View Full Version : fish dead
bearusa
08-12-2008, 04:56 PM
hi everyone, im new to this site and look forward to reading peoples posts,
i have a major problem,
i thought i had to much substrate in my 250L tank so decided to take some out so that i was leaft with about 1inch,
since i have moved live rock about and disturbed the substrate all my fish,
1 yellow tang
1 blue regal
2 damsels
2 orange clowns
have died in less than 10 mins i did,nt even have time to get a spare tank set up,
what i find strange of all though is that it was just the fish that died i also have 2 cleaner shrimps
4 hermits 2 blue 2 red
and some snails which are all still alive and kicking,
i tested the most important water paramaters and seem ok
ammonia 0ppm
nitrite 0ppm
nitrate 0pmm
phosphate 0.03ppm
anyone have any clues
thanks in advance bearusa
ps i,m also suffering with a bit of brown algae which i was advised taking some substrate out might cure
250l Im not quite how many gallons is that can you convert please?
And id also say you might want to add more LS
bearusa
08-12-2008, 05:16 PM
about 50gallons my fish were fine before i messed around taking substrate out
60 us gallons
50 uk gallons
Well my guess is Your blue tang either had ich and took the other fish down with it cause a blue tang needs a 6ft tank. Or your blue tang died and realised a diese it had and whipe your whole tank im just guessing.. nothing to do with ur substrate unless you dont take care of your tank and your tank was holding bad debrits and stuff while you stired up you stired up the stuff and got into the gills of fish or what ever and killed em. Or some toxins idont know
CarmieJo
08-12-2008, 10:18 PM
Hi Bear and :welcome: to TR. I am sorry to hear of your troubles. I agree with Jace that your tank is likely too short for a regal tang unless it is long for the volume as they need a tank of at least 1.8 m. But am not convinced that it was the source of the deaths.
Without knowing all the details of how long your tank has been set up, how deep the sand was or how soon after removing the sand that the deaths occurred my first guess is that when you took out the sand you released nasties like hydrogen sulfide into the water.
bearusa
08-13-2008, 06:35 AM
thanks for the replys, i have had my tank setup since summer 2006 when i started off with just 2 yellow tailed damsels and 2 orange clowns, i have a 4.5 foot tank 250 litres about 60-63 us gallons,
as i think about it i,m tending to think it was hydrogen sulphide gas but wouldent these wipe out my inverts aswell,
as to the regal tang tank size i have a book called the marine aquarium by NICK DAKIN isbn 1902389670
which states tank size must be atleast 4ft and a volume of 54 us gallons,
i have had my tank now 2 years and still i class myself as a beginner so any advice from you guys will be greatly apreciated,
regards bearusa
bearusa
08-13-2008, 06:48 AM
Well my guess is Your blue tang either had ich and took the other fish down with it cause a blue tang needs a 6ft tank. Or your blue tang died and realised a diese it had and whipe your whole tank im just guessing.. nothing to do with ur substrate unless you dont take care of your tank and your tank was holding bad debrits and stuff while you stired up you stired up the stuff and got into the gills of fish or what ever and killed em. Or some toxins idont know
none of my fish were scrathing or flicking on the rocks there was defo no disease in tank,
thinking about it i go with carmie,s reply about hydrogen sulphide gas,
although i deeply regret and feel sadened by the loss, this will not put me off the hobby
i,m determined to get it right and have learned an expensive lesson
but thanks for your advice
bearusa
08-13-2008, 07:08 AM
Hi Bear and :welcome: to TR. I am sorry to hear of your troubles. I agree with Jace that your tank is likely too short for a regal tang unless it is long for the volume as they need a tank of at least 1.8 m. But am not convinced that it was the source of the deaths.
Without knowing all the details of how long your tank has been set up, how deep the sand was or how soon after removing the sand that the deaths occurred my first guess is that when you took out the sand you released nasties like hydrogen sulfide into the water.
basic setup comprises of the following
4.5 foot tank 250litres about 60-63 us gallons
did have about 3 inchs of live sand and aragonite spheres now reduced to 1 inch
rena xp 2 canister filter packed with 2course 2 medium foams bag of carbon
2 rena power flow 2000ph 1400 litres an hour each
2 hydor koralia movement and circulation turbo pumps at 2300 litres an hour each
1 red sea prizm pro skimmer to suit a 400litre tank
over tank luminaire 2blue t5,s 2 white t,5s
i also have my own r/o unit for fresh and salt mixes which i prepare 3 days in advance of water changes, i do a 25% water change every other week and my canister filter every 4 weeks,
oh and also a uv sterilzer
and about 25 30 kilos of fijian love rock.
