dead fish... Sad day

[seaham358]

Dead fish. Sad day
I have had my tank running for about a week. 125 LR/LS, no amm, NO2,NO3. Put in 1 bird wrasses, 1 flame angel , mated pair purple anthias, 1 green chromis. All died except the green chromis. The bird had things growing in him that looked like small white hairs all over his body. He would swim around a little and then just lay on the bottom, he also had large string like slime on his nose in the morning the lfs said this is normal. He was in the tank for like 3 days and died, the Angel got it next. he lost some color and had the same white hairs on him, he also had some white patches, not spots like ich. They all stopped eating. The purple anthius showed no signs of anything they just died the same day as the angel. The Green chromis is all over the tank with no signs of anything. Have some snails, crabs and a shrimp that are doing well. The lfs uses copper in all their tanks. I have 2 corals in the tank.  There is 125 lbs of lr and 100 lbs ls.  The water came right from the lfg delivered to my house 125 gal salt water. 1.023

 

[BrianH]

    Please tell me this is a joke post.

    Well if it isn't there are some things you need to do. First. return any living creatures left in the tank to your LFS. Nest, place a couple of raw shrimp from your local grocery store in the tank and let them rot until you can't stand the smell any longer.
    While your tank is going through a proper cycle, I would buy and read The Conscientious Marine Aquarist by Robert Fenner. It will take your tank between 4 to 6 weeks for the ammonia and nitrites to spike and go back to zero. Please buy test kits to make sure this occurs.
    After this you can begin to add fish and inverts. Add your fish very slowly, about 1 per month. Do research on each fish to make sure it will be compatable with your future fish and your other tank mates.
    Brian

 

[seaham358]

The tank is cycled.... I had .50 amm, and around the same NO2 and around 5.0 on the NO3.  In 4 days the amm -o and  the NO2-0 and within 3 more day the NO3 was -0 ... The LR and LS did the cycling.  When I put the fish in I checked everyday and Nothing spiked... Nothing.. Everything was good.  My LFG lost a Flame Angel also so he thinks it was some kind of nasty parasite.  I was asking if anyone has seen these symptoms. The white on the base of the tail, white on the fins and the fins also had the white stuff hanging off of them, patches on the side and upper back.  Not spots, much bigger just smaller the an eraser. The flame had some kind of growth all over him.  The bird had the same growth but had a lot of little white hairs on him also.

 

[colesea]

A tank is not fully cycled simply because you have live rock and live sand. Not for nothing, but ammonia/nitrite readings of 0.5ppm is not enough to cycle 125 gallons much less support the bioload you dumped in there all at once. Most aquarist will raise their ammonia/nitrite levels to off-scale readings to fishless cycle a tank, and then only add fish after a careful water change and the readings are down to zero. As BrianH said, even the addition of fish must be slow, patient, and after reading for compatibility with tankmates and tank conditions, as well as if you can feed them properly.

Salt water magnifies the toxic effect of ammonia and nitrite and even low levels may be harmful to the fish. A spike does not have to be sustained to have effect, and some spikes will cause acute posioning before the live rock and live sand have a chance to process all of it.

Mucus on the bird wrasse in the morning is sometimes considered normal because these fish spin themselves a cocoon to sleep in at night. This mucus is a clearish color.  Whitish mucus and strings hanging off the fish is not normal. Nor are white spots like those you describe. Discoloration of the mucus is usually a sign of some bacterial infection. White crust on fins and scales is probably lympocystis.

The first thing you must ask yourself is if these fish had these conditions when you purchased them. I'm assuming you bought the fish in perfect health as any self-respecing and discriminating SW aquarist would do. Being that the fish were purchased in perfect health, then something within your tank caused enough irritation to sicken and kill them. Considering the history of the tank you've given, my immediate thoughts would be water toxicity due to ammonia/nitrite poisoning. Next I would really look into the quality of fish you are purchasing. If your LFS is using copper in their tanks, there really ought to be no excuse for parasites provided they are using the copper properly. And if they are mixing copper with inverts such as corals, I would shop someplace else.

If I were you I would return the living fish, corals, inverts to the LFS. Next I would run the tank empty for four weeks with an elevated tank temp to about 86oF. Four weeks is the incubation time for most parasites, and the elevation in temperature will quicken their life cycle. Without a fish host, the parasites in your tank should die off.  During those four weeks I would invest a lot of time in the library, on-line, or in the book store reading everything I can get my hands on about marine aquariums and fish. It is not as easy as getting the salt water shipped to your door.
~~Colesea

 

[seaham358]

I read the article on cycling and I have LR and LS and a protein skimmer. I had Amm and NO2 and NO3 when I first set up the tank. I put fish in after everything was at 0, and checked the levels every day with No raise in anything. To me this means that the tank is handling the fish load. If it was not then I would have had some type of spike in Amm at the very least, Right..
So if I had No spikes then it can't be that the tanks not cycled. It must be something else. What I have no idea. Maybe I'm missing something about the cycle but from what I've read and it's been a lot. (I have 2 fresh water tanks) I would have experienced some kind of spike in amm, n02, or no3 if the tank was not cycled all the way. This is why I don't think it is a cycling problem. I have a leather, yellow Polyp and 2 other corals and they are doing great... Knock on wood!!! The sump runs 900 gal an hour through it. My LFG is going to let me borrow a UV sterilizer for a month .. I have 4 green Chromis and they look good.. Thanks...

 

[seaham358]

The LFG gave me a Mimic Tang to put in the tank and see what happens.  Well, after 3 days it was dead.  No spike in anything.  So much for the Bio overload theory.  He gave me a UV sterilizer to run on the tank for 4 weeks and we'll try again.  He figures that it must have been something in the live rock, some parasite?.  He set up 2 other tanks the same week as mine and they are all running fine with lots of fish.  Oh we'll.  I'll keep trying a little at a time. Thanks for the advise..