HELLLLP!... Another fish loss?

[Vallely4]

So coming home from work this afternoon, I notice my tiny blenny in a crevices hidey-holein the rock that almost everyfish seems to enjoy(yet mysteriously every fish in my system that has died spends its last few hours/moments in that hole) Hes a real mystery blenny my fav. little fish that I think I identified as either 'tube' or 'secretary' or 'sailfin' blenny ( pic here http://www.colinackerman.freeola.com/images/ImgDiveTrips/FX50.jpg )

But to my surprise -although I can't fully see him in the shadows, it looks as if one side of his belly is turned white, and hes looking like hes losing balance -sometimes lopsided
In the shadows to me it looks like his belly is swollen too, I can't tell.
His breathing now seems rapid. I just fed the tank, and he didnt come out -he made movement/attempt, but didnt leave to snatch up any food
I dont get it! he was seemingly fine, in my tank for atleast 1 month maybe 2. Only thing different is the last couple days he didn't seem to show himself asmuch -as I usually always can spot him
-He eats
-No tank mates are bothersome (One chalk basslet is the only other fish -introduced second, but the blenny showed the bass who was there first, and they mostly left each other alone)
-What could it be???

If anyone with any advice that'd be great, mostly just needed to vent myfrustration

Im so unencouraged to keep fish now...  Each loss i've had seems somewhat explainable, but this is the last straw. Too depressing
I'll post a little later with my other oddly cases...  And an update (If anyone wants to house this guy, or has a separate tank to medicate him? etc...  Gladly)

[KLKelly]

Wow I'm sorry : (  He looked so cool.

I hope you get good advice and some ideas on what might be hitting them.

[Vallely4]

Thanks alot KLKelly,

And just a note: He's now more visible, hasn't lost any colour, just is leaning awkwardly, and breathing heavily... isnt his normal self
I don't think he'll last longer than afew hours

everything else in the tank's doing good, Basslet showing no signs of anything, and my coral have always been fine
I know I need to get out and get myself a new testkit -I realised mines used, but I have no clue how old

[SuperT]

Give us your numbers. when was the last water change?  when was the last time you had your hands in the tank.  I've read most fish losses are caused (indirectly) by poisoning.  test the water first and let us know the results (i'd also get a new batch ready just incase).  have you changed anything resently? added new equipment without rinising etc?

Terry

[AdamN]

I agree, post your numbers for starters. I would love to take him and put him in one of my tanks to bring him back, but unfortunately the move would probably do him in.

[beertech]

I would definitly bring some water in to marinescape ( they'll test everything for $20) or get a new test kit right away.  Or, if you know someone near you who would be willing to test your water, especially salinity, temp. alk, and ph, and of course nitrates.  I almost had a disaster recently due to an old test kit. It was telling me that my alk was down to 8dkh, so I started raising it with a buffer.  Then, I got a new test kit and found out it was actually up to 13.4!!!!!! 
I hope the little guy pulls through, he is really cute!

Gord.

[AdamN]

any update? how is the little guy doing?

[Vallely4]

If your AC has alot of debris settling in it it, clean it out .. quick. My nano had a modded AC as a fuge holding LR rubble, which trapped so much detrius so fast my trates hit 60 ppm in a matter of weeks. Basically it acts the same way as having bio-balls. If you do not take them out every few days and clean them, don't have them. The same goes for refugiums. They must be cleaned every few days to a week in order for them to be beneficial rather than harmful. .. they most certainly do thier job at catching all the junk quick, but if that junk is not removed just as quick, prepare for problems as it leaches things back into your tank.

