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Help with "FOWLR" tank

  • #21
...We lost another fish.

Okay, it was the smaller blue one this time, which would lead credence to the "clownfish of death" theory. But really? it was seen at the end of the day yesterday, but not this morning. So it disappeared overnight, which would mean some pretty quick eating. The "fishnapping" theory would still work, I guess... but WTF? if someone wanted to steal them, why not all at once? a prank? Who knows?
 
  • #23
They're dead. Four of them! We found the blue tang and this other fish dead, and the royal gramma basslet and bangaii are still nowhere to be found... but we're assuming those are dead too, and just eaten. The only survivors right now are the peppermint shrimp and the clownfish, but the clown appears to be sickly with a reddish "bruise" on its head. What gives?

Considering the water conditions are all fine, the most likely cause is a pathogen that affects only fish. The clownfish is captive bred, though, so would be hardier than the others, and the shrimp is... a shrimp. So... we kind of have to start over. We either have to sterilize everything in the tank, (ruining the live rock and needing to cycle the filters again) or we have to completely avoid chordates. So our "Fish only with live rock" tank wouldn't even have fish! I guess I wouldn't mind a tank with a bunch of shrimp, but meh...
 
  • #24
next time...test with blue chromis damsels before putting in the nice fish in...

royal gramma's like overhangs...

tangs are vegetarians, and can be aggressive at times, they got blades on the end of their caudals which can inflict damage to other tankmates...

the reddish lesion on your clownfish suggest something viral is going on in your water, and considering everyone else in your class is going through the same thing, im suspecting you arent exempt. UV sterilizer can help. i would also agree that your water perimeters are fine, because if they werent, usually invertebrates are the first to kick the bucket...
 
  • #25
Wow just went through the whole thread out of curiosity of this entire thing and what the heck a FOWLR tank is... :lol:

Overall.. really cool! Besides the fact that you lost a bunch of fish, not so cool. :(

I hope everything gets all figured out and back to a healthy tank o fishies!
 
  • #26
Wow just went through the whole thread out of curiosity of this entire thing and what the heck a FOWLR tank is... :lol:

Overall.. really cool! Besides the fact that you lost a bunch of fish, not so cool. :(

I hope everything gets all figured out and back to a healthy tank o fishies!

Fish Only With Live Rock
 
  • #27
Welp, the clownfish died too. So we have a shrimp. There looked to be an ammonia spike at .25 PPM today, but that was probably because of the fish death, not the cause of it (otherwise the shrimp would have died too.) The conditions should be back to normal soon since we have almost zero biomass. We have to decide what to do: throw EVERYTHING in the tank out, (including the shrimp, it can't go anywhere with fish), or make this a "no cordates allowed" tank.
 
  • #28
autopsy? is it viral? fungal? scrape some of the infected areas and look through a scope.
 
  • #29
We just got a blood shrimp and some weird starfish that looks like it has nipples. So I guess we're going the "no fish only with life rock" route.
 
  • #30
Sorry for getting to this subject late but I came in for the cps only today. I'm a complete noob with cps but I managed aquatics and kept tanks myself. My personal opinion...is it too late to strip everything completely down and redo it? Just trying to remember the pic and skimming through the post, forgive me if I remember anything incorrectly, but...

1. I would seriously recommend you cycle the tank with live rock ONLY (don't add a single fish until AFTER the tank cycles) or a shrimp from the grocery store. You tank never had a chance to cycle so it's not surprising that the animals died. Most people I find have no idea what I mean when I say "cycle" but it is a VITAL part of setting up a successful tank so I'll explain if you don't know. Are you sure you got your live rock from a reliable source? Did you prep the rock before putting it in?

2. You don't have NEARLY enough substrate or live rock in the tank. You should really have way, WAY, WAAAAAY more! Did you get live sand? Is the sand and gravel specifically for saltwater use?

3. Only after the tank has cycled do you add fish, NO inverts at first as they are much more sensitive than the average fish, and you add fish slowly over time. Personally I would never add a tang, foxface, or any fish that will grow so large to so small a tank. I consider 55 gallons to be the absolute minimum for those.

4. You don't mention what kind of equipment you have on this specifically. Since you don't plan on having corals you don't have to worry much about lighting and you could maybe do without a protein skimmer but I prefer to have one just for the improved water quality. Your filter is what worries me the most. Is it undergravel, hang on the back, cannister...?

5. The devil is in the details!! What's the salinity, ph, temp, ammonia/nitrite/nitrate levels each day? Keep a journal!

I'll go see if I can dig up my old saltwater forum. They have some absolute geniuses on there that can surely point you straight!
Jenn

---------- Post added at 10:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:52 PM ----------

I didn't even notice your post right above mine...a STARFISH??? Noooooo! If he's still alive please, please, please return him to the store as soon as possible!!!
Jenn

---------- Post added at 11:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:53 PM ----------

Ok, I can't find the one that was my omg favorite but thank goodness the DFW club still has their forum up! Back when I was in the hobby these guys really knew their stuff!! Search for the DFW Marine Aquarium Society forums and I'm sure they'll help you out of this jam.
Jenn
 
  • #31
EVERYTHING DIED. AGAIN. WE HAVE NO ****** CLUE WHY.

Sorry for getting to this subject late but I came in for the cps only today. I'm a complete noob with cps but I managed aquatics and kept tanks myself. My personal opinion...is it too late to strip everything completely down and redo it? Just trying to remember the pic and skimming through the post, forgive me if I remember anything incorrectly, but...

