Fish Life (1 Viewer)

[Style23]

ok i cant stand the wondering anymore...i have the worst luck with fish, none of them are safe...


my paramaters are decent, i mean lets face it im not perfect on the water changes and stuff...but my biggest thing is i have never lost a coral in the 2 years i have been keeping tanks, but cannot keep a fish for more then like 4 months i think was the longest...


i normally fed a medium amount once a day and never had the tank overstocked...

i can explain a couple of deaths i have had, due to heater malfunctions, nitrate spikes, ick, etc...but like 1/2 of them i just cant explain, only thing i can think of is i need to feed them 1/2 as much twice as often....

any other ideas fellow keepers of the ocean??


--Kyle

 

[Scott]

tell us about your tank

 

[ShaneV]

what kinds of fish? Tank raised wild-caught?

 

[Guest]

How do you acclimate them? Could you have added too many at once? Have you gotten fish from different places or the same place each time?
Just some thoughts.
Cheryl

 

[AquaNerd]

yeah, how did you acclimate them? how stable is your water temperature and other parameters? if it fluctuates too much your fish will get stressed out.

did you buy healthy fish to begin with? and where did you get them? is it possible that they got ick from your other fish and you just couldn't see the spots or other effects of disease and parasites?

 

[Ophiura]

Frequently, what kills fish may have no impact whatsoever on inverts, so a complete assessment is needed. I would start with a total history - tank set up, specific parameters, fish involved, symptoms, cleaning habits, even things around the house (painting, cleaners used) etc.

 

[Style23]

ok im going to try to answer all the questions in one shot, but im pretty sure i will miss some so...

it is a 125 w/ an overflow box 55g sump, with aprox a 10 gallon refuge, and an ASM G-4 Skimmer... right now i have about 90lbs of LR i think, i have a mag 9.5 for the return, recently aded a seio 1500 to the opposite end of teh tank from where the rock is...i am starting to get a hair algae bloom again, i had a reasonably bad one, got it all taken care of for 3 months or so...but it is working its way up from the refuge...also about 130lbs of live sand..

i normally use my magfloat once every couple of days w/ water changes every month-month and a half...

all the fish i believe had been wild caught...off the top of my head here is a list:

pair of false percs
yellow tang
powder brown tang
sailfin tang
solar fairy wrasee
green wrasse
orange spotted prawn goby
bangaii cardinal

i think that is it...the only fish i kept sucessfully were a bicolor psudochromis and a maroon clown in my 10g when i had it running, i brought them back to the LFS 6 months later or so for the pair of false percs...

i used to aclimate by floating the bag for 20 min then dumping the fish in...evolved to floating the bag for 10 min, adding some tank water, waiting 10 min, adding some tank water, waiting 10 min, putting them in... now i drip aclimate them for around 1-2 hrs...

even though i have a 125 i wont add more then one larger fish or 2 small fish at one time...

the powder brown tang i can explain, i added some LR that i had been curing for a month or so to the tank, well it wasnt cured all the way, paramiters went out of wack and the powder brown got ick..so i QT'd him and treated him for 1.5 weeks and added him back...i think i aclimated him to fast and the next day he was dead...

all the fish listed have been over a 2 year period, including my tank sitting w/ no fish for 2 months...

yes all the fish i picked were healthy to the best of my knowladge, i would have them for a week or so, sometimes more, then they wouldnt make it...so it is something im not doing...

i dont use many if any chemicals around the tank, the tank is in my bedroom so it is away from most of the heavy cleaning, most that would probably get close to it is a swifer wet....

i just tested my tank: (dont have an amonia test right now, ran out)

NO3= 0
NO2= 0
alk= around 240
PH= 8.3

 

[Ophiura]

When they "wouldn't make it"....can you describe? Fine and eating and dead in the morning? Slow and sluggish and never eating?

 

[Style23]

they eat...then they will be weak and sitting on the bottom, or stuck to a power head, but still alive (barrely) then a couple hours later they are dead..

like i said the only thing i can think of is feeding twice a day instead of the once i do..

 

[Ophiura]

No, this is not related to the amount of feeding. Contrary to popular belief, many fish can in fact go quite awhile in a tank with LR, without being fed. Frankly, even other fish can go a long while.

So, I am correct in reading that NO fish have survived in this tank?

Definitely no one around who might "clean up" in the area without you knowing?

Nothing put on your hands in terms of lotions or soap before going in the tank?

Nothing used to clean the glass of the tank?

No kitchen sponge used as an algae cleaner or other?

 

[Style23]

nope all my cleaning supplies are fish tank use only...and all my cleaning supplies are made for aquariums....soaps/lotions might do it, i never payed much attention to that...so that is something i will have to keep in mind

another thing that i thought of, is i used silicone II for the baffles when i made my sump, would that have any effect? or just affect my bacteria population for biological filtration??

 

[cstewart79]

Where do you get your fish from??

 

[Wiggy]

What type of food are you feeding them. During the time you have lost the fish, have you been feeding the same container of flake food (Or same packet of frozen). Possibly contaminated food. Just a guess.

 

[Style23]

different packages of food...i have gotten fish from the LFS i used to go to in Green Bay, WI where i used to live, and i think all the ones ive gotten here have been from T&T fish and reptile..