My Fish Are Dying

[gary high]

PLEASE CAN I HAVE SOME ADVICE

I have had a saltwater marine set up ongoing now for about 3 months, I have stocked it very slowly and have tested my water very stringently every week with no problems. Thing is In the last 7 days I have lost 3 fish - A Tang, A Mandarin and this morning I found my Sand Gobby dead.

I have had a problem with my air pump line to my Protein skimmer blowing off but I have pretty much caught it early. I did suspect whitespot on the Tang so got a Cleaner Wrasse to help this but it never materialised (I read up on white spot and the symptoms never worsened)

I have a 120 ltr tank which was stocked with

3 Hermit crabs
2 clowns
1 Sand Gobby
1 Mandarin
1 Blue & yellow Tang
1 Yellow Tang
1 Cleaner Wrasse

I have a fair amount of live rock in my tank & my water quality has always tested spot on.

Have I over stocked my tank and caused a problem with the oxygen demand ? or could somebody give me some advice on what to do to rule things out.

I feed my fish frozen Brine Shrimp every day but I also noticed that apart from the Tang I lost first the other 2 fish I lost never quite seemed to feed much. Is malnutrition a possibility ?

Obviously I am gutted that my fish are dying (i came quite attached to them) but also as anybody who has a saltwater aquarium is is a damn expensive hobby when you start loosing fish especially 3 in a week !!!

I have taken it slowly and always do a water test before buying anything to go in my tank so I am absolutely bamboozled !!

PLEASE HELP

 

[Musho3210]

well number 1 you are in the wrong forum (its ok, anyway next time there is a marine section a bit down the page)
number 2 brine shrimp has little to no nutrition at all
number three overstocked, VERY overstocked
number 4 tangs are herbivores
number 5 cleaner wrasses should never be in a tank at all, they should always be left in the wild, they are too important to the natural eco-system and dont belong in our tanks which they will probably (not always) die in
How much flow do you have?
The mandarin starved, they are hard to feedof, you probably dont have enough pods, probably didnt accept frozen food, starved, died.

Im not trying to offend you or anything, just that its very easy to tell you didnt research at all for these fish, its ok, learn from your mistakes, hopefully the second time around with some modifications it should work.

 

[gary high]

well number 1 you are in the wrong forum (its ok, anyway next time there is a marine section a bit down the page)
number 2 brine shrimp has little to no nutrition at all
number three overstocked, VERY overstocked
number 4 tangs are herbivores
number 5 cleaner wrasses should never be in a tank at all, they should always be left in the wild, they are too important to the natural eco-system and dont belong in our tanks which they will probably (not always) die in
How much flow do you have?
The mandarin starved, they are hard to feedof, you probably dont have enough pods, probably didnt accept frozen food, starved, died.

Im not trying to offend you or anything, just that its very easy to tell you didnt research at all for these fish, its ok, learn from your mistakes, hopefully the second time around with some modifications it should work.

Suggestions for feeding please - You state that Tangs are herbivores but my Yellow Tang scoffs the Brine shrimp like there is no tommorrow.
What type of food would you recommend ?
Please can you explain how my tank 'was' overstocked.
Pods ?

 

[Musho3210]

oh boy... i need ski's help.... We need a mod to move this to the marine section

Feeding: Find a balanced diet for the omnivore that contains little to no brine shrimp, the reason why your tang is eating the brine shrimp like that is because its an opportunistic herbivore, its eating the meat to fill itself up but not getting any nutrients from it
Food: Flake food (omega one, formula one) and frozen food (mysis shrimp, squid) and algae for the tangs (nori)
It was overstocked because you had too much fish
Pods is the main and to most the only diet the mandarin will eat, if you dont have them in your tank and the mandarin wont accept frozen food, then dont expect it to live very long....

Google...... Do research....

 

[gary high]

oh boy... i need ski's help.... We need a mod to move this to the marine section

Feeding: Find a balanced diet for the omnivore that contains little to no brine shrimp, the reason why your tang is eating the brine shrimp like that is because its an opportunistic herbivore, its eating the meat to fill itself up but not getting any nutrients from it
Food: Flake food (omega one, formula one) and frozen food (mysis shrimp, squid) and algae for the tangs (nori)
It was overstocked because you had too much fish
Pods is the main and to most the only diet the mandarin will eat, if you dont have them in your tank and the mandarin wont accept frozen food, then dont expect it to live very long....

Google...... Do research....

YOU MAY NOTICE IM A NEWBIE ON HERE MATE ! I have tried google but as I have used forums in the past for 'RESEARCH' for other hobbies I chose to use this forum. I find forums a great place for research and in part usually get good advice. I am new to this game and am now pretty naffed off with the aquarium I got my stock from. I always use the sam one so they know what I have in my tank and I guess ive been ill informed. I am a little confussed with the overstocking side as I only chose small fish. They seem to have plenty of room and to be honest the tank looked bare until I added some more Live rock.

Anyway I apologise for posting in the wrong section but it was a genuine mistake

 

[Musho3210]

i understand that you are a newbie, and i can see why you are having problems (many lfs put money over life). I dont believe it is entirely your fault. There are many things to consider about overstock. Im sorry if you found what i said to be rude, it wasnt my intentions, i just had so many things i could tell you but it would take too long so i went with the easy aproach and typed in googl.:

Size of tank
Swimming space (tangs are fast swimmers and they love to swim, they should be in 6 ft tanks)
Bio-load (what happens when the fish poops?)
Agresiveness (fish can fight and when a tank is so small they may fight more for territory
Waste production (some fish are dirtier than others and produce more waste)

One of the reasons why i told you to google it is because there is so much to know that i wont even have the attention span to write it all in one post. For the question pods, google can answer a heck of a lot better than i can provided you go on a good site. THis is also why i need skis help since his answers are much more detailed and he knows more than me....