that either. We then set up a 10 gallon tank and moved all the inverts and some live rock to it. We lost our Mandarin Goby earlier that day (which I heard they are suppose to be immune to ich). So, performed another waterchange and switched to the reef octopus protien skimmer. Then I started treating the tank with Quick Cure. We also lower the salinity to 1.016 and raised the tank temp to 84 F back when we started to use Ich-Attach. But ever since we lost about a fish a day and now are just down to the 6 fish, the porcupine puffer still has some white specs on it but the other fish seem okay, but these fish also never show signs. All the water parameters test out just fine. All are at 0 ppm. The Ph is right around 8.3. I stopped the quick cure treatments and switched back to the Ich-Attach.

Any Ideas? Thats alot of fish lost and alot of money too.

Should I have bought the new skimmer?

I don't have a quarantine tank but now that I have the 10 gallon set up, I will use it as one.

I want to save the other 6 fish but I have no idea what is killing them.

[gregr]

I'll add my two cents and hopefully others will add theirs. How long has the tank been set up?
On first glance I'd say you had way too many fish in there. Adding a good skimmer is a huge step in the right direction. Second thing is I think you stressed the fish out by adding all that medication and changing the salinity and temp. To get your tank to thrive the key is consistency. Stable temp, salinity, pH, etc.
Don't add any more butterflies- they are extremely hard to keep even for experienced aquarists with established tanks. The puffers produce a lot of waste so if you want to keep them you should probably plan on keeping very little else in a 75. Mandarins will starve in a 75 unless it's at least several months old. The lawnmower is a good call but the shrimp and hermits will probably get eaten by the puffers. At least I think so- I've never kept predators but that's what I've read.
I am interested in what others think about the crushed coral substrate. I think it's not a good idea unless you're prepared to vacuum it out [clean it] frequently.
No mention of a sump- if you don't have one that would be very high on the list of things to get if it were my tank. No sump means that skimmer will have to be the hang on the back type.

[Ninong]

Hello bgs522,




You posted this in the Reef Aquariums forum but I suspect your tank is a FOWLR (fish-only with live rock) tank and not a reef tank based on your fish selection, especially the two puffers.

Anyway, before I move the thread to Lee's forum, I can't help but add a few comments.

Okay, here is my interesting case. I have a 75 gallon aquarium with a t-5 lighting fixture, 2- koralia 4s. I use to have an emporer 280 and a prizm protein skimmer for filtration but recently changed to a large reef octopus skimmer rated for 150-200 gallon tank because people use to say that my tank was underfiltered.

A good protein skimmer and live rock is all you really need for filtration. A nice sand bed would also be a plus.

What I have inside the tank:
75lbs of live rock
40lbs of substrate (crushed coral)
20lbs live sand

Personally I'm not a fan of crushed coral or crushed coral combined with sand. I would prefer just sand for the substrate myself.

Fish:
2 Clown fish (1 died)
Madarin Goby (died)
Blue hippo Tang (died)
Yellow Blenny (died)
Diamond Goby
Copperbanded Butterfly (died)
Yellow longnose butterfly (died)
Green Spotted Puffer
Porcupine Puffer
Lawnmower blenny
Wrasse, its blue and black and suppose to eat the parasites off the fish

Your tank is probably not mature enough to support a Mandarin dragonet. I don't think a 75-gal tank is large enough for a blue hippo tang or any of the butterflyfish. I believe a 135-gal (6-ft long) tank is a better minimum size for these guys.

The cleaner wrasse is an obligate cleaner and I doubt that it will survive long in your tank. These guys usually only do well in very large (300 gallons) tanks with lots of fish.

Inverts:
Cleaner shrimp
Peppermint Shrimp
Emerald Crab
4 snails
4 small hermit crabs
Sandsifting star
Sandsifting cucumber
Urchin

The crushed coral is not a good substrate for the sand-shifting sea star or the sand cuke. Both of those do better in tanks with just sand and lots of it.

