Hi,

I have had my tank set up for 12 months now and seem to be losing too many fish. I had my fourth death on sunday and cant understand why. The fish that I have lost are: Coral beauty, Rusty angel, Six line wrasse and a green chrome.
I do a 15% water change nearly every week. Could this be too much???

My parameters are as follows:

Temp = 28
Salinity = 1.026
Nitrite = 0
Nitrate = 25 ( Little High )
Ammonia = 0
PH = 8.0
Phosphate = 0.01

I have a trigon 190 using the berlin method.

Any advice would be much appreciated as there could be something Im missing.

Cheers,

Waggy

Hi waggy if i was in your shoes id change a few things to see if it improves the tank, like.

Temp from 28c lower slowly to 25c as higher the temp some fish strugle for oxygen.

salinty isnt high but i like to keep mine smack on 1.025

Nitrate 25 try to lower it with a big water change but not too fast,instead of a 15% water change try 20%/25% each week.

also look into what might be pushing your nitrates.

How many fish you got, and are you feeding too much etc,canister filters can cause nitrate if you slack changing the media if you have one,is your skimmer performing well etc.

also what was the fish systems just before they died behavour wise that might tell you whats wrong.

Hope it works out for you in the end

What symptoms are they exhibiting before death ?

White spots , slime , heavy breathing ?

Parameters look ok ( as mentioned , drop the salinity a bit , and drop the temp a bit too ) .... nitrate won't kill a fish.

Are you doing anything near the tank , however untoward it may be ? wife dusting , spraying polish around ? air fresheners nearby ? anything like that ? fragranced candles ?

Try and think of anything , no matter how small that you do , or is near the tank before they die ..... because barring a disease dormant in the tank , flaring up every now and then , it could be a poison entering from outside.

I have been racking my brain to think if I have done anything that could affect it. The only thing I use on the tank is glass cleaner. I know to stay clear of the scented candles etc as this can pollute the water.

The thing I cant understand is I have never noticed any change in the fish before they die.

I have started gradually to turn my temp down then I will get the salinity down a fraction.

Am I just panicking over something small or should I be worried about losing 4 fish in 12 months. I dont want to keep going out buying fish if im going to lose them, it's not fair on the fish.

Any thoughts,

Regards,

Waggy

It's a lot to be fair . Are they all from the same LFS ?

Do you buy sympathy fish ? something we've all been guilty of at times .... Ah ! look at the poor little guy , i'll give him a home ...

What i am trying to get at is could they have been weak sick fish when you got them ?

Are they stock you have had for ages dying or are they relatively new fish , that last a few weeks then kark it ?

Do you spray the glass cleaner on the glass or onto a cloth and wipe it on the glass ?

Do they die after you have polished the glass ?

You aren't seeing any obvious whitespots / disease or anything ? they are fine one minute and dead the next ?

Just racking my brains to try and think of something , sorry for the barrage of questions.

Long shot, but what type of thermometer are you using? Is it an old-style mercury based one? Alcohol one? digital one? The EU are supposedly banning a certain type because of the dangers of mercury in them. I had a similar experience a couple of years ago with the same symptoms - and all my tests came back fine too, i was baffled. Then i realised my porcupinefish had bitten the bottom off my thermometer and had leaked the balls and liquid into the tank. After i saw this i put all the fish in quaranteen and most of them fully recovered after 2 or 3 weeks (i lost a couple more of the more sensitive species).
Although i have been told by some people that it is impossible for fish to die because of this i couldn't find any other explaination for it.

The latest 1 that died was the rusty angel and he was bought in november. The fish seem to last all different lengths of time. They have been bought from different shops aswell. I have bought all of my fish from 2 different shops and some I have had since I set up my tank.

I would never buy a sympathy fish, I would always buy that looks fit and heathy.

I always spray the glass cleaner on the glass but I will spray on the towel from now on to see if that makes a difference, but the fish do not die when this is done.

The fish just seem to be fine 1 minute then dead the next. The fish that have died have lasted approx 3 to 4 months ( give or take ).

As for the thermometer im not sure on the type im using. It looks like an old style with a red liquid in, but this seems to be incased in a largish tube ( if you know what I mean ) and this seems to be intact.

Im gratefull for the barrage of questions if there could be a way of finding what the problem could be.

Regards,

Waggy.

Just run through your stock list that you currently have please ?

One thing that pops out immediately , is that you had a rusty angel and a coral beauty in a 190L tank . Dwarf angels are aggressive towards each other , and in a small tank like that could have hassled each other to death .

No more than one dwarf angel per tank is the rule unless it is a massive tank ( there will always be someone who pipes up with the fact that they had 2 in a nano , but generally it is a no-no ) ...

6 lines are also notoriously aggressive , i had one and it was fine for months and then went berserk , hassling everything and i had to get rid of him.

I'm beginning to suspect that it was quite an 'aggressive' tank , and too small for the inhabitants to find territory away from each other , and the constant in-fighting probably weakened them to the point where they were susceptible to illness that normally wouldn't have bothered them , but in their weakened state , did them in.

2 common clowns, 3 green chromis, 1 cleaner shrimp, 2 turbo snails and 2 red leg hermit crabs. I had some sort of crab in there but now I have took this out and took it to my LFS and he said it was not a good 1 to have in the tank as it will wreck your rock and corals. He wasnt sure the name of it tho.

Just to let you know I didnt have all the fish past and present in there at the same time. As 1 died I replaced it 3 to 4 weeks later or maybe longer.

Waggy.

Ah , i see .... so the angels weren't together ?

Chromis are notorious for picking off the weaker ones , they isolate it so it can't feed , and then when it dies they move on to the next one , until just the dominant pair remain.

Doesn't always happen , but does sometimes.

I wouldn't add anything else , and just monitor the stock you have now , keep the levels tip top and see how you go ....

Sorry , it's not much help , but it's all you can do really.

See how the surviving fish do for a few months , if anymore die , then we can think again . if they don't we have to just assume that you have had a run of rotten luck.