puzzling fish deaths

[SDBDRZ]

Seeking some advice to see if I am missing something.  For some unknown reason fish added to my reef tank are dying after a few weeks in the tank.  They appear otherwise healthy and then will just suddenly die.  When I find the fish in the tank there are no signs of damage to the fish from a predator.

 

Some background.  The current tank has been up for about 2.5 years.  for about 1.5 years of that 2 years the tank sat idle while I had two back surgeries.  No water changes, etc.  Everything was removed from the tank other than a 6 line wrasse I couldnt catch, a Rose bubblem one LPS coral and a small leather coral.  The listed inhabitants survived fine as the auto top off was functioning and very basic maintenance was performed. The rose bubble split a few times but otherwise all was fine.  

 

About 6 months ago I did a few large water changes and did a thorough maintenance of everything, brought all parameters in line, etc.  After about 2 months of stability I started adding SPS frags and fish.  The SPS frags are all doing great, anenomes are doing great, other inverts are doing fine but for some reason I cant seem to keep fish alive more than a few weeks.  All fish are acclimated thoroughly, all eating well and otherwise look healthy.

 

The strange thing is the 6 line that has been in the tank for years is fine.  I have one clownfish, royal grammas and a tailspot blenny that have been in the tank about 2 months.  Other fish I have added over the past 4 months have lasted about a couple weeks to a month and then out of the blue die.  The fish I have added aren't difficult fish, royal grammas, sailfin tang, firefish, matta tang, copperband (eating mysis like a pig when he died), flame angel, and maybe one or two others im not remembering.  The fish were added 1-2 at a time over the last 4 months. I inspected the few remaining fish tonight since I lost a matta tang and firefish today.  The only thing odd I noted is the royal grammas was swimming erratically.  Not jerky just darting around in about 2 inch quick bursts.

 

Parameters:

 

temp 78-79 controlled with aquacontroller

PH 8.15 day, 7.9 night

Alk 7.6

Calcium 380

ORP 250 range

salinity 34.5 (1.026)

Nitrate and Phosphate not measurable.

 

I keep a very simple system.   Tank, sump, lights, skimmer.  The only things dosed to the tank are Alk/Cal currently using C balance and I do dose prodibio bioclean ever 15 days.

 

The only thing I can think of I changed is instead of using filter socks I replaced the socks with cups and use filter floss.  Cleaning the filter socks on the Reefer 525 sump was a pain so I use Acurel filter fiber which is replaced twice per week.

 

I use the Genesis reef system for auto top off and I do a 1 gallon per day water change using Instant Ocean salt.  Water is well water.  We have a house water softener and I use RO/DI for top off and water change water.

 

the other specs:

Red sea reefer 525xl

Giessemann Aurora LED T5 hybrid

Nyos Quantum skimmer

Vectra M1 return pump

2x MP40's

Gyre 230

heater

Aquacontroller with the basic probes and controlling MP40's etc.

any dosing is done manually and I test Alk a couple times a week.

 

 

The inverts in the tank - about a dozen peppermint shrimp, 2x small reef safe serpent stars, handful of hermit crabs and a few small emerald crabs.  No inverts large enough to threaten a fish.  Like the corals all inverts seem just fine.  There are various snails that have been in the tank for years and grown fairly large.

 

I have some bubble algae but otherwise nothing invasive in the tank.  All live rock was real reef rock, no wild collected rock.     

 

I have been keeping reef tanks for well over 30 years and have had fish in previous tanks that were 15+ years in tank.  I am totally baffled by what is occurring.  All SPS look great, encrusting, good color, polyp extension, etc.  anemones have good color and look healthy.  the few other corals in the tank all look fine.  parameters look fine and stable.  There have been no sudden changes, no temp spikes, parameter swings etc. I am dosing to bring the Alk up but as with all things in my reef, nothing fast, I like to make changes slowly over weeks.

 

The things I have thought of:

 

Source of fish (they have all come from one store but I wont name it)

stray electric?  How would I know.

possible bacteria or parasite in the tank.  Again how would I know.

 

I have tried to research but have come up empty.  Anything I am missing, any questions I haven't asked myself?  I am open to suggestions because this is baffling me.

 

Sorry for the long post but I wanted to provide as much info as possible.  In the 30+ years I have been keeping reef tanks the fish have always been the easy part so I would really like to get to the bottom of this.

Edited September 25, 2018 by SDBDRZ

[marinap]

I was going to ask if you got them all from the same source :( that would be my guess.

 

Try a different supplier, see what happens.

[paul b]

There is nothing wrong with your water or the corals and snails would have died before the fish.  It must be a disease but I can't tell from here.  I necropsy anything that dies but some people don't like to do that.  You said some fish were swimming eratically which could indicate ammonia but I highly doubt that.  They would also have died with their gills flared out.  If I were you, and I'm probably not, I would take a dead fish and with a magnifying glass look inside it's gills.  You may have to cut off the gill covering which is easy with a nail scissors.  Look closely at the gill filaments which look exactly like very delicate feathers.  There should be no tears or tiny spots (parasites)  If the gills are clear, the fish have an internal problem and a more elaborate necropsy would be indicated.  But in most cases you can tell how a fish died by the way it was acting just before it died or just after.