1. I would seriously recommend you cycle the tank with live rock ONLY (don't add a single fish until AFTER the tank cycles) or a shrimp from the grocery store. You tank never had a chance to cycle so it's not surprising that the animals died. Most people I find have no idea what I mean when I say "cycle" but it is a VITAL part of setting up a successful tank so I'll explain if you don't know. Are you sure you got your live rock from a reliable source? Did you prep the rock before putting it in?

2. You don't have NEARLY enough substrate or live rock in the tank. You should really have way, WAY, WAAAAAY more! Did you get live sand? Is the sand and gravel specifically for saltwater use?

3. Only after the tank has cycled do you add fish, NO inverts at first as they are much more sensitive than the average fish, and you add fish slowly over time. Personally I would never add a tang, foxface, or any fish that will grow so large to so small a tank. I consider 55 gallons to be the absolute minimum for those.

4. You don't mention what kind of equipment you have on this specifically. Since you don't plan on having corals you don't have to worry much about lighting and you could maybe do without a protein skimmer but I prefer to have one just for the improved water quality. Your filter is what worries me the most. Is it undergravel, hang on the back, cannister...?

5. The devil is in the details!! What's the salinity, ph, temp, ammonia/nitrite/nitrate levels each day? Keep a journal!

I'll go see if I can dig up my old saltwater forum. They have some absolute geniuses on there that can surely point you straight!
Jenn

---------- Post added at 10:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:52 PM ----------

I didn't even notice your post right above mine...a STARFISH??? Noooooo! If he's still alive please, please, please return him to the store as soon as possible!!!
Jenn

---------- Post added at 11:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:53 PM ----------

Ok, I can't find the one that was my omg favorite but thank goodness the DFW club still has their forum up! Back when I was in the hobby these guys really knew their stuff!! Search for the DFW Marine Aquarium Society forums and I'm sure they'll help you out of this jam.
Jenn

All of the live rock was from a 200 gallon reef tank downstairs. It had been cycling for a while. Our teacher is a marine biologist and has kept fish for like ever... and personally keeps track of a dozen or so fish tanks throughout the school. We've been taking records of the parameters every other day, and whenever something goes wrong, our teacher checks just about everything. He can't find anything wrong, and though he's experienced with this stuff, he's baffled why EVERTHING is dying.

keep in mind that the first shrimp died over two weeks after the rest of the fish, so many theories don't fit, because the invert should have died, too. But it was the only thing doing fine. That's what led us to believe it was some type of pathogen that attacked fish, which led us to put only not-fish in there. But that's been shot to hell, too, since the not-fish died. We have a few theories, but all of them are pretty unlikely... for example, heavy metal poisoning.
 
  • #32
Our teacher is a marine biologist and has kept fish for like ever...

I'll keep my thoughts and experiences on educating the public about keeping different sorts of saltwater aquariums to myself then. If he knows all there is to know about it I suppose he can afford to skip a few steps in good husbandry practices is all.

Best of luck though! I hope you get an A++++ :-D
Jenn
 
  • #33
...so... We're changing gears now, since everything is dead anyway. We're going freshwater. we replaced all the water and we got some cheap fish to help the filter cycle (we added some beneficial bacteria, though)... but disaster has already struck!

One of our members was filling up the tank, and had the bag of fish inside (to help acclimate them to the temperature). I have no idea why, but he had the BAG OPEN, and then left the WATER RUNNING. It overflowed while I was sitting nearby. I was the only one in the lab, and the fish all fell to the floor while the water was running. I had to pick each one up individually a throw them into the tank, "acclimation" be damned...


Yeah, theory #47 is gaining merit. We're just cursed.
 
  • #34
Update coming through:

So we got some more of the cheap fish, and a week or so ago our ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite levels all spiked through the roof. Literally off the charts; it was so bad that your finger would burn if you put it in and had a small cut. So we did a 30% water change, and have done the same every day since. Levels were in control when we tested it today.

But it doesn't f***ing matter, BECAUSE OUR TANK EXPLODED.


At lunch I get a text from a friend: "hey, your tank exploded."

Indeed it did. Minutes earlier the entire front of the tank just blew out at once, dumping 50 gallons of water and fish on the floor. Luckily for the fish, teachers nearby got to them in time (They were actually swimming on the floor) and threw them into nearby freshwater tanks. This means that some fish have been on the floor TWICE. From what I gathered, this is what happened:

1: The tank blew up.

2: We have no idea why.

3: The teacher downstairs HATES us.

So there you have it. Theory number 47, being cursed, has morphed into theory #712: God DOESN'T WANT US TO KEEP FISH. That's the best we can think of. And I can personally testify that I never, ever want to keep fish again either, because this is how it turned out with an expert helping us. I imagined if he wasn't, the whole school would've been destroyed. Project complete! :)
 
  • #35
Im pretty sure its cursed! :0o:
 
  • #36
Considering how things were going....maybe it's for the best? :lol:
 
  • #37
Imagine that your students had managed to kill of your fish twice and blow up the tank. What do you do? Give them another tank, of course.

>__>

I have no idea what he is thinking. I almost hope this one explodes, too, he might get the "act of god" hint.
 
  • #38
Any new ideas as to the cause of the explosion?
 
  • #39
I have heard pistol shrimp will kill fish that get too close.
 
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