The fish all did well until I added the two butterflies. After about two weeks it looked like a case of ich. So we started with a freshwater water with RO/DI water. That stressed the yellow blenny too much and he died. We then started treatment with KENT Rx-P. Which did nothing for about a week and did a 20% water change and then switched to Ich Attach for a couple about a week. No results from that either. We then set up a 10 gallon tank and moved all the inverts and some live rock to it. We lost our Mandarin Goby earlier that day (which I heard they are suppose to be immune to ich). So, performed another waterchange and switched to the reef octopus protien skimmer. Then I started treating the tank with Quick Cure. We also lower the salinity to 1.016 and raised the tank temp to 84 F back when we started to use Ich-Attach. But ever since we lost about a fish a day and now are just down to the 6 fish, the porcupine puffer still has some white specs on it but the other fish seem okay, but these fish also never show signs. All the water parameters test out just fine. All are at 0 ppm. The Ph is right around 8.3. I stopped the quick cure treatments and switched back to the Ich-Attach.

Any Ideas? Thats alot of fish lost and alot of money too.

Yes, I have lots of ideas but Lee has already covered all of these points on his forum and I will let him give you the appropriate links. Suffice it to say that none of your choices were good ones. You can't deal with ich in any of the ways you have tried. They are all doomed to fail.

Should I have bought the new skimmer?

Yes!


Okay, now that I got my two cents in I will move the thread.

[bgs522]

Thanks, I appreciate all of the info. Well I am down to only the wrasse, lawnmower blenny, diamond goby, Green Puffer, and Porcupine puffer. The puffers leave the other fish and inverts alone but I have never tried them with corals. The tank was an established tank and had never had an issue with ich before. All the remaining fish show no signs ich and they never did. I am not going to add any fish for a while. I use to listen to the guy at the local fish store but it sounds more like he just wanted to sell fish. He said all those fish would be fine but obviously not. I will just stick with the setup and give the new skimmer a chance. I will go ahead and get everything back to normal and start over. This was a nice learning experience because I am going to be building a house soon and building a 400+ gallon tank. So from now on I know to move slow and not get so many fish.

[leebca]

I can't add a whole lot to the observations that Ninong has addressed. However I would say:

1. The choice of the skimmer is and should not be done based upon packaging recommendations for the tank size. You size a skimmer according to flow rate. That information is found here: What is Water Quality

2. If Marine Ich has been diagnosed, then all fish are infected, whether they display it or not. Also, you want to know what really cures fish of this parasite. You need to read this post and ALL the linked other posts it recommends be read: Curing Fish of Marine Ich

3. Tangs belong in a tank no less than 6 feet long.

4. You didn't tell us what sizes these fishes were/are. Puffers like that I've seen in 90 gallon aquariums -- with NO other fishes. They like and need a lot of space. Have you investigated on how large they will grow?

5. I don't think you know how to maintain the life of a pod eater (e.g., Mandarin). That is covered in this post: http://www.reefland.com/forum/marine...tml#post186916.

6. You need help in determining the capcity and limitations of your aquarium. I'd like to start you off by reading this: Fish Stocking Limit - for FO and FOWLR

7. I think you're beginning to learn more about the hobby, however suggest you slow down, do what's right (in this case IF they have Marine Ich, then do the right treatment for it), and investigate the needs of the fish you want to keep to be sure you can provide a proper environment, health, and nutrition for them. You can usually have confidence in people's advice when: you know don't have any motive (like selling you something) or something to gain; they have decades of personal-home aquarium experience; and they have education on marine fishes.

It's a fun hobby, but it is and can be complicated. We're here to help.

[bgs522]

Yeah I guess I should have mentioned that all the fish are 1" to 1.5" long. The lawnmower is about 3" and the wrasse is about 2".

I will work on curing the tank of ich and slow things down. I know that the puffers grow to be about a foot in length but at their growth rate, I will have a much larger set up by the time that would play into the equation.

Yeah its a fun hobby and back when I had my 30 gallon with just the clowns, it was fun and never had anything go wrong but that was a much easier setup.

As for the Mandarin Goby, it sounds like no matter what kind of setup, the fish will die due to the lack of diversity of pods that we can have in our tanks, we can do our best to help them live a little longer but it doesn't help that much. But maybe I will try another at a much later date.

[bgs522]

Please check out my post under: Marine Fish: care, health, and disease treatment