also when doing water changes i use an automatic siphon kit and regularly sift through the sand by the sounds of things not often enough,
Well Bearusa I hate to tell you but your book is rong aboug blue tangs. EVERY SINGLE TANG NEEDS ATLEAST A 6FT TANK. With some exception NOT THE BLUE TANG. with experts. Im not trying to flame you but tangs swim miles and miles and miles and miles everyday in the ocean. Looking for food. SO you need atleast a 6ft tank with lots of open swiming area. Im glad you where abile to keep your blue tang for as long as you did. but there hard esphilly when you dont meet the requirements. Sorry if this came out harsh The caps is what should be bolded. I did not mean to be mean But.. you shouldent just read one book and agree with that. And dont agree with LFSs they are always 80% of them rong too and just want you to waste money. sorry agin if this upset you.
-Jace
bearusa
08-13-2008, 03:19 PM
Well Bearusa I hate to tell you but your book is rong aboug blue tangs. EVERY SINGLE TANG NEEDS ATLEAST A 6FT TANK. With some exception NOT THE BLUE TANG. with experts. Im not trying to flame you but tangs swim miles and miles and miles and miles everyday in the ocean. Looking for food. SO you need atleast a 6ft tank with lots of open swiming area. Im glad you where abile to keep your blue tang for as long as you did. but there hard esphilly when you dont meet the requirements. Sorry if this came out harsh The caps is what should be bolded. I did not mean to be mean But.. you shouldent just read one book and agree with that. And dont agree with LFSs they are always 80% of them rong too and just want you to waste money. sorry agin if this upset you.
-Jace
i fully understand what your saying and do take on board your comments,
i am upset and saddened by the loss of my fish and am only really still a beginner at this wonderful and colourful hobby its gonna take me years to learn but damn it i am 100% commited to getting this right
thanks again
bearusa
rayme07
08-13-2008, 03:42 PM
bearusa dont worry about being a bigginer and feeling bad because to tell you the truth were all beginers and we all learn something new every day even though most of us are true masters at this hobbie they still learn new stuff because this is a learning hobbie and to me when I learn something new I feel even greater than when I didnt know it. I hope this helps and Im glad you are doing everything you can to figure this out and Im happy that you came to this wonderful sight to get adive so I leave you with saying good luck and happy reefing. :D
Yup I didnt mean to put you down... Sorry if i did
oh and btw you can never master this hobby the closest person i know is Dick Aka Amphibious
Skurvey Dog
08-13-2008, 07:17 PM
Hello Bear :heart: Sorry to hear of the rough time you have been experiencing. Don't take it too much to heart as we all have some type of problem or set back now and then. (Believe me, I should know!) I'm trying to follow along to all the threads in your post so forgive me if I tend to overlook anything. I noticed that you used the word "substrate" instead of LS and when CJo replied interpreting it as sand, and you responded in like..... that your substrate is actually aragonite sand and not crushed coral. I also thought I saw mention of a brown algae, which I am assuming is the reason for the removal of the substrate? If I am correct here, what was the reason the LFS told you that that would solve the problem? I don't mean to put you on the defensive by no means, as I am just trying to understand it. I am just baffled at why they would suggest that. It's fine to clean the top layer of the LS clean, but normally we do not want to disturb the depth of the bed due to the good bateria living there that must have no contact with oxygen to survive. That's why many hobbiest have deep sand beds, for the nitrafying bateria.
I am not as experienced as CJO, but I too believe that sulphide poisoning could very well be the culprit. I am also thinking that your tank could very well experience some type of cycle also getting your water parameters out of whack. You might want to keep a close eye on them and make adjustments accordingly. Also, you are right on the money to keep doing water changes very frequently as there could be things released from the sand bed now that you may not be able to test for. Just a thought that came to mind.
And kudos to you, you're my kind of reefer due to your positive attitude and determination!
"I am upset and saddened by the loss of my fish and am only really still a beginner at this wonderful and colourful hobby its gonna take me years to learn but damn it i am 100% commited to getting this right."
lReef lKeeper
08-13-2008, 08:54 PM
i agree with hydrogen sulfide poisoning. this is one reason that we suggest NEVER digging deep into the sandbed. there are all kinds of nasties in there.