Well Adam, I can't thank you enough for posting this. This I came across in another thread late last night, and as soon as I saw your comment >why your against refugiums... and then that post, >it clicked, I had to remove my AC... now!!! (1-2am nonetheless!)
Why haven't I ever heard any such thing as cleaning your tiny chaeto/LR fuge? Its been mentioned to me, its always better to have a refugium than not -no mention of cleaning it. I thought the whole point of a fuge/chaeto/tiny critters was to just eat up gunk/nitrates and it it'd kinda dissapear. (...Who would think that you have to regularly remove LR rubble to clean it... I sure do after inspecting my fuge anyway)
I had been cleaning my AC in the past, about every 2-4weeks because I would notice a little build up of detritus... but now that I think about it, that was a TON of gunk sitting there being leached into the tank.. (BUT I also always thought it was bad to clean out often because you'd be removing "beneficial bacteria" and thats kinda what I thought some that gunk was...

Anyway, my blenny as such -did a now very familiar sight to me.  R.I.P mystery blenny... @ 5:55
After my last post, I noticed his belly was whitening and slighty bloated. I came back into the room at the last moment, when I noticed his breathing troubled, and he was on the sandbed at this point, stumbling -I managed to scoop him up, planning to put end to his misery, before I could, by the time I got him in a container floating in the tank -his gills has stopped.

Anyone know a for sure sign of what it could be? I was first thinking parasite, but after the Nitrate Factory AC ordeal I don't know.... By the way, this whole time testing I had my own 'possibly faulty' tests saying nitrate=0 nitrite=0 ph=8.4-5 alk=normal  SG1.025 Temp. 79-81 ...But during the whole time my tanks been set-up I've gotten my water test 2-3x at LFS's and its been 0-nitrate 0-nitrite 0-ammonia. But I also believed that with my tank not heavily stocked at all ie:1-2fish at a time in 20g, there should be no reason for crazy nitrate/nitrite/ammonia readings. Water changes have been about 20-25% every 2 weeks
But the other day a kind person from ovas tested my ph and it read 7.8 (yikes?) and Alk=12... (only test kits onhand)
Thanks beertech, i'll definately buy myself a testkit. 20$ test water? ouch... Any package testkits people suggest? >Master testkit?
This week I ordered from my LFS pH and Calcium testkits, (they have only cheap brands instock) looks like it'll be a week atleast 'til there here. Anyone wanna test my water!?!? 

And I hafta post, If people are going to sell testkits -be sure to warn people when they were purchased. Be honest don't sell expired testkits.  karma karma karma...

Also due to my AC i'd think I can blame... a gorgeous neon SPS frag from beertech was half-lost. I noticed as I had the actinics come on, that half of the sps on the plug was lookin bubbly and loosing its flesh (Which I think also explains the cause of a few previously new LPS frag loss's... ) Noticing this before my AC was removed I thought maybe just infection spreading or something. I took a pair a SPS shears and snipped off half that was decaying-like. Not long after is when I took my fuge off, and figured of course it was the cause, all must be lost for this sps. But today its looks like it might re-coup, dispite being about 1/3 its first size.

So wow that's my tank history for the last little bit...    Hmmph!
I have a batch of water on the mix now by the way
Thanks alot for the info and kind thoughts guys!...

[KLKelly]

  I have only had exposure to a blenny for three days and I've fallen head over heals for them.  I'm sorry he's not going to be greeting you at your tank.  I hope you do get a new one after your tank has been stablized.

I am a bit too scared to look up fuge issues on a nano - would you mind sharing some of the links that you looked at?  Everything we read on nano-reef really pushes the fuge approach but no one talks maintenance either.  Course I only briefly look at a few posts I don't live on the site.  I'm worried if I convince my husband to dump the fuge then I will be blamed if something goes wrong.  He still won't put carbon in the fuge.

I now have my own tank (10 gallon changing to an 8 gallon biocube) that won't be a pretty coral tank.  Just my beat up clown and a few ricordia mushrooms and a ten zoa heads.  I don't know what to do with the fuge now. 

Maybe just seachem PURIGEN? Did you come across that for keeping the tank stable and avoiding environmental illnesses?

[AdamN]

I am sorry for your loss, he was a gorgeous little guy.

