# Whats Killing My fish



## hydro77 (Apr 8, 2016)

My tank is 7 months old but has had fish in it for only 4 after reccomendations of cycling. It's a 75 gallon with a canister filter rated at 125 gallons and a hang on rated for 50. I have a protein skimmer rated at 30 (i wanted to try it out but i was told i didnt have to have one with a young tank). I have a heater, powerhead, etc...

My tank is fish only.....at this point had 5 chromis, a coral beauty, one valentini puffer, one blue hippo, one yellow tang, one sailfin tang, one lyretail anthias, 2 finding Nemo clowns and 2 tomato clowns (they got along fine). 

My blue hippo was my most recent addition. Long story short, i started seeing symptons of ich one week after adding. I started hyposalinity 20 days ago, hypo at 1.008 in the display. His ich issue seemed to go away after a few days but i wanted to continue the treatment for at least 35 days. Anyway, suddenly the ich symptoms started again with my hippo 4 days ago. I also started having coraline algae outbreaks on my glass. Id clean it every other day to remove but gradually it got worse and worse. Soon it covered my entire glass on display. Frustrated with the maintenance, the possibility of hypo being ineffective since i learned later the tank should have been bare.... and wanting to get rid of my sand substrate for something easier to clean, i got aggressive. I removed all my fish and put them in quarantine while i emptied all my tank water and sand. I bought new pool filter sand and boiled all my live rock. I kept my filter and left its parts in the original tank water. I was told it should not take too long to recycle a tank with the original filters and extra bacterial supplements. I resetup my tank and put the fiah back in. Well the following morning i awake to find all my chromis have died. Both my finding nemo clowns has died and my blue hippo has died a few moments ago. The others are mostly hiding and only my puffer i have witnessed eating. The temperature, ph, and salinity were matched when i acclimated them but something is off. A friend suggested to me it could be the water softner salt i used. I used a brand of solar salt that i have never used before. I have used morton in the past with no problem but perhaps there is something wrong with this newer brand i tried. What did i do wrong so that i dont repeat this mistake in the future? And how can i save the current fish?


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## badxgillen (Aug 20, 2010)

You need to be using a quality marine salt for your setup for long term success.


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## badxgillen (Aug 20, 2010)

This is a copy and pasted message fomr the fish disease sticky on our forum here. It will greatly help us address the situation as this hobby is all about eliminating the variables.

In particular the water parameters are very important to know.

1. Size of tank?

2. Water parameters
a. Ammonia?
b. Nitrite?
c. Nitrate?
d. pH, KH and GH?
e. Test kit?

3. Temperature?

4. corals or fish only? 

5. How long the aquarium has been set up?

6. What fish do you have? How many are in your tank? How big are they? How long have you had them?

7. Were the fish placed under quarantine period (minus the first batch from the point wherein the tank is ready to accommodate the inhabitants)?

8. a. Any live plants? Fake plants?
b. Sand, gravel, barebottom?
c. Rocks, woods, fancy decors? Any hollow decors?

9. a. Filtration?
b. Heater?

10. a. Lighting schedule? What lights are used?
b. Any sunlight exposure? How long?

11. a. Water change schedule?
b. Volume of water changed?
c. Well water, tap water, RO water?
d. Water conditioner used?
e. Frequency of gravel/sand (if any) vacuumed?

12. Foods?
How often are they fed?

13. a. Any abnormal signs/symptoms?
b. Appearance of poop?
c. Appearance of gills?

14. a. Have you treated your fish ahead of diagnosis? 
b. What meds were used?

15. Insert photos of fish in question and full tank shot if necessary.

I know you have mentioned a few of these things but it helps to put it in perspective for others and yourself for a diagnosis.


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## hydro77 (Apr 8, 2016)

I suppose your right. I'll change the water today and use a marine salt mix.


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## badxgillen (Aug 20, 2010)

Also, by boiling the rock you have killed off not only the bacteria present on the surface but also the anaerobic bacteria inside. This could take it some time to release all the decomposing organics inside the rock, basically it can leach out into the water in the form of nitrates or phosphates. You may be in for a long cycle again.

You may have to perform routine water tests to make sure the water is not fouling too fast until you see things level out again.


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## Roccus (Nov 1, 2013)

badxgillen said:


> This is a copy and pasted message fomr the fish disease sticky on our forum here. It will greatly help us address the situation as this hobby is all about eliminating the variables.
> 
> In particular the water parameters are very important to know.
> 
> ...


THIS....and you really need to back off that stock list IMHO.. I don't want to sound like others on other web sights that preach the rules for stocking/buying fish.. but... that's a lot of fish in a 75G tank... tangs need a lot of swimming space... one would be OK.. but three IMHO is over crowding them..long term it most likely wouldn't work out.. fish that are highly stressed are more prone to disease and parasites... my guess is that was not coralline algae on your tank it was Cyano bacteria( a picture would confirm that)... coralline just doesn't grow that fast( most people would love it too).... in the future be careful to not over react... use the guide lines so kindly listed above...again IMHO.. you acted in a drastic manner that contributed to your own losses... keeping fish is not an easy task.. there will always be problems that occur... learning how to deal with these problems and not getting frustrated is half the battle...


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