JBendel
Well-Known Member
I wrote this on my pc for myself, but decided to post, if anyone wishes to wade through it, always interested in any opinions/insight.
180 gal Tank plus 20 gal fuge, 40 gal sump running about ~ 10 years. The Hurricane Irene power outage was a disaster, but over the last year I have been slowly building the tank back up.
Last week’s inhabitants(Time in tank): 1 Damsel (10yrs), 2 Clowns (10 yrs, 8 yrs), Starry Blenny (1yr), Powder Blue Tang( 9 months), Red Ruby Dragonet (2-3 months), Peppermint Shrimp(~4 or 5 months) …. 2 coco worms (4 months), 3 Bubble Tipped Anemones (1yr… 1/3 split .. all larger than the orignal), zoas , Oregon Tort(6month), various montepora. Green slimmer, couple blue hermits, snails ….
Time line:
1.) About 3 months ago, the Blue Tang started to give the Starry Blenny “grief”, but didn’t seem too serious…Blenny still allowed to eat.
2.) About 6 weeks ago the corals were not looking good, and tested for Magnesium and it was low ~ 900, so over ~ 2 or 3 weeks boosted it back to ~ 1300…. Corals perked up.
3.) 4 weeks ago I swapped out a return pump for one with more GPH (wanted more circulation, while removing various powers heads, so got a good net positive flow), which was enough to disturb fish territories. Sump return is two “Sea Swirls” and two gravity returns from the Fuge.
4.) The Blue Tang stepped up its aggression on the starry blenny after pump swap, and toward the end of last week the tang was keeping the blenny from eating and the blenny was not going into the live rock to hide, and even stopped eating even with targeted turkey baster feeding. Pulled it from tank and into fuge, but It succumbed. Not good when a fish is easy to catch.
5.) Added the green slimmer and a Christmas Montipora from a “corals only” mail order house ordered before Blenny went south.
6.) 4 days after the Blenny passed, I look at the Powder Blue Tang and was shocked that it was covered in what appeared to be ich.
7.) Went down and picked up a cleaner wrasse and a cleaner shrimp …. The wrasse went right into cleaning the tang, but the tang didn’t want anything to do with it. Shrimp headed into the rocks.
8.) Took a two day biz trip assuming the worse and got back and the Tang was on the way out, and died the next morning, but everyone accounted for…. Looking normal.
9.) Next day, Ruby Red Dragonet and small clown are MIA and large clown is looking bad … not sure, but could have ich …it dies the next day. These clowns survived the hurricane Irene fiasco. Sump and returns show no sign of Ruby or small clown
10.) So now there is only a damsel and a cleaner wrasse … peppermint shrimp are fine … cleaner shrimp comes out of the rocks now… wrasse is eating flake, cyclopeeze, Mysis shrimp … Corals are growing, pods ….
11.) Yesterday morning … cleaner wrasse is a 1/3 size shredded carcass rolling along the bottom.
So what happened?
Tang weakened Blenny, or Blenny weakened and tang took advantage?
Tang … looked like ich. Goes back to: is ich always in the water?, and when fish are stressed..., or was it introduced? What stressed Tang? … water circulation increase?
Could ich been introduced with new corals? … unlikely, as no “bag water” was introduced. I don’t typically dip with trusted source, but give a new coral a swirl in some aquarium water that does not go back into the tank.
Food: Flake with Garlic, Fozen Mysis, Cyclopeeze, Flake Plankton/Seaweed … Anemones get a slice of octopus tentacles once a week (from whole foods, of course) and fish get a little octopus too.
The large clown … could have been ich, but not sure. This death surprises me the most. Over the decades I have had tanks, ich has only appeared on fish a couple of times, and always from one just purchased. I have never seen it spread to other fish, so always ran under the assumption that only stressed fish get ich. … did increase in water circulation stress all fish? …maybe
The ruby red and smaller clown … never saw the bodies, so don’t know, but they disappeared over night.
Cleaner Wrasse … was looking just fine the night before … shredded in the morning.
Water Parameters are fine, and shrimp, corals, coco worms, pods are thriving, so I am guessing no major shift in water parameters. Test once a week..nothing out of ordinary.
Could sponges have killed or weakened fish?, but not corals, shrimp or damsel? During pump swap, disturbed sponges in the sump.
Damsel is the only fish alive, and swimming right now like nothing has happened. …. Alfred Packer?
I lean towards something involved with the pump swap, but it took 3 or 4 weeks to manifest itself.
Death of blenny started a domino effect, but why are corals, shrimp, coco worms thriving?
