Ok, so I got 4 Chromis and two Bar Gobies a few days ago. One of the bar gobies disappeared soon after I had put him in the tank so I figured he was sick or wanted to hide until he acclimated...that was the last time I saw him...well, all the other fish were doing fine and eating...this morning I woke up to see the carcass of the bar gobie and 3 chromis laying dead..one of the chromis had an eye missing and the bar gobie's head was gone and it's body looked like mush...

The only other livestock in the tank is a false percula clown and two cleaner shrimp. I can't figure out what the deal is. Today is a sad day.

what size tank? how long has it been set up for? Other parameters? Could be too much on the bio load at one time. But need more information to help you out!

Sorry to hear that.

Did you add all 6 fish at one time? What sized tank? How long has it been up?

50 gallon hex tank...been running for 4 months..I only have a bunch of zoa's in the tank that I recently acquired back from my brother...could that be it?

sure you dont have a predator hitchiked in on your rocks?

Yes.

Been running for 4 months+




that is what I thought being that the gobie looked like mush and it's head was gone..I thought the shrimp might have done this in the past 2 days but he looked pretty bad...plus one of the chromis was missing an eye..kinda weird..

Sorry but if you added all four fish at the same time that would most likely be your problem. Sorry for your loss.

i have a very hard time believing this

simply adding the fish would not cause eyes to be missing or a head. or a mushed up body. These are signs of an attack. Question is .. could there be a hitchiker that is hungry now. The other fish that had been in the tank maybe just did not sleep on the rocks thus out of reach of the predator? Its baffling. but sounds like something attacked them to me. Was there any missing scales or anything like that on the other dead fish, or just the eye and other munched up one?

what do you have for a clean up crew?

My mistake it was 6 fish, and can you elaborate on why you think I am mistaken, no sarcasm intended GT. The tank is 50 gal, so reduce that to about 35 gal with LR and sand. The timing seems right, a build up of ammonia and I doubt a single hitch hiker could have done that much damage in one night. I agree we need more info like parameters.

And op not trying to hijack your thread just need more information.

Thank you in advance.

Tell us about your acclimation procedure.

i would think it unusual that a spike in ammonia or anything else of the sort would a.) not cause all the fish to die and b.) not kill his shrimp ... i would assume under high ammonia levels or a spike from adding too many fish at once the inverts would be first to go not the fish...a high level of ammonia does not account for the missing body parts etc... maybe it was the cuc that did this after they had died

I think that the fact some were chewed up so badly would suggest something other than just fish addition.

I would agree if it was 6 carcases just floating like they were poisoned.

I feel that is the largest mystery .. what chewed em up so severely?

I do agree how ever adding 6 fish so quickly together is not a good idea but doubt is solely to blame.

well, to acclimate I had them in the bag and floated for 20 minutes...then put them in. I use to drip acclimate but heard that is not the right thing to do anymore.


I don't have a clean up crew as of yet and I doubt I will. I don't like how snails and crabs knock everything around. I do have a few nassarius snails though.


I did just have a clown fish in the tank for a few months already and it always stayed toward the top since the day I put it in. It never went down to the rocks. I did get my rock from my brothers tank and I didn't see any hitch hikers in it..besides, I doubt any predators would have stayed alive that long without eating any food for 4 months...I'm puzzled on this one. I checked the chromis for marks or anything that would indicate a pistol shrimp or mantis...

Can a cleaner shrimp remove or eat up an eyeball overnight? would a gobie look like mush in two days if it died the very first day and the cleaner shrimp went at it? I really hope I don't have some sort of mantis in my tank. What a pain in the ass that would be.

I think one fish died (the first one you could not find, the bar gobies) and that created ammonia spike and from that the other fishes died. Probably the missing body parts are due to other fish picking after the death or the shrimp doing it. If the fish is dead, tissue decompose and become soft enough for the shrimp or other fish to pick at it quite easily.

You can't see ammonia as you can have crystal clear water and have tons of ammonia in it.

I would check for this first since your aquarium is very young and maybe not fully cycled.