CarmieJo
08-14-2008, 12:46 AM
Hey Bear,
Did you smell any rotten egg smell when you were removing the sand? Inverts can be more resistant to stress than fish so that may be why they survived. It could have been some bizarre disease but to have them all go in 10 minutes seems like an environmental factor.
bearusa
08-14-2008, 10:20 AM
the lfs guy said i was probally suffering a bit of brown algae cause of stuff building up in the sand, he said it wont hurt to take a lot of it out leaving roughly an inch (25mm) he said although i siphon water out with a sand/gravel vacuum there will still be a lot of muck in the sand, i had 1/2 sillics sand and 1/2 aragonite live spheres about 3 inchs deep, if i had,nt of listened to the guy in my lfs i would still have my fish,
what would be the advice now, to swill and wash sand and put it back in or leave it out now,
can you all please give me your thoughts,
thanks bearusa
bearusa
08-14-2008, 10:22 AM
Hey Bear,
Did you smell any rotten egg smell when you were removing the sand? Inverts can be more resistant to stress than fish so that may be why they survived. It could have been some bizarre disease but to have them all go in 10 minutes seems like an environmental factor.
i did say to the mrs something was smelling off, it was a slight smell not overpowering but defo something there? could this have been the HYDROGEN SULPHIDE
when i clean my 30 gal it smells like poop but the water is crystal clear and everything is clean.. And i swear its not my dog...
AlishaMichelle7
08-14-2008, 11:59 AM
I had the same issue a while back. I decided I didn't want as much substrate in my tank so I removed some of my sand. I found a dead narcissus snail deep in the sand bed that looked like it had gotten trapped when I moved my live rock. I didn't have any fish in my tank at that time (thank god!) but all of my hermit crabs bit the dust within a few hours. I didn't know what had happened but this explanation makes sense.
I moved my tank a few weeks later and decided to remove all of my substrate. This was a mistake. Before removing my substrate, I had never had any nitrate in my tank whatsoever. After removing it, I've constantly had to deal with it. I've started slowly adding new sand to my tank as a result. Essentially, I'm in the same place I was before with having a substrate except now, I have Nitrate :( If I were you, I'd keep the sand bed. But that's just my opinion- some people keep bare bottom tanks successfully- It's just a lot more difficult.
CarmieJo
08-14-2008, 10:27 PM
That rotten egg smell is hydrogen sulfide. It can build up in the anaerobic zone of your sand as a result of the bacterial process. The usual advice it to disturb no more than 10% of it at a time and if you follow this you won't have any worries about H2S.
I am a fan of a deep sand bed (dsb) >4" ~10.25 cm because I think it provides the best denitrification. If I was you I would rinse the old sand well (do a final rinse with RO/DI) and then put it back in your tank. Go about 1/3 of the way down this page deepsandbed (http://theculturedreef.com/deepsandbed.htm) and click on "Sand Bed Secrets" for more information.
bearusa
08-15-2008, 07:40 AM
i think the best thing for me to do is i,m gonna go out today and buy 2 bags of aragonite live water packed sand,
and introduce about a 1/4 bag every other week as to try and not kill any of the bacteria i have in there at the moment, i,m also gonna write down in my tank journal and highlight (NEVER MESS AROUND WITH THE SAND TO MUCH IT WILL KILL YOUR FISH) i have learned a very expensive lesson in this and would like to thank you all for your advice and posts, without you all i dont think i would have got to the bottom of this problem i had,
so once again thanks to all,
regards
BEARUSA
AlishaMichelle7
08-15-2008, 03:18 PM
i think the best thing for me to do is i,m gonna go out today and buy 2 bags of aragonite live water packed sand,
and introduce about a 1/4 bag every other week as to try and not kill any of the bacteria i have in there at the moment, i,m also gonna write down in my tank journal and highlight (NEVER MESS AROUND WITH THE SAND TO MUCH IT WILL KILL YOUR FISH) i have learned a very expensive lesson in this and would like to thank you all for your advice and posts, without you all i dont think i would have got to the bottom of this problem i had,
so once again thanks to all,
regards
BEARUSA
Careful! Live sand can cause your tank to cycle! a fourth of a bag might be too much. I've been slowly adding normal sand to my aquarium becuase I'm terrified of cycling my tank again.
