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coigula

3 tangs died in one day

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11 Comments
by
coigula
, 01-12-2010 at 09:50 PM (3215 Views)
I'm been reef keeping close to decade and had strange experience this last week.

My last tank lasted 6 years before losing power while away. I have slowly and carefully restocked tank. I had 4 tangs in system in two different connected tanks.

All fish were quarantined with Copper Citrate and Prazipro for 2 weeks. All ate well and and had not visible scars, parasites, fgungal infactions ect.

I had them in same system for about 10 weeks and 3 of four died in one day. I'v never had an issue like this before.They ate well evening before I arrived home from work. Naso, two clowns and blenny are OK.

- I did not lose electrical power and confirmed with neighbor with reef tank
- AC jr did not log odd evening temp
- Stray voltage reads 0.1V, not enough to do anything I beleive and might not be accurate

I suspect either poisoning or disease. I am leading toward poisoning since disease would not be so acute in most cases.

I'm concerned I may have feed a flake food left in garage too long in hot summer when I cleaned up. I threw it out to be safe.

Not sure what else it could be. I feed algae, lots of algae, mysid, krill, frozen plankton. frozen pollock and algae, and flake a few time a week. since algae is minimal

Tank coraline algae is growing very well with little pest algae. Alkalinity is 125 ppm. Ammonia by API was clearly 0.0 ppm. Nitrate was <0.25 by lamotte LR. I check heater for stray electricity and it was OK too.

Only additive I use is MB7 occasionally and no carbon source.

If it was an additive it would be the only one I use.
Food would be the brown flake as I never used it before, or atleast in a long time.
Skimmer was cleaner 1 day before but over flowed for some reason.

Other fish are not apearing stressed and eating 2 days later.Coral health seems to be improving.

Any suggestions what happened??

I am just grasping at straws myself.......................

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  1. usc932000's Avatar
    Sorry to hear of your losses. You negated the most sudden death reasons by listing what you have checked so it seems very odd that they all died at once without showing any signs of distress prior. Its really hard to even guess what may have happened, even if it was the food, its odd that the Tangs were the only fatalities......
  2. Plantguy's Avatar
    No sign of injury?
  3. Trido's Avatar
    I had 4 tangs in system in two different connected tanks.
    Were the three fatalities all from the same tank or were they from both tanks?
  4. coigula's Avatar
    no 2 and 1 - no signs of fighting

    I have been stocking tank and don't quarantine ora corals that have not been unpacked. They were added 4 days ago.
  5. coigula's Avatar
    yes tangs only died but only other fish in 180 were 2 2" clowns and 2" blenny.

    I may get one juvenille in spring or stock other fish in spring if current fish are ok for 2 months. I replaced heater. Noy clear at all to me what happened. I inspect for shrimp and copepods in refugium this weekend
  6. coigula's Avatar
    Naso now has swollen eyes. Very strange. I am putting clowns in a 12 biocube and deciding how to treat naso.

    One of the symptoms possible is metal or plastic poisoning for swollen eyes. He has stopped eating so might be gone in a few days. He will be difficult to catch. I still worry about water quality. I'll check TDS and all parameters again. If TDS is good I'll do 2 30 gallon water changes ASAP.

    Sadly I am glad corals are OK. I wish I had aquacultured alternative to wild caught tangs for algae grazing. I'll rethink fish situation as I never even had visible ich before.
  7. coigula's Avatar
    Naso seems better now

    I'm just observing with large water changes
  8. melev's Avatar
    The new fish may have been caught with cyanide, which harms their internal organs. They can act fine and eat like all is well, and suddenly die. This usually happens within 14 days of their capture. Were these deaths in that time frame?

    Flake food that gets heated up in a garage (or sitting on the lights) will become less valuable in protein and HUFA, but doesn't necessarily go bad. Tossing it out is fine - if you have doubts, there's no reason not to err on the side of caution.
  9. coigula's Avatar
    Thats a good idea but I found problem I hope.

    A sponge and some encrusted coraline blocked flow to refugium. I have a small deep sand bed in refugium thats a 14X14 X 20 tall acrylic box. It got slowed down that is may have had some anerobic activity. I got mild rotten egg smell that I never had before. Wife picked it up after work today.

    I tookrefugium down and and making 60 gallons of mixed salt to change. I also changed carbon. I know the problem now. It was flow but not enough to sand bed. It would be nice to have a commercial system with 2" lines and high pressure pumps to prevent this.

    Anyway Corals still appear OK and Naso with cloudy eye is eating. He will have plenty of space to swim. I already have 1/4 cup of tea colored skimmate tonight. I have tons of flow in display tank with 2 - 6105 tunzes wide open and 1262 sump pump on 140 tank. Never occured it was an issue in refugium.

    What is unusual about this system is amount of feather dusters, and I don't feed phytoplankton
    Updated 01-15-2010 at 10:07 PM by coigula
  10. coigula's Avatar
    I ended up not every buyiing ANY live stock from this LFS and problem resolved itself. I'll post new tank pictures soon. Melev suggestion is very likely abiut cyanide.
  11. melev's Avatar
    Dead / stagnant water is always an issue. Even a reactor that has been stagnant for a while can release bad stuff into the water once flow resumes - hopefully you found the issue and things will turn around for you now.