First Fish Dead

[Wjcastiglione]

Ok guys,

 

11-2 - put water in my tank, 20 lbs live sand, 15-20 lbs live rock purchased from LFS

11-8 - Ammonia 0, nitrite 0, Nitrate between 10-20 ppm. diatom bloom started.

11-9 - First fish added per LFS recommedation. 1 chromis to make sure tank was cycled.

11-10 - Fed fish, not sure if he ate

11-11 - Fed fish, not sure if he ate

11-12 - Fed fish, he ate. saw him do it.

11-13 - no feed. tested water - 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 10-20 ppm nitrate. Salinity 1.020

- added clean up crew from reefcleaners.org

- did 4 gal water change at 1.030 salinity to help boost up lower salinity number. Let salt mix with powerhead and heater for one hour. Checked temp, within a degree of tank temp (77 deg)

- added chemipro elite, rinsed out before hand well, still caused tank to be a lil cloudy.

- added skimmer.

11-14 - no feed. fish dead. All cleanup crew seems to be OK. 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 20-40ppm nitrate. 1.022 salinity

 

.... ok, I'm lost - I just did a near 15% water change. Could the clean up crew have caused this much havoc to the bioload to kill the fish?

 

I planned on adding two clowns to the tank tomorrow - that's clearly out of the question now, right?

 

How do I handle this? 50% water change?

[Hexadron]

Personally even though your cycle technically was complete, it wasn't up to par to handle the fish bioload. Also, never take advice from that LFS again.

 

It could also be that the salinity was raised too fast and the fish (that i'm sure was already stressed) just couldn't handle it. There really should be no sudden changes after adding a fish IMO, the goal is to keep things steady.

 

My rec. is to keep the CUC as is, and let the bacterial colonies expand further to be able to handle a fish bioload. Say 2 more weeks at least. DO NOT ADD ANY MORE FISH!

[ManGups]

How big is the tank? salinity should be changed slowly not drastically.

 

Get the dead fish out of the tank Confirm parameters. Do water change with matched salinity to get NO3 below 10 ppm.

 

You could add 1 fish but would advice to wait.

[CronicReefer]

Your fish most likely died due to salinity shock. The water should never be adjusted by more than 0.001 at a time.