Butterfly dead, now clown, can't find RG

Wow, it's been a really bad 24 hrs. My butterfly didn't eat for 8 days and died yesterday. This morning I find my clown dead under a rock. On top of that, my royal gramma is no where to be found. The only one still around is my scooter blenny. My water parameters are:

0 ammonia
0 nitrite
8.4 PH
30 nitrates
1.023 salinity

My guess is RG is dead, but after going through every rock I cannot find him. Any suggestions for what to do next? I did a small water change already.

 

How old is the tank? Was it a copperband butterfly? If so, your tank is a bit too small for one. Min size is about 50 gallons. If your tank is not fully cycled and you added four fish, it's likely you are crashing the tank as the bioload may be too heavy.

Also what kind of filtration do you run? Circulation? Protein Skimmer? Lighting?

Also what/how much are you feeding?


Sorry to hear about your losses . . . . hopefully we can help to make sure this doesnt happen to you in the future!!!

 

It was a longnose. I have 30 lbs of live rock and live sand with a carbon HOB filter. A aqualife mini protein skimmer, normal one-strip lighting that came with tank. Tank has been up for about 3 weeks. I feed twice a day normally. Also running a Penguin powerhead for circulation.

 

Sounds to me as some contaminate got into the tank. If no apparent disease is present I would search for something polluting the tank.

 

I would look into adding carbon to the filtration also. That is way too many fish for a 3 week old tank. Your cycle isn't finished. Keep monitoring your parameters and do not add any fish until they have been steady for a couple of weeks. Then add one fish at a time every 2 or 3 weeks. I would also get new test kits for ammonia and nitrite. Do not you the test strips they are highly inaccurate.

 

I noticed some velvety spots on my butterfly the day before he died. I'm sure he had some sort of Ich. My clown, RG, and scooter looked fine. If there is something in the water, what do I do? Complete water change? I have 9 snails and a crab so I don't want to put any meds in the DT.

 

Ok first I am very new to this - My tank has been up less than 5 months - I have 4 fish in 75gal after 5 months.

I see your parms are not showing any nitrite or ammonia - but does seem like you have a high bio load for 3 week old tank.

Did any of the fish have white spots?

Have you rinsed the carbon?

Just a few things to look at?

 

This tank has been set-up for 3 weeks is the problem I believe. Add that to attempting to keep a long nosed butterfly. One fish died the biological filter could not handle it and the feeding of twice a day. Your nitrates are high as well. I suspect the tank is too newly cycled, contributing to the issues with the fish.

Royal grammas can hide in the smallest hole in the rockwork for long periods of time, so I would not rule him out just yet.

 

Mulder,
I am pretty new to this also, and had a similar problem to the one that you are having. Have you inspected your live rock for hitch hikers? When one of my clowns came up missing I chalked it up to inadequite care while I was out of town and the clean up crew doing thier job. But after I returned my other clown disappeared also, and I found the remains of my royal gramma pulled into a hole in my live rock. So I visited my LFS and they recommended that I set a trap to see what I could catch. To my suprise there was a rock crab living in my live rock. With much anger at the little, I took him to my LFS and they promtly fed him to their Cuttlefish. Revenge is sweet!! You can either buy or make a trap. Good luck.

 

This is a valid point. But looking at the timeline of the tank - it's very likely too many fish were added too fast and the tank crashed.

Best thing to do is closely monitor parameters, change water if necessary, cut back on feedings, and stop adding fish until the tank has stabilized for a month or two. Then add only one (responsibly chosen for your tank size) fish at a time, and space out additions by one month so to allow the bioload of the tank to slowly adjust and allow the bacterial colonies of the tank to catch up to the new bioload.