Dead fish !Help!

[joeyman15]

Hey guys i have a problem and i'm not sure what to do. I have had this tank (72g) setup for about 4 months( i upgraded from a 46g tank that was setup for 4 months). Lately i have had an uncontrollable amount of brown stringy algae with bubbles in it, everywhere in the tank. Last week my green mandarin died, then a few days ago my brown tang died and today a new added clown fish(2 weeks old). The other fish in the tank look find right now(blue Hippo tang, Yellow tang, clown fish, yellow watchman, pistol shrimp, and coral banded shrimp.

At first i thought it was a fluke that the mandarin and the brown tang died, but with the clown went now i think somethings wrong. I have been using well water, i didn't think it would hurt because it coming right out of the ground. Today i went out and bought a RO/DI unit and started making good water and tomorrow i'm going to change as much has i can.

I have a hammer coral and sun coral and there fine. So i don't know if there something bad in the tank or if they all just started dieing at the same time.

Any help would be great thanks.

[david426]

Some more details about your setup would help; how much flow, what size skimmer, are you using filter socks, water change regimen and water params. etc. etc.

[DaytonaJoe]

The mandatory opener: what are your parameters? You have high phosphates or nitrates or both to produce that algae. Probably came from your well water, and RO/DI is a step in the right direction.

You're going to need to start reducing those two chemicals, or whichever one turns out to be high. Increased water changes, phos reactor, refugium with macroalgae, chemical bonders like phos buster, and decreased feeding frequency could all help you out. Also, you'll want to make sure detritus isn't settling in piles anywhere in your tank.

Make a habit of going through your tank with a turkey baster and blowing the rocks. You'll be surprised how much "stuff" flies off and eventually gets filtered out. Another way of getting rid of detritus is to set up a siphon from your tank to your sump (through a filter sock) with a piece of hose. Siphon up all the detritus and clean your filter sock thoroughly when it clogs up, repeat until done. I do this every other day pretty much.

[joeyman15]

Everything tests 0, except phosphates, there was 1ppm. I'm using a API test kit so it might not be the best it the world but everything else came back 0. I think i have enough flow i have two koralia 4's and two koralia 2's and the return. Right now i'm not using a filter sock and i took out the sponge filters to. I have a corallife 65 skimmer and i've been changing the water about 10% every 2 weeks.

[DaytonaJoe]

Originally Posted by joeyman15

Everything tests 0, except phosphates, there was 1ppm. I'm using a API test kit so it might not be the best it the world but everything else came back 0. I think i have enough flow i have two koralia 4's and two koralia 2's and the return. Right now i'm not using a filter sock and i took out the sponge filters to. I have a corallife 65 skimmer and i've been changing the water about 10% every 2 weeks.

What I've heard is that hobby-grade test kits aren't accurate enough to really measure phosphates, and that if your kit says you have any at all, you have a possible problem. Maybe get a second opinion on that though...

Do you have a refugium?

[joeyman15]

Originally Posted by DaytonaJoe

What I've heard is that hobby-grade test kits aren't accurate enough to really measure phosphates, and that if your kit says you have any at all, you have a possible problem. Maybe get a second opinion on that though...

Do you have a refugium?

I do have a refugium but man its nasty inside of that thing.

[jenglish]

Originally Posted by joeyman15

Hey guys i have a problem and i'm not sure what to do. I have had this tank (72g) setup for about 4 months( i upgraded from a 46g tank that was setup for 4 months). Lately i have had an uncontrollable amount of brown stringy algae with bubbles in it, everywhere in the tank. Last week my green mandarin died, then a few days ago my brown tang died and today a new added clown fish(2 weeks old). The other fish in the tank look find right now(blue Hippo tang, Yellow tang, clown fish, yellow watchman, pistol shrimp, and coral banded shrimp.

At first i thought it was a fluke that the mandarin and the brown tang died, but with the clown went now i think somethings wrong. I have been using well water, i didn't think it would hurt because it coming right out of the ground. Today i went out and bought a RO/DI unit and started making good water and tomorrow i'm going to change as much has i can.

