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My QT process is killing my fish


dnoll

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This is embarrassing, but I am obviously doing something wrong and can't figure out what it is. 

 

I posted last week about my problems with two small clownfish. One survived and one didn't. I have since moved the survivor into my display tank where he is doing fine. Since I couldn't identify a reason, I assumed the death was due to disease or just bad luck. 

 

On Friday, I bought two small kaudern's cardinalfish. Today one of them died and the second doesn't appear to be doing all that great. The obvious conclusion would be that there is something wrong with my water quality or QT setup. I've read a lot of threads to try to figure it out, and I can't. 

 

My QT tank is 10 gallons with two airstones, heater, powerhead, pvc elbow, small led light, thermometer and an ammonia alert badge. I am using water from my display tank that is ~78 degrees, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 5-10 nitrate, 1.024 salinity. I am using red sea test kits and a refractometer. When I got these fish I floated the bag for 15 minutes before putting them in. I did not drip acclimate, but did make sure the salinity matched. 

 

What am I doing wrong? 

 

 

 

 

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Both cardinalfish (the one that died and one still alive) have acted similarly: fairly inactive and staying near the bottom of the tank. I have only tried feeding once with mysis shrimp and they ignored it.

 

Today right before dying, it was breathing heavily and it looked like one eye was getting cloudy. The live one does not have these symptoms, but stays in a bottom edge of the tank.

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Rapid breathing, swimming into the current, and increasing lethargy leading to death indicate something is causing gill damage.  The most common causes IMO are ammonia poisoning or late-stage parasitic infection of the gills (ich, velvet, brook, or flukes).

 

The two death might be related or not.  The fact that both dead fish showed similar symptoms would lead one to think they're related, but maybe not.  Even if they are related, I'm skeptical that a parasitic infection would infect and kill your fish in a single day.  Velvet moves fast, but much of that is because you don't see the velvet until the infection is well underway.

 

I would focus my search on ammonia first.  Check that your test kit is in date, and check your ammonia badge works properly by wafting fumes from an ammonia cleaner across the badge.  

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(edited)

In my experience, Cardinals are similar to Mandrins, very finicky eaters and I never saw them eating frozen on pellets.

When I QT'ed them- they ended up dying.  They see food dropping beside them (mysis, pellets, bloodworms). don't even try eating.

Even when I created turbulence to trick them to believing its alive- the spit the mysis out.

And I feed them heavy and leave the food for 1 hr and do a water change.

 

If you feed them tisbe pods they will be excited and hunt them out quickly.

 

I hear some people say that cardinals eat anything but I never had success training them in QT. I get tired and put them in display and they survive.

 

IMO, Cardinals and Mandarins will die if we QT due to starvation.

Same goes to most type of anthias, I don't know how the LFS keep them for weeks without killing them. I bought couple of purple queen anthias, amazing fish to look at but starved  themselves in 1 week.

 

On that note if anyone can train my mandarin to eat pellets or sell their pellet eating mandarin I will be grateful.LOL

Edited by WishNewFish
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Not embarrassing at all. The fact that you're trying to quarantine your fish is a good thing. Unfortunately, losing some fish may be part of the process. This may be due to factors that are under your control, and others that happened before you purchased the fish. The success rate and long term health of your fish goes up as you learn.

 

The first thing to do is buy the healthiest fish to start with. Don't buy fish with signs of any issues. Did you observe the fish before you bought it? What about other fish in the tanks? Did you see the fish eat while at the lfs?

 

When it comes to acclimation, you're trying to match temp, salinity and pH. I don't have a pH meter so I always acclimate fish using the floating method (http://www.liveaquaria.com/pic/article.cfm?aid=157). I aim for a quick acclimation of 30mins or less. I ask at what salinity the store keeps the fish at so I can adjust the QT. However I always measure it since it's almost always off. If salinity is within 0.002 then you're good. If not, I adjust the QT's salinity. I also always add a little seachem prime if the fish is in the bag for an hour or more to counteract any ammonia that may have built up. Keep in mind that a LFS might keep fish at different salinities so always ask.

 

A single cloudy eye is typically indicative of an injury. Other causes such as infection will show up in both eyes.

 

Having a fish die without knowing the cause can be concerning if you don't reset the QT. For example, say a fish dies from some parasite. A fast turnaround may mean that the parasite remains in the QT and your following fish will be suceptible to it. If you have eliminated all other issues such as ammonia or your water source as the issue, then I would consider resetting the tank. This sucks because you took the time to cycle it.

 

I am one who treats all my fish prophylactically with cupramine and prazipro at a minimum. This isn't for everyone. If you observe only then keep the fish in the QT for at least 30 days so some parasites such as ich will hopefully have enough time to show itself.

 

Concentrate on keeping the water quality high and salinity stable. Remove any uneaten food right away.

 

When it comes to feeding, give it what it will take. If live foods then so be it. Once it's strong and eating well you can try to wing it to another food source.

 

Don't get discouraged. Keep researching and asking questions.

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Thanks, this is helpful. Based on these comments, Ammonia seems a likely culprit. But I am pretty sure my test kit is good and I've been testing every day (sometimes multiple times per day). Last month I did a fishless cycle using ammonium chloride and was repeatedly dosing to 2ppm ammonia, then watching it fall as nitrite and nitrate would rise, repeat. I used the Dr. Tims instructions, and my ability to accurately measure during that process makes me think there isnt a problem with my test kit.

 

Since the cycle finished I've never gotten a reading above 0.2ppm. Sometimes on the red sea kit it's hard to tell if a reading is 0 or 0.2, but it's never been anything close to 1. 

 

I think next time I will let the water settle in my QT for a couple days before adding a fish to make sure it's not reading any ammonia. And I'll try to pick a hardier species. 

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My 1 cent advice on QT cycling,

I used 1-2 rocks from the DT sump when I start my QT tank. 

 

Trying to cycle the QT tank to handle the nitrogen cycle may not work well be cause you add/change too many things in QT once you put fish.

You tend to over feed to make sure the fish eats, dose different medicine and dips which all has a huge impact on the nitrogen cycle and nitrifying bacteria.

 

Although I use couple of porous rock from my DT in my QT, I assume that they will only act delay the ammonia/nitrate spikes.

I change 50% water every other day (5 gallons) and siphon off uneaten food and wastes 1 hr after feeding.

and of course add few drops of prime every night just in case.

 

Unless you see your fish gills red, most likely its not ammonia which killed your fish. especially if you are testing your water and has the ammonia alert badge. (Although the badge hasn't worked so great for me.)

 

Water changes are the best friend in QT , As long as salinity and temperate are close.

Also I noticed that you are keeping you salinity at 1.024 , the most common advise in QT is to keep you salinity lower like at 1.019 or even lower depending on type of fish you are QT.

As a general rule, fish feel less stressed and have higher oxygen availability etc if salinity is lower.

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