Sick Clown Fish (dead now)

skibum1681 · #1 12/28/2007, 09:33 AM

I am very new to the hobby. I have a 40gal tall tank with an Aquaclear filter, about 40 lbs of live rock, and crushed coral for a substrate. I cycled the tank with 2 Yellow Tail Damsels. I also have 5 snals and 5 Scarlet Hermit crabs. After my tank cycled i returned the Yellow Tails back to my local Saltwater shop (where i have bought all of my live stuff). I then bought 3 green Chromis (about 1.75") and my first True Percula (about 1.25"). I had them in the tank for about a week and saw no problems. I then got a second True Percula and a Six Line Wrasse. Everything was fine for another week or so, the Perculas were interacting very well doing their odd actions towards each other. Then i noticed a whith fuzzy spot on the first Percula. It still acted normally. Then there were more spots and its color started to fade. I called my local shop and they said it most likely was Lymphocystis and that it should go away. The next day the fish died. The day after the first clown died the second one started acting wierd. It would not close its mouth and slowly stopped eating. There were no color changes or spots. about a week later my second clown died. Now my Six Line's mouth is open most of the time and it dosent seem to eating too well. His color is bright and it is swimming healthy. All of the Chromis are eating very well and are very active. I have not seen any aggression between any of the fish.

If any one has any information that may be able to help me i would greatly appreciate it. I am in the process of setting up a quarantine / hospital tank but its going to be a couple weeks before my filter, which is in my main tank is ready.

Thanks in advance.

reeferman00 · #2 12/28/2007, 09:39 AM

crushed coral will hurt you in the long run. it will release componds back into the water and cause a crash. as for the fish i have no clue!

navychief · #3 12/28/2007, 09:43 AM

Dude. So sorry to hear about the loss f your fish. As far as the crushed coral is concerned, that is a matter of opinion about it "crashing" a tank. I've used it successfully as so have many others.

What kind of flow do you have in the tank? I need to look again, but how many fish were in the tank when the clown "swam up river?"

skibum1681 · #4 12/28/2007, 09:55 AM

I have the flow from my filter as well as about 250 gal/hr from my power head. As for the number of fish i had 6 - 3 Green chromis, 2 True Percula and a Six Line. I now have 4 fish and no Percula's.

taillonjohn · #5 12/28/2007, 09:57 AM

my 2 cents is you over-loaded your bio-filter. too many new fish too fast, and I dont think your system was able to keep up.

my susgestion is to find out what kinda sickness is in your tank. you can do more research on the fish sickness forumn here. that way you know if you need to leave your tank fishless for a while to get whatever sickness is in there out.

next time just a couple small fish every few weeks, your bio-fileter always needs to adjust with every new adition

navychief · #6 12/28/2007, 09:59 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by taillonjohn
my 2 cents is you over-loaded your bio-filter. too many new fish too fast, and I dont think your system was able to keep up.

my susgestion is to find out what kinda sickness is in your tank. you can do more research on the fish sickness forumn here. that way you know if you need to leave your tank fishless for a while to get whatever sickness is in there out.

next time just a couple small fish every few weeks, your bio-fileter always needs to adjust with every new adition

That's what I'm kinda leaning towards. How long was the tank "cycled?"

papagimp · #7 12/28/2007, 10:05 AM

Try your best to obtain captive bred/raised specimens if at all possible. Wild caught specimens can have a whole slew of problems. QT all new specimens so you don't inadvertantly kill everything. If this had been ICH, all your fish in the tank would have it now and you'd have to pull all the fish from the tank to hospitalize them in a separate tank.

skibum1681 · #8 12/28/2007, 10:14 AM

Just live rock for about 2 weeks, then i added the Damsels and they were in there for about weeks. then i removed the Damsels and added the rest as i said above. I check the ammonia, nitrite, PH, and Alk every day and have not seen high numbers since the first cycle. My ammonia test kit only reads in .25ppm increments from zero. is .25ppm of ammonia too high? I was planning on leaving the tank how it is for a while to make sure nothing else gets sick before i buy any more fish.

taillonjohn · #9 12/28/2007, 10:16 AM

amonia should be zero. always. .25 ppm of nitrate is ok, sure you didnt mix it up? if it is amonia your reading then the tank is not cycled

skibum1681 · #10 12/28/2007, 10:20 AM

I dont think it was ICH based on everything i have read so far. The Chromis are very aggressive eaters and i think it is hard for the calmer members of my tank to get food so i'm sure that that didnt help. My plan for my QT tank is to get the Six Line in it and make sure it is eating good. Hopefully it lasts a couple weeks...

skibum1681 · #11 12/28/2007, 10:22 AM

The amonia read .25ppm once after i added all of the fish. it went back to zero and is still at zero now.

taillonjohn · #12 12/28/2007, 10:28 AM

ok, so I stick to my original conclusion, I just think you added too many fish too fast, and overloaded your system, next time just give your system time to adjust to each new fish.

but unfortunately now you are stuck with the problem of identifying that sickness and clearing your tank of it, or else any new addition will be doomed. good luck.

skibum1681 · #13 12/28/2007, 10:41 AM

Thanks for the help.

Does anyone know what sickness would cause a fish to not close its mouth? I'm pretty confident that the first death was causes by Lymphocystis - the fish had cotton looking patches on it. The second death showed no symptoms other than eating less and less and keeping its mouth open.

stingythingy45 · #14 12/28/2007, 10:56 AM

I'm going to say brook......
Lympho would have cleared up with good water quality and food.