dying fish.. please help

[tuck]

could anyone give me advice on what my problem could be..

i returned home last friday after a few days away,to find my sump pump had stopped running. therefore the water was not circulating or being heated and had fell to 19 degress celsius..

I then noted that my beutiful clown tang had been a casulty...
I also saw that my nitrite had rose to .25..and my ph fell to 7.1
A quick water change of 10% and everything was back to zero.
and my temp slowly came back to 25 degress celsius.. and ph back to 8.4 with the help of a buffer

I have monitered my water readings daily now, and everything is fine
NO2 0
NO3 0
Ammonia 0
ph 8.4

Now today to my confusion my foxface has deceased....

No idea why...could yo please give me your ideas.. the only thing i could think of was he was still in shock from the prevoius week as he has not been himself since, hiding away most of the time

 

[Lorna]

sounds like you had an ammonia spike due to the tang and the stress was too much for the foxface, though the water temp should not have been the major issue but lack of oxygen probably was.

 

[TRe]

the damage could of already been done on the foxface.. who knows for sure, maybe you should do more than just 10% water change... i would do like a 25-30%

 

[tuck]

there didnt seem to be any ammonia change...and i have just done another about 15% water change.
im wondering should i do another water change this week maybe another 15 to 20%. everthing seems perfectly happy now and ive even added a few chormis.

 

[Fishmonger70]

Do you think it's wise to add more fish to your tank right now? You should probably wait until you figure out what caused the original problem

 

[Lorna]

I beleive that the problem was initiated by the power shortage ie. no water circulation and temp increase. The ammonia would have already been converted to nitrite and you did say you had measurable nitrites.....I think another water change should do it.

 

[tuck]

i will do another water change this weekend then. prob be a 15 % change as i dont like changing to much at anyone time.

 

[tuck]

once again i have casualtys.. i found one of my fire dartfish dead on sunday.. and i have no idea why.. i have done three 20% water changes now one every week.. all my tests show no sign of anything

ph 8.3
no2 0
no3 0
amm 0
salinty 1.023
temp 25 degress C

is there anyother tests i could do to find this problem...

 

[Lorna]

do you happen to have ich in your tank? are your fish were probably stressed by the wild temp fluctuations and other issues and now are succumbing to ich. I would remove all and place them in qt and treat them with hyposalinity if that is the problem. Let your main tank remain fallow(no fish) inverts only for6 weeks that will give your tank time to stabilize and if there is any ich it will run its cycle without hosts and die out.....then gradually add your fish back so that the tank has time to adjust

 

[tuck]

would i see signs of ich on the fish..they all look happy and healthy, but there must be a prob of some kind

 

[Fishmonger70]

Do your fish have tiny white spots on them, on the fins?

 

[tuck]

there is a small white spot kind of bubble on the fin of my yellow watchman goby. and the 2 percs seem to hav one on there gills. there is only one spot on each fish though cant tell on the chromis or the azure damsels..

also if this is ich how do i treat it quickly

 

[Fishmonger70]

Not sure, could be ich. Your fish could be developing the white spots. You need to remove them from your main tank and put them in a quarantine tank. Keep them in there for at least 6 weeks in a hyposaline environment. Not sure as to how low your SG should be, as I have never had this problem.

 

[tuck]

i googled it and got some info.. yea i think your right to use low salinity as the cure, well from what info i could find. i will have to setup a qt tank today..any ideas on filtration for my qt... from what i read i wont need anything but a airstone with daily water changes....any thoughts on this

 

[unwritten law]

for saltwater fish I'd use a filter on it... at least a powerhead with a big sponge on the intake. (although that's not possible with some powerheads)

 

[tuck]

i visted my lfs just over a week ago now and he gave me some stuff called para guard its appartly reef safe and kills ich and other parasites. ive done 3 doses of this now and its looking like it has worked in my tank. prob a bit early to tell, but there are no obvoius white spots on any fish..
i also done a fairly large water change today 35%, and i also introduced a cleaner wrasse which should help ( or so i was told). i will just leave the tank now for 4 - 5 weeks, just keeping a eye on it and doing weekly water changes..

fingers crossed this has sorted my problem and has me back on track.

 

[Lorna]

hopefully...though as the ich goes through it's cycle your fish will lose the cysts only to have them reinfect later as they cycle repeats. That is why leaving the tank fallow is a sure way to eradicate it from your tank. It could be that there was another cause and now the fish have settled down and are not stressed......I am not sure what paraguard is but it could be garlic based which is helpful in beefing up the immunity.

Cleaner wrasses have dismal survival rates in captivity and are not a sure way to eradicate the ich.....

 

[tuck]

ill give you a breif description of what paraguard is...
it is a filter safe aldehyde based parasite control product..unlike toxic formalin based medications paraguard contains no fomaldehyde or methanol and will not alter ph.. instead it employs a proprietary synergistic blend of aldehydes, malachite green and fish protective polymers that effectively and efficently eradicates many ectoparasites eg ich..

well that is how it decribes itself and apparantly it is the only one on the market..
I also found another prob in my tank..i had been using a swinging arm type hydrometer which was measuring 1.023.. i have recently brought a refractor which measured the same water at 1.030.. which is a big difference.. so water is now reading 1.024 via refractor and swinging arm type in bin...would that of been a cause???????????

 

[Lorna]

well high sg will have to fish work harder to obtain oxygen and would cause stress at that level and who knows it could have been higher during the fatalities. It definitely didn't help the situation. Now you are on the right track, I want to look something up regarding malachite green......not sure if that is reef safe for all inverts or not...

 

[Lorna]

As I thought, malachite green is not reef safe and should not be used in the main display as it may render the display unsafe for invertibrates in the future as it may be absorbed by the rock, substrate etc.....it is a type of copper and is not safe.