As your AC could have driven up your nitrates, it would not have killed your blenny or had anything to do with its death. Tough fish can live in 60ppm nitrates no problem. However, some of your SPS .. not so tough, they would have suffered for sure.
Also, a PH of 7.8 is just fine, as long as it stays there. Its fluctuations that will cause problems, not a reading of 7.8. If you have seen my 75 you will know that everthing in there grows like mad. My PH has been 7.8 since day one and nothing I have tried could drive it up.

[Vallely4]

Hmmm... well then, the mystery lives on.

KLKelly, Im real interested in that PURIGEN thing you linked me to, no I had never heard of it. Where can you find this stuff locally? is it any the same to all the other filter flosses/cartridges
such as these?  http://fishtail.ca/category.php?category=11&manufacturer=36
(I hope Fishtail themselves have it, i'll check)

I purchased myself a Reef master test kit (contains: -nitrate-phosphate-calcium-generalhardness-) but no PH test, which i'm kinda bummed about. (seems between all the test kits they hafta leave out one thing or another )
I tested everything and nitrates came to a reading of 20ppm right before I was about to do a w/c. Nitrates are now only slightly lower than they were before. I totally got carried away/just didnt do the math about the water change (since I did it at 2am and wasn't thinking of how much water i'd need) It was only 4 gallons I mixed/added, but I must have removed 6-7 gallons.

Would you all recommend I replace the water thats missing now once mixed, or do larger water change. Or should I just place a Purigen nitrate remover of sorts to just deal with my nitrate problem??? (Would this also be the exact same as just carbon bags I did use in my AC?)

Im not so surprised about coral and such at 60ppm.. And definatley sps loss, but I don't get fish loss under 20ppm nitrates then

I've got some parameter wrangling to in the next couple days, to get everything straightened out just right. my tests currently read as such
nitrate- 20ppm
Phosphate- 0ppm
Calcium- 380-400ppm
Alk/GH- 11-12dkh
SG1.025 Temp-81
Let me know what, if anything I should be doing!
Thanks!

[AdamN]

Not sure if it had been mentioned or not, but how long did you have him and where did you get him from?

[Vallely4]

The blenny I had for atleast 1month closer to 2. From Big al's Innes

I guess now's about time I could post about my other fish...
So my started with my first, being a lawnmower blenny I purchased in November after my tank was settled for over a month. The next fish I got was a sixline wrasse from BA Innes on Boxing day. The sixline I had for a little over 24 hours, I came home that afternoon to notice a weird lip thing -I thought maybe lip fungus was the cause ( But Im not at all familiar with symtoms of a fish's death... He started to be reclusive, then lost balance, stumbling and sideways, once removed to a seperate tank I had -he sank and spasmed uncontrollably, almost flipping out of the tank twice. But there was a noticeable mark/disfigure on his lip I'm guessing thats where it started. All sudden down slope within 2 hours )
Then maybe mid January-Feb I purchased a pair of banggai cardinals, sadly to say one only lasted 48hours, the other doing well for a week before passing suddenly( The first I woke up one morning to find on the sandbed decomposing, The second I witnessed over the day be more awkward, hovering lower, and lower, and lower on the sandbed, (then the sudden down slope I witnessed... deceased within one hour after real symtoms of dragging)until he was just dragging his bellyfins on the sand and falling uncontrollably to theside )
Most devastating, 2 days after my last bangai I woke up one morning to find my lawnmower blenny dried on the floor(With my tank being right by my head while I sleep -imagine the guilt I felt to wakeup to picture in my head, a blenny struggling on the floor there while I slept ) So about 2 months ago is when I aquired this mysterious/lovely little blenny,
and maybe 3 weeks ago the latest addition a Chalk basslet.
And you know the history from there...

