Mobile Bay Reef Keepers

WELL IVE HAD MY 75 GALLON GOING WELL FOR SOME TIME HAD SOME SMALL TANGS YELLOW,SAIL,PURPLE,BLUE,YELLOW EYE,NASO
FEW CHROMAS,BLEMMYS.EVERYONE WAS FAT AND HAPPY FOR SOME TIME AFTER THE LAST MEETING SO A FEW WEEKS AGO I WOKE TO A
DEAD YELLOW EYE.AND NOTICED MY NASO HAD CLOUDY EYES AND
A SLIGHT IKE BUT NOT NORMAL IKE THAT I HAVE BEEN USED TO LONG IN THE PAST WHEN I FIRST STARTED OUT.WELL I STARTED USING MARACYN IN THE TANK AND IF YOU HAVE EVER USED THIS IT MAKES YOUR TANK LOOK HORRIBLE!WELL LET ME GET TO THE POINT HERE
IM GETTING VERY BURNT OUT HERE I ONLY HAVE THREE FISH LEFT IN
MY WHOLE LOT.DOES ANYONE HAVE A CLUE?WATER QUALITY IS GREAT
FILTER SYSTEM FINE.THE ONLY THING ODD THIS ALL STARTED
AFTER THE LAST MEETING I DO REMEMBER GETTING A LITTLE WATER IN
MY TANK WHEN I WAS PUTTING IN SOME CORALS FROM THE MEETING BUT DIDNT THINK THAT MUCH ABOUT IT.LOOSING MY REEFING DRIVE
NEED SOME HELP. THANKS

Here is what would be my guess YELLOW,SAIL,PURPLE,BLUE,YELLOW EYE,NASO. IMO that is way too many tangs for a 75. If they were small and not fighting yet then i couldn't guess on the problem. There is no way that at adult size all of them would make it in that tank. I've never had a naso or sailfin but I would guess that you have either the purple and or sailfin still alive. If i'm wrong then i have no idea

BLUE,YELLOW,SAIL TWO CHROMAS ALIVE REST DEAD STARTS OUT CLOUDY EYES THEN ICK AND FOLLOWED BY DEATH I THING SOMETHING IS INFECTING THEM.MY SAIL FIN IS LOOSING ITS COLOR ANS HAS ICK
I GUESS IM JUST WAITING FOR THE END OF HIM.IVE HAD THIS FISH
ABOUT ONE YEAR.SOMETHING STRANGE IS GOING ON BACTERIA/DISEASE.FROM ? I DONT HAVE A CLUE.

Jim,

You may have already done the following things, but wanted to chime n my personal experience with the mystery die off of fish and what I learned from my mis.... mist..... mista.... well....from my past.


I would check the water params (nitrates, ammonia, salinity) first. Things not right here can cause stress. The stress could very well be caused by too many fish competing for tank space. I know it sounds like the old "you got to many fish" speech, but fish really do stress under such conditions. Kinda like when the whole family is over for Holidays, but decide to stay a few extra..................weeks! Things are cool for a while , but then you realize why we all moved away from home.

So the fish get stressed.......show some signs of sickness.... maybe one gets weak and is not able to defend himself, then is killed..... Then you add maracyn or whatever antibiotic.....which if not carefully calculated (based on dosage per gallon (not of how many gallons the tank is , but how many gallons of water you still have in there after displacement from rocks, substrate etc.) If you add too much it almost surely will deteriorate the bacteria colonies (good ones and bad ones) in your tank, which further complicates the matter by created an greater imbalance in the system.

Pain in the butt.... you bet. My suggestion is to get all the family clearer out...clean house.....and hope your immediate family recovers.

So get down to a reasonable amount of fish.... Do a good water change....add some carbon to a bag and toss it in the tank for a day then change it out and repeat for a few days. Stop feeding, if you still are.

Best case scenerio is to take the sick fish out and put them in a quarantine tank so you can watch and medicate them, but few people have the equiptment of willingness to go that route. Fish will normally recover from things like ick and eye issues if given the chance.

Just rememer that too much of a good thing is bad. I love my kids , but if I had 15 of em in here, we might not survive.

THANKS GUYS FOR THE ADVISE I WILL STOP THE MARACYN
DO A GOOD WATER CHANGE ADD SOME CARBON CROSS MY FINGERS
WHAT WOULD YOU SAY IS A GOOD # OF FISH FOR A 75 GALLON
ROUGH 60/70 POUNDS LIVE ROCK NOW HAVE ONE YELLOW TANG
ONE SAIL TANG ONE BLUE TANG TWO CHROMAS.ALL SMALL IN SIZE.

borderline too many tangs... I've not been able to keep more than two in a 100G w/out stress and fighting... remove at least one of the tangs (this is just advice though), and add some other types of fish if you feel the tank is too empty... your tank is too small for a manderin goby, but you can try a spotted goby or some other type of goby/blenny, and you can try a wrasse even... don't get any other types of damsels other than the chromis's, they're too territorial in a small tank.