+1


I think 1 died from stress and the rest followed. fish have feelings too

I believe the cause of the mushed up body is the cleaner shrimp. I had a fire fish that went MIA for about 3 months and showed up all of the sudden in my back chamber. Long story short he died and I found my cleaner shrimp munching on him and he had eaten both of his eyes.

Where's pics of your hex??

If you have nassarius they are what ate the remains of your fish. Did you test your parameters?

I'm working on testing later today. Right now I'm making some water for a water change in case the levels did spike up.

Is having my tank running for 4 months really still cycling??

too many fish at once, i concur, one died from improper acclimation and shock, triggered a chain reaction, clean up crew (snails, crabs, shrimp) will go to work on a dying fish right away, even before they are completely dead, they can detect a dying animal, especially nassarius snails, they wont wait for a fish to stop flailing about, if an animal is sick enough to stay still enough for a snail to climb on them they were already dead....

four months could be a bit early for any fish as well....get some proper tests done, write down your finsings, then take water smaples to LFS and ask them to test with their kit and compare, but even with perfect water balance which i doubt you have yet, adding all that at once basically killed them all, sorry

It wouldn't be that the tank is "still" cycling, but adding that many fish at once spiked the ammonia since you don't have the micros to deal with it.

The amount of bacteria in a tank who can eat ammo is based on how much ammonia your tank produces.. if you had very little (i.e. from cycling with no livestock) then introduce a large amount of livestock, there is not enough bacteria to handle the huge increase in ammo production. Thus is spikes and kills everyhing.

Not sure if that's what caused it or not (seems like maybe not) but that's the theory behind why adding a lot of LS at once can be bad.

I am sorry for your loss. But if four fish died - and at least three in one night - and only two showed signs of predation, there was likely an ammonia spike which accounted for most of the deaths. Good idea to be ready to do a water change ASAP. How are your other fish doing?

If you've only had a few fish and some zoas in the tank your bacterial colonies are not going to be ready to immediately support six new fish, no matter how long you've had that tank up. It probably would have been a better idea to add the gobies, then wait a few weeks and add the chromis, keeping a really close eye on water parameters and having change water at the ready.

If you added one or two today, one or two in a week, etc. you wouldn't have problems. I recommend waiting as long as possible, though... how are your corals doing?

Dang it!!!!


I can't believe I may have made a total rookie mistake. I guess Nano's are a bit different from the 400gallon I was use to running. I figured the load wasn't going to be a big deal but apparently it was. I feel bad thinking this was my error. Oh well, time to write some obituaries. THanks everyone for the input.

We have all been there.

Mike I am sorry the little fellas died. Just reconsider your acclimation procedures with you next purchase. The only time I do only temp acclimation is with corals and/or inverts depending on the shipping time.

If your tanks parimeters were different from where you buy your livestock, then that can cause even more stress. Imagine someone dumping you in a landfill with out acclimation to the smell? You would gag. Lol bad example but you get me.

I don't think they died because of acclimation. I'm sure it's helpful but I don't think it's the cause of death. It could have contributed though. Most fish will do fine just tossing them in the tank.

In my experince tossing fish is not a good practice. I have lost angles,tangs to tossing them early when I was a beginner. Dripp acclimations seems to work for me. I have yet to lose a fish this way. Sure some are hardy and probably no one is tossing expensive fish, but dripp acclimation is great.

well, as for me. I've put in 6 damsels the first day of my tank. They all did fine cept for 2. That was a while back though.

They obviously ALL didnt do fine then



-1, cheryl is correct

Well, they're damsels. Hehe.

+1 to CUC or other fish eating dead fish

Can't say i know what killed 'em but i've seen CUC take care of almost entire fish overnight. yeah i look around my tank in the dark.

I bet you 75% of the people or more on this site (including me) keep a flash-light next to the tank for night watching. Your not crazy dont worry :-p

well, I'm thinking it might have been stress now....

after thinking back on the events........

1. the gobie started to hide from the moment I placed it in.
2. 2/3 of the chromis had discoloration on their bodies.
3. one chromis was floating against the overflow, the other was laying on a rock.


The only thing that might be predation would be the chewed up gobie body...but with 6 nassarius in the tank within the vicinity of the carcass I would think it was caused by them.

So, no more fish for some time.