Loosing fish, don't know why

[brianinak]

Hello,

 

I have red sea reefer 170 (34g display and 9g sump) I have the original clowns that added after cycle and they are healthy, over 15months ago.  However I keep loosing fish after 2-3month of them doing fine, this has been going on for approx. 9 months.  I feel I do a good job acclimating.  Most recently lost a bangai cardinal and diamond Goby within a few days of each other.  Holding off on adding more fish for now.  A more experienced reefer came over to look at the dead diamond goby, thought no disease.  Do not feel it starved as I have added copepods with fuge with pom pom algae, able to target feed it, and belly looked good.  My reefer friend thinks was stress from clowns, but I have only seen aggression from the female to the male, no aggression toward other fish ever. 

 

Unexplained losses:

Royal Grammer

Diamond goby

3 Bangai Cardinals

 

 

Current Live stock:

2 clowns (original)

cleaner shrimp (original)

red tuxedo urchin

strawberry Crab (I think, have not seen in a long time)

Few snails

 

Corals: All looking petty good.  Do have 2 zoa that could be doing better.

3 euphilla, they look great!

leather, looks good

several zoas

2 favia

Montipora, growing like crazy!

Brain

Scoly, looks great

mushroom 2 (split)

ricordia mushroom

2 candy cane, both growing well.  

 

Water params:

DKH 9.3 (dosing 0.6 dkh daily, red sea Element B) Hanna test

Ca 450 (dosing 8ppm daily Red Sea element A) Red sea test

Mg 1480 rea sea test

PO 0.00 (hanna Low Range, worthless, I have never gotten reading over 0)

Nitrate: 1 (have GHA and some cyano, nothing crazy) Red Sea test

 

Are low nitrates bad for fish?

 

Thoughts? Any help figuring out the root cause would be greatly appreciated!

 

[HookedOnAquariums]

Sometimes unexplained losses are just that unexplained losses. In my fw none of my gourami survive but my angelfish are making babies. If your clowns are doing fine i assume thats what it is. Whats your salinity at tho? Sometimes people forget to check that and they dont know why things are dying

[MrObscura]

Cardinals can be fragile.

 

Id honestly recommend not acclimating. There's no evidence that it actually makes the transition easy, while there's plenty to show that it can do damage and stress the fish further. 

 

Most big time dealers, wholesalers, etc. don't acclimate and plenty of people have documented seer fewer loses without acclimating compared to when acclimating. It's best just to get the animal out of the shipping container, and tainted water, into a tank. 

[HarryPotter]

2-3 a month for 9 months is.... a lot of dead fish. My first suggestion would be to STOP ADDING FISH and let the tank ride/stabilize for a bit. 

[MrObscura]

op has lost 5 fish. They do fine for 2-3 months before suddenly dying. Not 2 or 3 a month dying lol

 

Though the fact that they suddenly die, or seem to suddenly die, after so long would lead me to believe it's not actually anything wrong with the tank, or even disease, but rather stress. Which very well may be your clowns. They can be very aggressive. 

 

[banasophia]

1 hour ago, HarryPotter said:

2-3 a month for 9 months is.... a lot of dead fish. My first suggestion would be to STOP ADDING FISH and let the tank ride/stabilize for a bit. 

I think they were say they are losing the fish after the fish had been doing fine for 2-3 months in the tank, with a total loss of 5 fish... it’s kinda like a riddle, you have to read it carefully. 🤔

[brianinak]

thanks all,

 

Over nine or so months I have lost fish that have been fine for 2-3 months.   NOT 2-3 a month.  

1 hour ago, HarryPotter said:

2-3 a month for 9 months is.... a lot of dead fish. My first suggestion would be to STOP ADDING FISH and let the tank ride/stabilize for a bit. 

Poor writing on my part.  I loose fish that have done fine for 2-3 months.  

[brianinak]

3 hours ago, HookedOnAquariums said:

Sometimes unexplained losses are just that unexplained losses. In my fw none of my gourami survive but my angelfish are making babies. If your clowns are doing fine i assume thats what it is. Whats your salinity at tho? Sometimes people forget to check that and they dont know why things are dying

Salinity 1.025 and stable

Temp controlled by apex 77.3-77.6

PH peaks at 8.15 ish and losw is 7.85.  Always have had low PH and gets worse during winter.  

 

I certainly do hope it is as simple as unexplained losses.  Tank looks pretty good overall.

[brianinak]

Thanks everyone.  I appreciate the input

[Clown79]

Are you buying these fish at the same place?

 

Drip acclimation can be an issue. It's less stressful and less likely for ammonia issues to float the bag for temp acclimation and then add the fish.

 

Sometimes clowns can be asses, we may not even see it. 

Maybe when you add a new fish, change something around in the tank, the clowns may be less territorial.

[brianinak]

thanks for the suggestions.  

I do buy fish at same place, Petco.  The staff is knowledgeable and hobbyist themselves.  Don't know anything about their distributor.  

[Tamberav]

We're the Cardinals all added at once? They can fight in our tank unless a mated pair.

 

Did any fish do anything unusal? Twitch...act funny ect....flukes can be a silent killer.

 

Some people will probably say stop buying from petco and some are horrible but there was one I shopped at that had healthier fish than most LFS and had a nice frag tank and a booth at frag swaps...sponsered local forums ect so not all are garbage. Their distributer is same as most any other place. So it just depends on your petco.

 

I personally found Cardinals and sand sifter gobies to be a bit difficult to keep long term. I had two Cardinals die weeks after having them and finally got a 3rd to survive and it died to a power outage and was my only loss. Sand sifters would eat and look good and poof. It could just be a run of bad luck. 

[BlennyBoi]

maybe something nasty in the live rock? bobbit worm, mantis, etc

[jesseatam]

Internal parasites maybe