Most importantly, don't add anything until everyone else is happy and healthy though.

Also, agree on Shawn's post... run carbon, stop meds in the main tank!!, low to no feedings, and do a large (20-30% at least) water change.

Check your parameters, but I'm hoping that if you've lost this much already, that you've taken this first step?

If you need a home for one of your tangs, I have a 55G refuge (for recovery), and a 240G main tank (when he becomes healthy), and live in west Mobile.

Hi Jim, sorry for your losses. If you can, I would ditto everyone thoughts, measure your water parameters (Nitrite, Ammonia, Nitrate, and Salinity) after doing a major water change. I would do at least a 30-35 Gallon change for a 75 Gallon Tank. This will help lower your ammonia and nitrite, which I am pretty sure is at a huge spike right now with all your losses. Just think of it like your tank is goig through a much bigger nitrogen cycle right now. The bioload of your tank at the present time cannot process all the waste that is being produced.

You were probably at your current setup's bioload capacity in the first place with all those fishes. IF that was the case, any extra feeding or even anything dying which would produce that extra precentage of waste woule lead to a tank crash.

If your measurements are still high after the first water change, you might need to do another huge water change. Or if I would do, take out all the fish, let someone take care of it for a while, and let your tank complete the cycle.

Jim, are you running a skimmer?? (I don't remember) If not, you would need to get a decent one. This will help take out your organics in your tank.

As far as the water coming from me or anyone else at the meeting, please remember that is such a minute percentage that it would not affect your overall water chemistry. To put it into a much better perspective, I take out water (sometimes a couple of gallons) all the time to bag some frags for fellow reefers, and I let my top off system take care of replenishing just the water. This does affect my water chemistry, most noticeably my salinity, but I do not adjust up again until my next water change.

If you need any quick advice and/or help, my cell phone number 228-424-4824.

Just my thoughts,
John

I HAVE BEEN FEEDING HEAVY DUE TO OUT BRAKE ONLY IN MY MIND TO
BUILD THEM UP.I AM RUNNING A SKIMMER TO FIND OUT IT IS A LOW
QUALITY ONE SEACLONE 100.RIGHT NOW IM NOT RUNNING IT BECAUSE
OF THE MARACYN.WELL I THINK YALL ARE RIGHT TO MANY FISH!!
THANKS FOR YALLS HELP AND WILL SEE EVERYONE SATURDAYS MEETING.

Just a hint...Caps in forums or e-mail is the same as yelling. You might want to try turning off the caps lock. Hope your tank settles out...I agree with john in the water changes...you might have to do several in the next wk or so to level out all the waste...Good luck terry

Yeah that is too much yelling for me, way too much. Was giving me a headache, lay off the caps lock buddy.

JIM wrote:I HAVE BEEN FEEDING HEAVY DUE TO OUT BRAKE ONLY IN MY MIND TO
BUILD THEM UP.


Overfeeding is just adding to the problem... it's like flooding an engine...just enough gas and things work great.... too much and things go wrong.......way to much and things go very wrong.... and when the engine is running bad, feeding it more gas rarely helps We have all been there though. Fish can go a long time without eating. I would lay off the food for a while.

I AM RUNNING A SKIMMER TO FIND OUT IT IS A LOW
QUALITY ONE SEACLONE 100.RIGHT NOW IM NOT RUNNING IT BECAUSE
OF THE MARACYN.

Yeah, stop with the medicine. Keep running te skimmer with the recommended water changes.


WELL I THINK YALL ARE RIGHT TO MANY FISH!!
THANKS FOR YALLS HELP AND WILL SEE EVERYONE SATURDAYS MEETING.

Yeah.. the amount of fish (bio load) you tank can hand depends on alot of factors. How often you are willing to do a water change. What type of filtration you have. How many gallons of water does your system run, is there live rock and clean up critters and certainly not least of all...how established and consistant your tank conditions are. I think one of the leading causes of problems from established tanks are large changes that affect the nitrogen cycle.
It is alot to learn and we all keep learning every day... and why we reefers can be proud when we get things to work right for a while

wow that kinda jumps right off the page

Shawn...who are you yelling at??

More like a scream.

I just wanted it to be pretty