I have a hammer coral and sun coral and there fine. So i don't know if there something bad in the tank or if they all just started dieing at the same time.

Any help would be great thanks.

hmmm, first off three tangs in a 72 is going to cause stress due to territorial issues. Did the tangs fight?

The mandarin may have simply been outcompted for pods by the YWG. The exact size of tank and amount of rock needed to support a mandarin is debated but they are not fast and in a tank that did not produce a whole lot more food than they needed the little extra competition may have done it. Did the mandarin look skinny?

What kind of clown did you add and what kind is left? If you have 2 females they will fight and be territorial.

THis could be nutrient issues but it could be fish selection issues as well.

Are there any signs of disease? heavy breathing? gasping at the top? Any possibility of contamination such as a dirty hand or aerosol?

All questions, no answers

[lagrew]

you probably need to clean everything, refugium included of detrius. This will help, what is your cleaning schedule of your tank now?

[Loverotties]

With better water(RO/DI) should help and I'd do bigger WC,I do 20% a week.

[joeyman15]

Originally Posted by jenglish

hmmm, first off three tangs in a 72 is going to cause stress due to territorial issues. Did the tangs fight?

The mandarin may have simply been outcompted for pods by the YWG. The exact size of tank and amount of rock needed to support a mandarin is debated but they are not fast and in a tank that did not produce a whole lot more food than they needed the little extra competition may have done it. Did the mandarin look skinny?

What kind of clown did you add and what kind is left? If you have 2 females they will fight and be territorial.

THis could be nutrient issues but it could be fish selection issues as well.

Are there any signs of disease? heavy breathing? gasping at the top? Any possibility of contamination such as a dirty hand or aerosol?

All questions, no answers

Well the tangs seemed to get along really well, they always stay in a group and never chased each other. The mandarin did look very skinny. I had two false Perc's and they fought when i first put the new one in the tank but the next day they swam with each other everywhere.

The tangs do get ick whenever they get stressed, but i thought that was normal for tangs.

[joeyman15]

Originally Posted by lagrew

you probably need to clean everything, refugium included of detrius. This will help, what is your cleaning schedule of your tank now?

Right now i just clean the sand bed it get dirty and do water changes.

[quader94]

i have the same algea in my tank, i always got rodi from my lfs and then i bought distilled water. so imo use different water and ill will slowly go away

[jenglish]

Originally Posted by joeyman15

Well the tangs seemed to get along really well, they always stay in a group and never chased each other. The mandarin did look very skinny. I had two false Perc's and they fought when i first put the new one in the tank but the next day they swam with each other everywhere.

The tangs do get ick whenever they get stressed, but i thought that was normal for tangs.

Mandarins are hard to keep and generally come from the store skinny. They can be trained (some anyways) to take frozen foods but if not they only eat little pods, so they need to eat a lot of them. Generally any other bottom dwelling pod eater or wrasse is going to outcompete them. SOme of them are just sensitive and won't acclimate and eat no matter what you do.

Are the tangs still pretty small? they generally get more aggressive as they age. I am no tang expert though.

Tangs do not all have ich. It is an infectious disease and can be eliminated from tanks. Tangs are more susceptible to ich than other fish for several reasons. I have attached a link to another site aboiut ich. I have been meaning to write one for this one but I have been too busy to look up the primary sources I was referred to.http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/...ths-facts.html

having ich in a tank isn't neccasarily a death sentence, but is always lurking if anything goes wrong. That is if you are sure it is ich. Some tangs do get spots from stress that are not ich.

as far as the clowns, in the wild they form groups with the large doninant one is the female, the next largest will be the dominatn male she mates with and the rest will be subordinate males. All of the males have the potential to become the female if there is an opportunity to. That is why I was asking, to make sure you hadn't taken 2 large females and put them togethor or your female was battering the male, both of which happen. It could also be disease or water parameter problems at work.

At this point I would hold off on adding fish and see if the RO/DI water takes care of the problems