Unexplanable fish deaths. Can you help?

I have not been having much luck with my fish recently.

I just lost a flame angel today, 2 days ago my hippo tang died and my longnose yellow butterfly fish died like 2 weeks ago.

I'm not sure what the deal is.

There is one common observation with all the fish that have died. They stop eating the day before I find them dead.

My tank is a 45 g long fowlr tank.

I have 55lbs of LR which have a few mushrooms on them.
The fish that are currently living in the tank are:

1 false perc
1 lawnmower blenny
1 chromis viridis

Temp:75-78
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 2ppm

The current fish show no signs of external parasites.

I will say however, that I used to have 2 false percs in the tank and I removed one and put it in a hospital tank 'cause it developed a small white spot on the gill and the dorsal fin. (I put it in the hospital tank a week ago). I'm currently treating it with coppersafe.

I don't know if this infection is related to the other fish deaths. It is strange that the other fish currently in the tank show no signs of infection.

My flame angel and the yellow long nose butterfly fish, both died within 4 days of being introduced in the tank.

The hippo tang died 1 month after introduction.

Here's how I originally stocked the tank:

1. 5 chromis viridis (they killed each other off in 3 weeks) Water tests indicated that water quality was perfect when the last chromis died. (0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and -1ppm nitrate)

2. 2 false percs introduced

3. 1 big chromis viridis

4. Hippo tang

(1 false perc developed white spot)

Hippo tang hid and never ate

5. Longnose yellow butterfly

6. Lawn mower blenny

7. flame angel


Stocking was done over 2 months period. With 1-2 weeks between introducing fish.

I jump started the tank using live sand and live rock from a tank that had been established for 5 years.


Any ideas?

 

How do you acclimate the fish. How much circulation do you have? Where is it pointed?

 

How old is the tank? What kind of filtration? Maybe a bigger tank.

 

sometimes fish dont make it because they were sick,stressed, harassed before you buy. I would keep an eye on your paramaters and make sure your fish arent harrassing them. I was buying fish from one store and they would die within a few days every time. I started buying my fish from another store and have had great luck.

 

Also what is your salinity?

 

Long nose yellow butterfly fish are just delicate, they really need a huge tank as well to truely thrive and excellent nutrition.

Coppersafe is not going to effectively treat ich, either in a display or qt. If your clown did have ich it now resides in the display so treating the clown and not the display is counter productive. Marine Ich lays dormant as part of it's life cycle, to kill the cyst you need hyposalinity and or formalin.

Were any of the other fish breathing heavily or staying near the surface? Breathing heavly, refusal to eat and white spots are all signs of ich.

Sorry to hear about your fish that is so frustrating.

 

I drip acclimate for an hour.

I use a hang on the back skimmer which produces a lot of bubble/current on the right side of the tank which flows from back to front only on the right side.

And I have 2 powerheads on the left side of the tank which flow from back to front.

 

The tank has been set up for about three months, however, the live rock and 1" of live sand came from an established tank that was up for 5 years continuously.

I use the live rock for bio filtration and the protein skimmer.

 

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No mechanical filtration? Lost lost a dozen fish easy when my tank was that young. I had donated liverock as well. Just new tank syndrome IMO. I lost SO many fish in the first 6 months.