All I thought seemed to be kinda explainble @ the time, the sixline-wrasse I had a feeling from the particular vendor I purchased him -this could factorin, not to mention on that occasion I noticed a few belly-up fish in there tanks. Next the bangaai', I always had the fear they would not transport well, and after I assumed my case was of the many of sad cases of not surviving/being good transport fish... The lawnmower was just a sad case of what can go wrong -WILL!(Never heard of them being a jumper, but he managed to find a good 2" wide slit lengthwise at the back of the tank to sneek out of... and these as mentioned are Fantastic fish -as I think Karrie noted, and he'd always be kissing at the glass, and regularly people watch from afar)
And now this blenny... what could be this cause plagueing fish in my tank?
Or is it really just my luck..

[KLKelly]

You know this hobby is beyond frustrating with the advice - no one really agrees on anything.  Even within a site there are drastic differences in opinion.  I have no idea about the pro's and con's of purigen.  It may suck out some of the good stuff too.  Some people I see on nano-reef use it.  Some people like all natural.  It was the same thing when we looked up Carbon.  My husband won't touch it but when I set up my tank I'm going to have a small amount of it replaced often.

I am buying three bags of Purigen for my freshwater tanks and found it at a wicked price on mops.ca. Similar to US pricing. 

Let me know what you discover!

Btw today we did a major cleaning on our fuge, took out the dividers and live rock rubble and just have some of the cheato in the back.  We will clean it completely once a week with water changes.  We figure it adds a gallon of water and some flow so we left it on.  And one of the two clowns (the mean one) has two small white growths on her nose.  I hope we don't have our first loss.  I tested our nitrates today after the 20% water change and they were at 10.  Before your post I had no idea about the ACs as fuges and how bad they could be.

[Vallely4]

Yup, frustrating to say the least. I couldn't imagine this hobby without the advice though

Would you know if Purigen is the same as carbon cartridges? does carbon remove nitrate/nitrite/ammonia??? I was running a little carbon in my AC before adding liverock and more chaeto into it, and looking back, I think the Carbon was a help in keeping lots of stuff happy... I only had used it for the first month or two of setting up mytank. Regretably, because I thinkit could've helped save several fresh frags recently( Which I think I heard its good to run carbon on new/healing coral frags? >but obviously theres some disagreement whether people think its good or bad... I think I fall to the good side )

Yea. I think it's a good idea to just keep an eye AC fuges, even weekly cleaning it along with water changes isn't too much more of a hassle.
I plan to add mine back on, but it'll likely to only hold some carbon, add some more flow, and have it to run my surface skimmer -for extra skimmering

[AdamN]

I agree how often people do disagree on things in this hobby this is true, and part of the reason for that is there are things that some ppl have success with that others do not. Then there are those people who dont even have a clue and post based on something they have read somewhere.
Although I seek those who have had a particular experience with something I am looking for information on, I do take all advice into mind. I may not try it or agree on some of it, but basically if it makes sense to me, then I will look further into it. One thing I was mistaked on was .... I was told that BTAs can survive in very very low light conditions, ie. 18w. I really didnt know and I trusted the person who told me as he was "in the business" for a long time. Well it turned out that this is not the case and that for good success with them, they need high HO, VHO, or MH lighting. I should have looked into it further before purchasing one for that particular tank.
Some of this hobby will be trial and error, and some will be learned only be experience, but in the end, its a hobby and is supposed to be enjoyed, so try not to let it frustrate you, and just chock up more knowlege of your own based on your mistakes.  ... the important thing is that we are try as hard as we can to provide suitable and comfortable living conditions for our little pets.

Vallely4 - the only similarity I see in all of your fish is that you bought them all from the same place. Now, I am not trying to slam BA's or anything, but I have not had much success in keeping fish from them. Others have I know. Maybe you should try a fish from someplace else after you have confirmed your tank is in tip top shape. I did that and it worked for me. Many months later I did go back to BA's to get my foxface, although he has had cloudy eyes since day one, he is very happy and still very much alive.

