Unresolved Ropefish have both passed away, I wish I knew how they died.

Edit: Edited title because this is no longer a time-sensitive topic. Should I start a new topic on another board?

So about two days ago I bought two ropefish. One is about ten inches long, the other about six. They were quite active at first but their activity has decreased since I got them. They are living in a 3 gallon tank (I was recommended the tank at the time of the purchase, I now know I need a far bigger one) filled with tap water and I have treated the water with Aquasafe. Last night the smaller ropefish was floating to the top of the tank and swimming off-balance, after doing research, I found out that the freeze-dried bloodworms I have been feeding may be the cause, as they are lighter than the water. This morning, I wake up to find the small ropefish passed away during the night. I now fear for the larger ropefish, that has been floating near the top of the tank and barely moving.

As I type this, I am in the process of acquiring testing kits for pH, nitrate and ammonia in the tank. I didn't know how important these were before I purchased the fish. It will be about two more hours before I get the kits to see if it is the water. In the meantime and fearing for the life of my other ropefish, I have taken it out of the water. I took it out because I think the water may be the problem. Is this a good decision? I know they have primitive lungs and can survive for over four hours out of water, so I assumed this would be okay.

Fearing I hadn't added enough Aquasafe, I took a portion of the water out, added fresh water and added a dose of Aquasafe with some extra. I let the water warm to the same temperature. After about an hour of being out of the water, I placed the ropefish back into the newly AquaSafed water. It sat still for a moment, only to swim around quickly. It then flipped onto it's back for a moment, then began to swim quickly again before stopping near the surface of the water once more. it has never done that before, so I have taken it out of the tank once again. At the time of this writing, the ropefish has been out of the water for about 30 minutes. It has sat still most of the time, but it has just now left the net on it's own and seemed very lively.

What I want to know is:

Is it best that the fish be out of the water until after I test it and take care of the problem? (as long as it's under four hours and I wouldn't even want to take that long)

Is there a possibility the fish is ill? It seems odd that it has lasted two days in the water seeming just fine and now it is acting like it's dying when I leave it in the water.

Am I just paranoid? Do ropefish normally behave in this way?

Thank you SO much to anyone who can help. The life of my ropefish depends on it!

 

Welcome to 3reef.

I don't have much knowledge of ropefish, but the tank size is definitely an issue. A fish of that size would definitely pollute its environment quickly in such a small tank. I am guessing the tank has not cycled and the fish is suffering from ammonia and nitrite poisoning. You will need to address these issues before you will have a chance of succeeding with any fish.

 

Thank you very much for the reply. I was worried about such things and am actively taking the steps to fix those issues and get a larger tank. Will the fish have a good chance of a full recovery when the issues have been addressed?

 

I have an update:

I got the test kits back and here are the results:

Nitrate: 10ppm (Result means safe)
Nitrite: 0 (Safe)
Hardness: 75 (not sure what it means, but the results say the water is soft)
Alkalinity: About 120 or 'ideal' according to the results.
pH: About 8.0, which is a little low.
Ammonia : Between ideal and safe at about .15.

These results all seem just fine except for the pH, which I am making go into the low 7 range. What else could be the problem if not any of these things?

Edit: The ropefish passed away while I was performing the tests. With results as good as they are (Low pH was the only thing not suitable and it wasn't even very far off) what could have been wrong? feel good knowing that they were not suffering from ammonia or nitrite posioning, but I am very sad and disappointed that they did not survive under these conditions.

 

There is no such thing as safe amounts of ammonia. Anything more than 0 is deadly.


The biggest problem here is the LFS had no business selling you the fish to go along with a new purchase tank. That tank needs to cycle first.

If it were me, I'd return both fish (dead or otherwise), tell them to accept it, and if they don't, fine, just call the credit card and stop payment. Do it on your cell right there. Then look at him and tell him he can take it up with your CC company for fraud. He knew those fish would die. But maybe that's just me.

If you didn't use a CC, well, now you know their power

 

Are these test strips or liquid test kits?

 

They are test strips. Also, for the ammonia one, I matched the color on the bottle and under the color the amount of ammonia was considered safe. Do you personally think the fish still should have survived with those amounts of ammonia? Because I've read that you cannot get rid of ammonia entirely and that the fish and owner will need to live with small amounts.

I will try to get a refund on the fish and I will refuse to buy anymore fish of any kind until I get a bigger tank and give it plenty of time to cycle. I already have lots of fish food, all these testing strips, pH tablets, nets, decorations and things. I also don't want to give up on successfully keeping fish.

Is it possible both ropefish had an infection when I bought them and that is their cause of death? I found another topic on here where users were having a similar problem with ropefish and it seemed like the only explanation was parasites of some sort.

Thank you for your reply and concerns.

 

I'll read more carefully your post later, but for now, I can say test strips equate to guessing. Return them too, or just throw them away.

Sorry to say. But they are not anywhere near accurate.

 

1+ I agree. test strips are not accurate at all. I would get a liquid test kit.

 

For the first part, the amounts of ammonia that should be present when you introduce fish (particularly the species that are less durable than damsels) should be a "small amount" as to be undetectable.

In truth, you haven't yet actually tested for ammonia. The strips don't count. You may have 0 ammonia or 4 or 5 ppm. Who knows.

But I do know a new SW tank needs a good 6-8 weeks before it can sustain a fish. Please use the search bar up top for "nitrogen cycle" "cycling" etc to learn about the ammonia -> nitrite -> nitrate -> nitrogen gas cycle.

For the second part, it is possible. But it's like wondering if someone that was poisoned died from the flu. But to be fair, I don't have any experience with ropefish.

A good inexpensive starter kit of liquid tests is the API Saltwater Kit. You can find it for about 25 bucks online and it will cover the basics for a Fish Only with Live Rock tank FOWLR. I recommend getting that. But by the time you do, your ammonia levels will be different... so I don't feel you'll actually know for sure.

Good luck.