 

I also don't know what prodibio bioclean is or why you need it. 

[Jon Lazar]

For some unknown reason fish added to my reef tank are dying after a few weeks in the tank.  They appear otherwise healthy and then will just suddenly die.  When I find the fish in the tank there are no signs of damage to the fish from a predator.

 

 

The SPS frags are all doing great, anenomes are doing great, other inverts are doing fine but for some reason I cant seem to keep fish alive more than a few weeks.  All fish are acclimated thoroughly, all eating well and otherwise look healthy.

 

 

The things I have thought of:

 

Source of fish (they have all come from one store but I wont name it)

stray electric?  How would I know.

possible bacteria or parasite in the tank.  Again how would I know.

 

Based on your observations, I think the first thing to investigate is whether your tank is your tank is infected with a parasite like velvet or brook. Both will attack the gills of your fish first, and can kill a fish without any detectable spots on the body. I've personally lost an entire tank of fish to confirmed velvet with no spots visible on any of the fish.

 

Since you're not seeing spots on your fish before they die, pay really close attention to their behavior and look for other symptoms. Behavioral symptoms that could indicate a gill parasite include:

 

- Flashing

- Clamped fins

- Rapid breathing

- Swimming into the flow of a powerhead

- Lethargy

- Abnormal hiding

- Loss of appetite

- Avoiding exposure to direct light.

 

I wouldn't add more fish until I figured this out.  If your tank is infected, any new fish will be infected no matter where you source them from. Besides killing the new fish, you'll add stress to the existing fish.

 

Low oxygen levels from poor circulation produces similar symptoms, but it looks like you have plenty of circulation for your tank.

 

I don't like it when my tank electrocutes me, but I'm very skeptical of stray current being a significant problem for fish or corals.

[A.ocellaris]

I am having the same issue. I keep losing all kind of fish except the ocellaris. I can't explain what happens, but they look healthy, but then they start hiding and with heavy breathing. I even took all of my fish to a QT tank  with copper + PraxiPro + API GC and did not work.

 

Do you dose any carbon product like NoPox? This could also lower the oxygen in a tank with a poor skimmer. 

[GOSKN5]

How would/could this be confirmed? Would all fish die or show symptoms?

 

Its interesting, I am having a similar issue. I have lost 3 or 4 fish recently that have been with me for a while.

 

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

[GOSKN5]

Based on your observations, I think the first thing to investigate is whether your tank is your tank is infected with a parasite like velvet or brook. Both will attack the gills of your fish first, and can kill a fish without any detectable spots on the body. I've personally lost an entire tank of fish to confirmed velvet with no spots visible on any of the fish.

 

Since you're not seeing spots on your fish before they die, pay really close attention to their behavior and look for other symptoms. Behavioral symptoms that could indicate a gill parasite include:

 

- Flashing

- Clamped fins

- Rapid breathing

- Swimming into the flow of a powerhead

- Lethargy

- Abnormal hiding

- Loss of appetite

- Avoiding exposure to direct light.

 

I wouldn't add more fish until I figured this out. If your tank is infected, any new fish will be infected no matter where you source them from. Besides killing the new fish, you'll add stress to the existing fish.

 

Low oxygen levels from poor circulation produces similar symptoms, but it looks like you have plenty of circulation for your tank.

 

I don't like it when my tank electrocutes me, but I'm very skeptical of stray current being a significant problem for fish or corals.

My comments above were supposed to be quoting this

 

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

[Jon Lazar]

 How would/could this be confirmed? Would all fish die or show symptoms?

 

Its interesting, I am having a similar issue. I have lost 3 or 4 fish recently that have been with me for a while.

 

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

 

In my case, fish showed the behavioral symptoms above, especially the swimming into flow at night. They were dying about every other day.  I caught two clownfish from that tank and inspected them close up in a specimen container under really good light. I could see the velvet dusting against the clowns' dark markings.

 

I pulled the remaining fish out and treated with CP. A couple of those fish were too far gone and died, but a few of them survived.

 

You can confirm by taking a skin or gill scraping and identifying with a microscope. The very fine gold dust appearance is a unique physical symptom of velvet.  Also, avoiding light is a behavioral symptom unique to velvet.

 

It's clear to me that fish can do just fine with a very low level of these pathogens in a tank. But if their resistance gets low, the parasites can multiply quickly and overwhelm the fish.

[zygote2k]

A six line wrasse can be an aggressive little monster and it’s not uncommon to hear of them terrorizing other fish.

It’s a main reason why I don’t keep any in the service tanks.

Pull the six Line, then see what happens.