Good advice Alisha. Hope Bear considers doing what your doing;)
CarmieJo
08-16-2008, 12:51 AM
I would probably use well rinsed dry sand because I am not really convinced at how lively live sand in a bag actually is. You already have a substantial bacteria population in your tank and it will QUICKLY colonize any new sand you add. I do agree with adding it a bit at a time. You can secure a funnel to a rigid tube and use this to deliver the sand exactly where you want it to go.
bearusa
08-16-2008, 08:43 AM
I would probably use well rinsed dry sand because I am not really convinced at how lively live sand in a bag actually is. You already have a substantial bacteria population in your tank and it will QUICKLY colonize any new sand you add. I do agree with adding it a bit at a time. You can secure a funnel to a rigid tube and use this to deliver the sand exactly where you want it to go.
i,ve decided against the live sand and have bought 25kg of dry silver sand, it looks just like ordinary builders sand only its a bit finer, so the end result will include,
about 1/4 red sea aragonite spheres, 1/4 live sand, 1/2 silver sand, i,ll add the new sand at a rate of 1kilo every other week to be on the safe side, i,m also now in the process of building a new cabinet next to my display tank to house a sump tank of around 56 litres, around 14 us gallons, (MORE TO FOLLOW) i,ll post some pics when its finished,
CarmieJo
08-16-2008, 12:55 PM
I think that is a good plan!
I agree, you're probably wasting money you can spend elsewhere buying that bagged "live" sand. In my opinion the stuff that truly makes it live is more than the bacteria, and that likely won't survive being bagged and on a shelf for that long. Get dry sand and spend money on something better for your tank. You can really save money if you do like I did and ask your local reef club if anyone has sand lying around. I did that and got enough live sand to put a DSB in a 55gal and still have half a 5gal bucket left over.
bearusa
09-02-2008, 09:24 AM
after all the problems i have had with my tank i,e hydrogen sulphide, i now have my inverts back in the tank, they have been in there about a week now, that was the 4 hermits 2 cleaner shrimp and a snail, which are all doing fine, i put in to that aswell 2 orange clowns 3 yellow tailed damsels and a lumark angel, all are also doing very well and are both eagerly accepting brine shrimp and granular food, my lumark angel is also greedily picking at the little bit of green algae i have on the rocks, with time i,m sure he will eat the lot. also when i put my live rock back in to the main display tank i have noticed a few baby cleaner shrimps which are also thriving which is good news for me, i think this sump tank i set up is defo doing a good job the algae (calurpa cheto and i not entirely sure what the other one is) but its taking off like wildfire, i,bet within a week and a half i,m gonna need to get in there and start harvesting it, quite unbeliveable how quick yhis stuff grows, anyway just thought i,d let you all know how its going,
and thanks once again for all who replied to my problem.
bearusa
bbl_nk
09-02-2008, 03:53 PM
bearusa, awesome! Just remember to dispose of your caulerpa responsibly. It can be a radically invasive species if introduced into the water. Best bet is to freeze it and then throw it away :)
rayme07
09-02-2008, 08:32 PM
Hi bearusa glad to here its going well and happy its doing alright.
noticed a few baby cleaner shrimps
Im glad things are breeding good luck
Raymond:)
CarmieJo
09-02-2008, 10:17 PM
Hey, that is great news! You may know this but just in case, don't neglect to harvest the caulerpa on a regular basis to keep it from going sexual. I harvest mine every couple weeks.
bearusa
09-03-2008, 04:57 PM
Hey, that is great news! You may know this but just in case, don't neglect to harvest the caulerpa on a regular basis to keep it from going sexual. I harvest mine every couple weeks.
i have heard this stuff needs to be harvested, by that does it mean to just cut it back, i was also told to leave the light on 24/7,
Skurvey Dog
09-03-2008, 05:57 PM
Hey Bear. :D Yeppers to your Qs.... trim it back and it's ok for the 24/7. Some people, such as myself, run the lights on the macros at night/opposite of DT lighting. I've been doing this because of summer and to manage heat concerns. It's worked well for me.
CarmieJo
09-03-2008, 11:13 PM
I usually run my lights 24/7. I have read that plants need at least a few moments of darkness (something to do with the photosynthetic process) and I try to turn the fuge light out for a few minutes a couple of times a week. There have been those times when I have forgotten to turn them back on and it did not cause any problems.
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