green chromis deaths, help!

[cocojakes]

I got some green/blue chromis about a week ago and had them in a 10gal quarantine tank while my 60gal finished cycling. I drip acclimated and added them to the new tank yesterday, and woke up this morning with 1 dead, and the other two acting strange.

 

They both show red in their gills which I hadn't noticed before, and are just hovering above the sand with their mouth open. Neither of them went for the food I added. I smelt a bit of a chlorine smell in my RO water that I used for the tank, fearing chlorine I just added some water conditioner, would chlorine be the culprit of these symptoms? ammonia nitrite and nitrate are all 0, and salinity is normal, temp is 77.2F

 

I really don't want them to die

[cocojakes]

I have a smaller chromis in my 20 long reef tank, and it swims normally with its mouth closed, so clearly there is something up with the two larger ones in the 60 gal, any idea what it might be?

[Snow_Phoenix]

Parameters. Now.

[cocojakes]

like I said before, I just tested like an hour ago, only using an API test kit, but

 

Ammonia 0

Nitrite 0

Nitrate 0

salinity 1.024

temp 77.8 (slowly rising now that the lights are on)

PH 7.4

[cocojakes]

so I just had a second death, and the third one is hiding in the back corner behind the rocks. I'm about to do another round of testing and will give you the updated results. This one died with its mouth gaping open, if that means anything?

[grmoore]

Did you get them from Live Aquaria? I ordered a pair of Fiji Blue/Green Chromis from them on July 2nd, and within 48 hours, both were dead, and both had bright red gills. They were isolated as well.

[famousdan314]

Your Ph appears pretty low, I would aim for a PH closer to 7.9-8.3, the red gills could have very well been a PH shock and signs of burning with water too acidic, this would also explain the gasping for air. Its very possible your other fish have grown to live with the lower PH, but this would make acclimating new tank mates difficult. Try slowly raising the PH and document any signs of improvement for your current inhabitants and corals. Hope this helps and best of luck with the chromis.

[cocojakes]

Did you get them from Live Aquaria? I ordered a pair of Fiji Blue/Green Chromis from them on July 2nd, and within 48 hours, both were dead, and both had bright red gills. They were isolated as well.

I got them from an LFS, they have been in a quarantine tank (that I learned when I moved them to the new tank had a VERY low salinity, so that might have something to do with it) but they were fine in there for the past week.

 

Your Ph appears pretty low, I would aim for a PH closer to 7.9-8.3, the red gills could have very well been a PH shock and signs of burning with water too acidic, this would also explain the gasping for air. Its very possible your other fish have grown to live with the lower PH, but this would make acclimating new tank mates difficult. Try slowly raising the PH and document any signs of improvement for your current inhabitants and corals. Hope this helps and best of luck with the chromis.

Yeah, I'm testing the ph again now to see how it is, I'll try raising it slowly if my first measurement was correct. Thats a very valid idea. The 3 chromis are the first things in the tank, its a freshly set up 60gal with 30gal sump, they were the first additions, hopefully the third makes it. I'll update with levels shortly

[cocojakes]

ammonia - 0

nitrite - 0

nitrate - 0

phosphate -0.25ppm

PH - 7.6

Chlorine - 0

Salinity 1.024

[cocojakes]

so the last one is on its last legs, breathing heavily lying on its side on the sand. I can't for the life of me think of what it could possibly be. could the fact that the ph was so low have done them in? the PH is now up to 8.0 (raised it right after I tested it) but if that was the cause, it was too little, too late. I think I'm going to let the tank sit for a week or two, make sure everything is perfectly stable, and then try again. This is why I tried with 3 cheap chromis first, and not the 100 dollar ray thats eventually going in the tank. Man, I thought I knew enough about the hobby, but clearly I missed SOMETHING (the ph was a big one, I just wasn't testing for it because normally my ph in my reef tank is pretty stable around 8.2)

[KP_Reef_Tank]

Sorry to read about the fish. Everyone has a story I'm sure.

I hate to admit I lost a flame angel from a lack of aeration, early on.

 

I recommend keeping a log and routinely sample tank params as often as possible.

I keep a spreadsheet and track at least 1 param a day. At the bottom of my spreadsheet I have a formula to take the average of each parameter.

[cocojakes]

I keep a close check on my reef tank, but this is a new tank I designed for a stingray, it has a large shallow footprint. I think that what I had was uronema, and so now I'm trying to figure out how to get rid of it from the tank. They showed all the signs, and its apparently fairly common with chromis. My main concern is clearing them from the tank before I introduce anything else, since it can survive without a host.

[grmoore]

I believe you nailed it on the uronema. One of my pair had a red bruising on the side I attributed to LiveAquaria pinning the fish while netting it out.

[cocojakes]

so i found out that my water supply has chlorine in it (long story short, my friends RO unit was somehow outputting water with 3x as much chlorine as the tap water going in) he has since fixed the problem with a new RODI unit, and I used dechlorinator on the water in the system and tried again with a 3 inch devil damsel, which proceeded to die within 48h aswell. This seems like a very fast timeline for a parasite or disease, could there still be something in the water? all levels that I test for are normal.