One nasty strain of ich, but why is damsel immune?
180 gal Tank plus 20 gal fuge, 40 gal sump running about ~ 10 years. The Hurricane Irene power outage was a disaster, but over the last year I have been slowly building the tank back up.
Last week’s inhabitants(Time in tank): 1 Damsel (10yrs), 2 Clowns (10 yrs, 8 yrs), Starry Blenny (1yr), Powder Blue Tang( 9 months), Red Ruby Dragonet (2-3 months), Peppermint Shrimp(~4 or 5 months) …. 2 coco worms (4 months), 3 Bubble Tipped Anemones (1yr… 1/3 split .. all larger than the orignal), zoas , Oregon Tort(6month), various montepora. Green slimmer, couple blue hermits, snails ….
Time line:
1.) About 3 months ago, the Blue Tang started to give the Starry Blenny “grief”, but didn’t seem too serious…Blenny still allowed to eat.
2.) About 6 weeks ago the corals were not looking good, and tested for Magnesium and it was low ~ 900, so over ~ 2 or 3 weeks boosted it back to ~ 1300…. Corals perked up.
3.) 4 weeks ago I swapped out a return pump for one with more GPH (wanted more circulation, while removing various powers heads, so got a good net positive flow), which was enough to disturb fish territories. Sump return is two “Sea Swirls” and two gravity returns from the Fuge.
4.) The Blue Tang stepped up its aggression on the starry blenny after pump swap, and toward the end of last week the tang was keeping the blenny from eating and the blenny was not going into the live rock to hide, and even stopped eating even with targeted turkey baster feeding. Pulled it from tank and into fuge, but It succumbed. Not good when a fish is easy to catch.
5.) Added the green slimmer and a Christmas Montipora from a “corals only” mail order house ordered before Blenny went south.
6.) 4 days after the Blenny passed, I look at the Powder Blue Tang and was shocked that it was covered in what appeared to be ich.
7.) Went down and picked up a cleaner wrasse and a cleaner shrimp …. The wrasse went right into cleaning the tang, but the tang didn’t want anything to do with it. Shrimp headed into the rocks.
8.) Took a two day biz trip assuming the worse and got back and the Tang was on the way out, and died the next morning, but everyone accounted for…. Looking normal.
9.) Next day, Ruby Red Dragonet and small clown are MIA and large clown is looking bad … not sure, but could have ich …it dies the next day. These clowns survived the hurricane Irene fiasco. Sump and returns show no sign of Ruby or small clown
10.) So now there is only a damsel and a cleaner wrasse … peppermint shrimp are fine … cleaner shrimp comes out of the rocks now… wrasse is eating flake, cyclopeeze, Mysis shrimp … Corals are growing, pods ….
11.) Yesterday morning … cleaner wrasse is a 1/3 size shredded carcass rolling along the bottom.
So what happened?
Tang weakened Blenny, or Blenny weakened and tang took advantage?
Tang … looked like ich. Goes back to: is ich always in the water?, and when fish are stressed..., or was it introduced? What stressed Tang? … water circulation increase?
Could ich been introduced with new corals? … unlikely, as no “bag water” was introduced. I don’t typically dip with trusted source, but give a new coral a swirl in some aquarium water that does not go back into the tank.
Food: Flake with Garlic, Fozen Mysis, Cyclopeeze, Flake Plankton/Seaweed … Anemones get a slice of octopus tentacles once a week (from whole foods, of course) and fish get a little octopus too.
The large clown … could have been ich, but not sure. This death surprises me the most. Over the decades I have had tanks, ich has only appeared on fish a couple of times, and always from one just purchased. I have never seen it spread to other fish, so always ran under the assumption that only stressed fish get ich. … did increase in water circulation stress all fish? …maybe
The ruby red and smaller clown … never saw the bodies, so don’t know, but they disappeared over night.
Cleaner Wrasse … was looking just fine the night before … shredded in the morning.
Water Parameters are fine, and shrimp, corals, coco worms, pods are thriving, so I am guessing no major shift in water parameters. Test once a week..nothing out of ordinary.
Could sponges have killed or weakened fish?, but not corals, shrimp or damsel? During pump swap, disturbed sponges in the sump.
Damsel is the only fish alive, and swimming right now like nothing has happened. …. Alfred Packer?
I lean towards something involved with the pump swap, but it took 3 or 4 weeks to manifest itself.
Death of blenny started a domino effect, but why are corals, shrimp, coco worms thriving?
One nasty strain of ich, but why is damsel immune?
