Fish Not Eatting

[landon]

Good morning! I need some help with some suggestions on what may be going on with my tank. first a little back tracking with history.

I set up my tank about 3 weeks ago and let it run for about a week. I filled it up with water from the hose (not knowing at the time that this was a mistake). During this time I conditioned the water to remove any chlorine and added live sand. About a week ago I added about 180 pounds of live rock that had already been established in someones aquarium for 5 years. When I went to pick up the live rock I described my set-up and mentioned that I used tap water. After seeing the look on his face I knew I had done something wrong, ha. He explained the mistake and I bought a 3 stage RO water filter from him. He also gave me about 15 gallons of his water and told me to replace that much water with the water he was giving me.

The next day I purchased a clown fish that was meant to "test the waters", if you will. His name is "Chance" . He seemed to be doing fine so I purchase a Limon Peel Tang. Well the Clown fish has not eatin for a few days and is growing weaker and the Limon peel hid all day yesterday (the days leading up he was eating fine) and I found him dead this morning.

What do I need to test for? My PH is 3.2. Soft corals are doing just fine.

I have an 85 Gallon tank with a 30 gallon sump.

 

[drnecropolis]

I have no idea what a lemon peel tang is.. I assume either

Yellow Tang
or
Lemon peel angel

The fish are hiding and not eating because the ammonia in the tank from the cycle is burning their gills and slowly killing them..

pH is 3.2? Holy crap.. I hope that is a typo.. 3.2 would burn skin off anything..Normal pH for a marine tank is 8.0-8.4 or so..

SLOW DOWN!!

Do some reading and more research, AFTER you get the fish out of the tank o death..

Most here are more than willing to help out.. Just ask questions

 

[dave green]

I'd change out as much of the water as possible.

Doc's right... this is a slow process. Take it from a guy who has made the mistakes many times over and sadly killed a lot of fish. Take things real slow and you'll be a lot happier at the end.

 

[landon]

A couple corrections to my post. The PF is 8.2 and it's a Limon Peel Angel. That's all I have been doing is reading.

 

[jdabs]

WOW!! I'm glad the pH was a typo!!! Doc is right on with this one though. The tank hasn't had enough time to cycle in just one week. There is some stuff on the live rock that has died off (which is good because it starts the cycle) but it needs time to run its course. You need to make sure you have a good test kit and you should be testing at least the very basics of Nitrates, Nitrites, Ammonia and pH. Get these in check first and then you can look at adding other things to the tank. I know it's exciting and you want to start running, but believe me, from personal experience I learned you really just need to wait it out and take it slow! Makes it all that much better in the end! Just keep asking questons and there are many experienced individuals here to help out!!

 

[jamescook]

Let it run. get your ro unit working and start mixing up water. you'll be doing water changes for a while. get your powerheads flowing and your skimmer dialed in and lighting. lots of stuff to keep you busy for the next month Before you add another fish.
btw clowns can live 50 years- they are not disposable fish.
once the diatoms and algae start to cover your tank you can start adding crabs and snails. I use a lot of inverts to clean the tank. If you do partial wc and get the clean up crew working, 180lbs of rock should stabilize in a month or 2 and you'll be testing clean and stable water.
good luck

 

[texhorns98]

Doc probably loves the fact you have 180lbs of rock in an 85 gallon tank! Slow down and don't put anything else in the tank until you get a plan in place. Tell us more about your equipment as well

Lights, Skimmer, additional flow, etc.

Unless you transferred all of that live rock completely wet (submerged) you definitely had a lot of die off. That's OK, it just means you needed to wait until your parameters had stabilized before you added any livestock in there.

Most all of us made some dohdoh move like this in the beginning, so don't sweat it. You just need to ask questions here if you have any hesitation about what you're doing. If and you DON'T have any hesitation. Check around anyway! If you're in Acworth look up Imagine Ocean up in Canton. Jenn is the owner and she's a sponsor here as well. She won't tell you what you "want" to hear all the time, but she's very knowledgeable and will keep you on course!

 

[jennm]

I wouldn't worry so much about the tap water. It's done. It was dechlorinated. IMO it's going to be more of an upset to the system to start doing massive water changes, than it is to actually test what's going on now, and do a bit of correction if needed.

The others are right that you do need to slow down. Stocking too fast never ends well. Not sure what you intend to keep but the Lemon Peel Angel is not trustworthy with corals.

Let's start at the beginning.

Here are the parameters you should be checking right away:

Temperature
Specific Gravity
pH
Alkalinity
Ammonia
Nitrite
Nitrate

And since you used tap water, phosphate.

Let's find out what those are before doing anything drastic.

If you find there is phosphate in the water (ie from tap water) that can be removed by chemical means, without resetting the entire ionic balance of the tank by changing out huge volumes of water.

If anything else is amiss, that can be dealt with too.

Meanwhile, going forward, use fresh RO for your top-offs, and if a water change is necessary, use new saltwater prepared with RO water.

Let's not hit the panic button before it's necessary.

It's not unusual for fish to not eat for a day or three when moved to a new environment, so let's find out what's really going on before proceeding.

Jamescook - 50 years for clowns? I know 20 for sure... but I've never heard of one living 50...

Jenn

 

[landon]

JennM;514734 wrote: I wouldn't worry so much about the tap water. It's done. It was dechlorinated. IMO it's going to be more of an upset to the system to start doing massive water changes, than it is to actually test what's going on now, and do a bit of correction if needed.

The others are right that you do need to slow down. Stocking too fast never ends well. Not sure what you intend to keep but the Lemon Peel Angel is not trustworthy with corals.

Let's start at the beginning.

Here are the parameters you should be checking right away:

Temperature
Specific Gravity
pH
Alkalinity
Ammonia
Nitrite
Nitrate

And since you used tap water, phosphate.

Let's find out what those are before doing anything drastic.

If you find there is phosphate in the water (ie from tap water) that can be removed by chemical means, without resetting the entire ionic balance of the tank by changing out huge volumes of water.

If anything else is amiss, that can be dealt with too.

Meanwhile, going forward, use fresh RO for your top-offs, and if a water change is necessary, use new saltwater prepared with RO water.

Let's not hit the panic button before it's necessary.

It's not unusual for fish to not eat for a day or three when moved to a new environment, so let's find out what's really going on before proceeding.

Jamescook - 50 years for clowns? I know 20 for sure... but I've never heard of one living 50...

Jenn

Thank you to the people that have given supportive and helpful information! I have my RO water building up right now. I don't think I'm going to do a drastic water change since I don't want to get rid of all the good bactaria that has already been established. By the looks of things, clearly, I added fish to early. I got excited, what can i say... Hermits, pods, lots of grassy algae and a couple starfish came on the live rock and have been hard at work cleaning away. No more fish for a while a while.

Thanks again!

 

[jennm]

Do be sure to keep a close eye on parameters. If you don't have a test kit, please get one. (Personally I'm not a fan of API brand...)

If you don't have a kit or access to buy one, have either another hobbyist or your local shop test the water.

It's easier to head off problems if you keep track of what's going on with the water.

Jenn

 

[ralph atl]

well, since your fishes gills might be getting destroyed, I'd say a large water change SHOULD be done. You can add bacteria like:

biogest
Seachems something or another
and a couple of other ones!

Please do your fish a favor and do a water change.