Death of my nano

[QuAcKeR]

Well my first and only resident was dead when I did the quick head count this morning... a blue damsel I got a week ago to "test the waters." ...and on the very day I got new lights for my tank! (96w 50/50 coral life).

I still can't figure out exactly what is wrong with my setup.

My live rock sat for almost 3 weeks with NOTHING happening in the tank, so I figured I'd be safe to add something. I got the rock from a tank in a LFS so I guess it was pretty much "cured" when I brought it home. It didn't even have any critters on it as far as I've seen.

My temp has been hitting 84 midday with the lights on from 8am - 4pm, but I recently set the timers to shut off from 11:30am to 1:00pm so things can cool down.

I'm going to do a 50% water change and move the tank to a cooler room... and get the salinity down to 34... temp to the 70s... then run another check with the test kit. I've had the tank going for about 5 weeks now and every week I take my water to petco and they say it tests out just fine. I have Tetratest kits to test ph and nitrates so I'll do it myself today and post results.

[latazyo]

I can't imagine that biologically anything is wrong, with one fish your rock should have easily taken care of the toxiticity...IMO, blame it on the heat 84 is pretty warm

[QuAcKeR]

I hope it's just the heat. I had a full hood on there with two incandescent lamps that came with the tank... very little ventiliation. I'll focus on temperature while setting up the tank again... the new light has built-in cooling fans and the room I'll use get better flow from the AC.

[latazyo]

thank god you got rid of that incandescent...do you have glass tops on your tank...if so, remove them and put eggcrate on there...that helps too

[rogerthmyers]

The temp looks like it may have been the real problem, with a nano a fish doesn't have many places to go, so it can't get away from the heat, get the temp down to about 76 and keep the salinity to 1.023 or very close to there. Still there has to be something wrong for the ****sel to die that way

[Casey]

I hope the salinity at 34 was just a joke

[rogerthmyers]

If the salinity was what was stated, that's a major issue as well

[latazyo]

perhaps it was 34ppm instead of 1.034
if salinity and heat were high, I'd say you had evaporation and spec gravity change too fast and killed the fish

[Rick O]

There is a big difference in salinity and specific gravity. 34 salinity is roughly the equilivent of S.G. of 1.026. Not a problem.

Quacker use some fans to blow water across the surface of the water to increase evaporation which will cool the water. You could even put it on the same timer as the lights.

[Alice]

Did you get the damsel at Petco? Their fish are sometimes not in the best of health.

I'm going to be setting my nano back up soon but I ran it for 3 years with the temp and the salinity on the lean side to allow for errors. I wasn't able to check the tank on weekends usually so I left it a little elbow room.

[latazyo]

Originally posted by Rick O
There is a big difference in salinity and specific gravity. 34 salinity is roughly the equilivent of S.G. of 1.026. Not a problem.

that's what I was trying to say...I was attempting to shed some light, seemed there might be some confusion about it

[Casey]

thanks for clearing me up on that Rick

[reiple]

The damsel could have survived even at 84. Since the water params are acceptable it could be something else. Worst is high toxicity of the water. Metal/chemical/biological poisoning. If it cycled then maybe the ammonia or nitrite is high now (just ride it). It will go down. With other poisons know what might cause it first. A passive act charcoal filter (using a hang-on for a nano) might help.

Keeping the temp lower than 84 is a wise move too.
BTW my tank is @80-82 and thriving. Sometimes @84

[QuAcKeR]

Thanks for all the replies/advice!

Yes, I meant 34 as salinity.. NOT as sg... 1.26 roughly on the sg. I don't currently have a glass top, just a light strip on legs a few inches above the rim of the tank. ..but I will probably add some egg crate just as protection. I guess the best setup is one where the heater kicks in to warm things up... easier to warm the water than cool it without a chiller. I'm re-doing everything now... just got home from work. I'll post pics and updates shortly (I hope!).

[QuAcKeR]

Okay... I did about a 60% water change and my sg is a nice 1.025, temp a balmy 75 degrees. The new lights are great... a little bluer than I expected, but maybe that'll bring out color once I get corals?

I also followed reiple's advice and put a bio wheel on the tank for now... no wheel but I am running carbon.

At any rate, here are some not-so-exciting pics of the new setup. I have a second 10gal tank and heater just sitting unused right now. Any recommendations on what to do with them regarding this setup? Any way to use both tanks to benefit things?