Fish Killer

[cbarria]

My fish are dropping like flies. I have a new 37 Gal tank with about 20 lbs of live rock. I used to have 5 damsels on it, but now I only have 2 left. It seems every night one fish drops dead. The odd thing is that they look happy during the day. They swim, eat, etc... The first one to die was hurt however. I'm not sure how but as soon as I put it in the tank it was obvious that it couldn't swim very well, it couldn't move one of his side fins. I initially got 2 damsels and added three more later. The second fish to die came from the second batch of damsels. The third fish was from the first batch. The new damsels didn't like him much and kept him away from the rocks towards the surface the first day. The next day he was swiming around the rocks and they weren't bothering him much.

We've seen a bristle worm about 4 in long come out. I was trying to see if something comes out at night and kills the fish, but all I could see was the bristle worm, another type of creature that extended very thin white arms out of a whole. I may setup the infrared camera tonight and see if I can catch the killer in action.

These are my tank parameters:

PH 8.04
Temp 80
SG 1.022
Nitrite .01-.02
Nitrate 2.5-5 ppm
Amonia (NH3+NH4) < 0.5

Any ideas?

[Rick O]

Looks like you poisoned them. Any detectable levels of ammonia or nitrites is too much. Perhaps you added too many fish too fast.

[flaunt]

Rick O is right, they must be suffering from the Ammonia and Nitrite in the water. You said this is a new tank... How new? Is your cycle even complete? If the tank is under a month old you probably still have a lot of die-off from the live rock which would be a source of pollutants without even considering those coming from the fish.

If you have another tank you can put the damsels in atleast until the Ammonia and Nitrites read 0, I would do that. I would say an alternative would be to get one of those chemicals that neutralizes Ammonia, but then I don't think you would be helping your cycle out if you removed the bacteria's source of food for them. You could add a bottle of Cycle (bacteria in a bottle) though to help the biological filter in the tank catch up... That wouldn't hurt anything.

Good luck.

[wasabi]

i'll probably get flamed for this....my opinion is to leave the damsels be. dont add anything else.wait for the cycle to complete. wait a minimum of thirty days to add any more life.check all your params again then add one fish at a time.in my opinion 5 fish in a 37 reef is about all your gonna squeeze in it comfortably..i would wait and add fish you are really going to want to keep...you are not going to want to keep damsel they are a pita...good luck and take your time

[Mafiaman]

Originally posted by wasabi
i'll probably get flamed for this....

FLAME- * puff puff cough cough*
Didn't want you to be disappointed friend.

[wasabi]

i was thinking more along these lines

[wasabi]

or these

[wasabi]

or last but not least

[Pamsreef]

cbarria,

Don't take the advise personal. Just slow waaaay down and research alot for the next month. Help from people on this website is the right track.

Just my opinion.



Pam

[GeoJoe]

I agree with wasabi. I'm not a big fan of damsels. I think that the chromis is a much better starter fish. They are not as aggressive, they school together and they are very tolerant of changing conditions.

but, I had to add this to the collection (taken over our campfire last fall)

[wasabi]

keep the flames coming...by the way the flames are directed at me not cbarria. keep us informed of your progrees cbarria.

[cbarria]

The damsels appear to be fine, but I don't think the tank is doing good. The rock is turning orange. I think a lot of stuff is dying. I'm gonna do another 20% water change today. The parameters in the tank haven't changed though.

Later!

[cbarria]

I did another water change yersterday. I took some measurements today and these are my parameters:

SG: 1.0235
PH: 8.16
Temp: 79.9
Amonia: < 0.5 NH3+NH4
Nitrate: 2.5 NO3
Nitrite: .025 NO2

One of my damsels looks hurt this morning. I'm not sure what the problem is, but the same thing happened to another one about a week ago. If you look at the video, its right fin is white and smaller. It is also having trouble swimming as it can't move that fin very well.

http://www.alianor.com/video/SickDamsel.AVI

I think the orange stuff on my rock is some sort of algae. It is only growing on light exposed areas. I've turned the rock and changed the light timer to 4 hours a day only.

[Rick O]

If it was my tank I would remove all of the fish and return them to the LFS until your tank finishes cycling. Like I said before, any detectable ammonia or nitrites is harmful to the fish.

[wasabi]

the ammonia is killing the fish, and the algea is diatom very common in a brand new setup...be patient if the damsel's arent too far gone they might pull through.if your lucky they wont.sorry could'nt resist