[Vallely4]

Some of this hobby will be trial and error, and some will be learned only be experience, but in the end, its a hobby and is supposed to be enjoyed, so try not to let it frustrate you, and just chock up more knowlege of your own based on your mistakes.  Wink ... the important thing is that we are try as hard as we can to provide suitable and comfortable living conditions for our little pets.

Thanks greatly for the help Adam, I couldn't have said that better myself.
Theres a few things I wish i'd stuck with/listened to when I began also, one of them is QT everything! Some of us may have to learn the hard way...

And actually there's no similarity between the places I purchased my fish either. I actually just happen to pick-up 2 fish(sixline wrasse & sailfin blenny) from BA at diff. times.
All my other fish I got from Fishtail (lawnmower, Cardinals, Chalkbass)

[AdamN]

haha funny you mentioned that QT thing as it is one of the things I did in the beginning, but no longer do now.

Thats good about the fish, sorry, I had thought you mentioned they all came from BA. I have heard so many mixed things about BA, some good, alot of bad, but when it comes to that, I generally use my own judgement. I know someone who gets most fish from there (with the exception of 1 she got from Az, and one from redbelly) and I don't think she has lost one of them yet, and I hear of others who cannot keep them alive. If they have a fish I really want, and he looks healthy I will take my chances, I think it will be same same in any larger sized store you buy from. Don't be afraid to ask though if the fish you buy or any connected tanks are being treated for anything before you take him home.
I have been to fishtail once, I tried to email them a few times after from thier website, but thier email does not work. Maybe I should check them out again sometime soon, they are nice and close.

I am really curious as to why your fish are not doing well though.

[beertech]

My opinion on the hob fuges is that they are a great benefit to any tank. They add extra water volume, extra flow to the display, and help consume nutrients. They are also a great place for pods to reproduce and grow, then get washed back into the display as a source of live food.  You have to keep in mind though that you should include everything in the fuge that you have in your tank.  Substrate, liverock and cleaner crew. The cleaner crew will break down any solid waste that enters the fuge, then the bacteria will be able to handle the load. Also, a fuge has to cycle just like a tank, especially if you add the substrate and rock from outside the display as opposed to using some from the tank that has already cycled.   If you add chaeto or some other macro algae, you will probably need a small light too, and these are really efficient at consuming nutrients.  I wouldn't suggest weekly cleanings of the fuge, as it will start the cycle all over again, just like if you did that to your tank. Don't think of the fuge as a filter, but as an extension of your display.

As for your recent issues,  I'm sure that with some small , frequent water changes, and careful monitoring of your water params, you will get all your readings in line in no time. I think you may want to bring your Alkalinity down a bit, try to aim for 8-10 Dkh. It doesn't matter that you didn't get a Ph test, it is closely related to Alk, so if your Alk is proper your ph will automatically be stable. I would temporarily stop any additives you are using for Calcium, as they sometimes add a buffer too that will be raising your Alk.  Just test the Calcium weekly, and if it drops to around 350-370, then add a dose of the supplement.  You will eventually get into a routine that will maintain both values without letting them get too high.
As for the fish losses, You never can be sure about the health of a fish, especially if it comes from a high volume retailer, or a retailer that just doesn't seem to care. I only buy fish from stores (or sponsors) that have had the fish for at least a week, preferably 2, and can show me that it's eating and not still stressed. I try to be patient and not rush into a purchase. I like to browse and go back a couple of times to see the fish.  If the fish is sold before I go back to get it, oh well.  There will be another one soon enough. Or, a reputable retailer will hold a fish for a few days so you can be somewhat sure it's ok.  I stopped by Fishtails after you told me about them, and I have to say, I wasn't too impressed with their set-up. Visually it looks nice, but there are some things that could be done better.  I won't go into detail, I don't want to start a bashing thread, it's just my opinion, similar to my opinion on big Al's. Anyway, I'm sorry for your losses, and hopefully things will take a turn for the better.

Gord.