Yellowtail damsel after 1 day

[Lynden]

In april or may, I got my first marine tank, a 55, and set it up that night. No live rock, no live sand, all the tufa and fake coral was brand new. It had two external power filters, and a powerhead at the surface. Less than a day later, I put two sphenhops mollys and a velifera molly. they did fine, and began to breed. The next day, I saw a Yellowtailed damsel at my LFS. So, thinking my tank had matured enough, I bought it. It did great, and was eating that night. the next day I bought an Ocellaris clown, it did well too.

Over that month, I bought as follows, not in exact order:
Blue devils, 2 (who died mysteriously, probably of aggresion)
Black percula
green chromis
yellow/black chromis
sebae clown
cleaner wrasse
scooter blenny
bluehead pink who died
3 stripe humbug
hawiian feather duster worm

Those fish all did very well, exept, of course, the ones who died, for about 1 1/2 months. I even got the scooter blenny to eat frozen foods with no live rock/sand.
Ironically, the cleaner wrasse (who was 3rd in the tank) brought in ich, but was eating well and got better. The ich infected the black percula eventually, and that started a chain of diseases like gill flukes, and a chilodonella variant, that killed all fishes but the mollys, who were eaten by chestnut morays, and the green chromis, whom is 3" now and very healthy. The tank never showed any sign of disease after that, and now has many fish and invertibrates residing in it, along with much live rock.


my question is, don't people usually wait almost a month to put fish in? and could the chain have been triggered by the high nitrites? that is my theory. another thing is that I dont own a hydrometer. I just maintain the water level at the same height.

 

[Tiggs]

good work, sounds like you have a great tank going there.

T

 

[Navarre]

I am almost 100% sure that high nitrites wil have caused the deaths of your fish.
If you use liverock then there is no need to wait for a month for the tank to be cycled as it will be cycled instantly (as long as the liverock is in sufficient quantitiy and well cured).

Probably the reason you had no deaths early on is becuase you chose hardy fish that many use to "cycle" a tank and thus they probably endured the ammonia and nitrite rise. The whitespot outbreak is a sign of stress so there is something in the tank that is weakening the fish to a level where hte stress is allowing the parasite to get a firm hold.

For a 55 gallon tank you did stock very quickly over a period of 1 month, when you do this then expect to take casualties as the biooad simply cannot react fast enough.

Along with the list you mention Chestnut morays? You have these in the system as well? If so then you definatley have a water quality problem, morays give out massive amounts of biowaste (and are not small fish friendly) and with a new system this will overload it.

You also have mechanical filtration... not something a marine hobbiest usually relies onas this also kicks out high amounts of nutrients which means nitrates sky rocket and thus causes stress and pre-empts large and continous water changes just to keep nitrates down.
Tufa rock is a basic "nno-no" for marine tanks as its man made and acts like a sponge. It wil readily store up unwanted nutrients and toxins and leech them back intothe system many months later. Live rock is the only safe way to go.. if budget is a problem then opt for Reefbones as this is simp,y liverock that has been dried out and sterile.

 

[Lynden]

Thanks for the replies! Yes the morays did hurt the tank a little, nitrites went up a little, and small fish dissapeared. Strangly, among those who dissapeared was a large short-nosed hawkfish. They did not eat any damselfish though. Eventually, I wanted some smaller reef-fish, so the bigger Morays went in a freshwater 33 for now. I couldn't catch the smallest moray, so hes still lurking in the tank somewhere, and ive decided to just leave him until I move in a few weeks.

Also, is tufa really that bad? I see it in marine tanks all the time. One wierd thing about the nitrites and disease-chain is that I bought a feather duster around the time this chain was beginning. If the nitrites were that high, how could the feather duster have survived? I remember they were CRAZY high around that time.

Also, does tufa take time to release accumulated nitrites? I really don't want my animals to get killed again.

Well, thanks again for the replies.

 

[Navarre]

Tufa was very popular a few years back because liverock was so hard to get h old of and very very expensive. (Its expensive now but im talking £500 for about 5kg in this area at the time!).
Tufa really is not liked by hobbiests these days because it stores up problems for a later date. If you feel you need a 2nd opinion then feel free to contact UR, RC or Reefpark as they have very dedicated hobbiests that will give you their views on tufa rock.

Considering how cheap Reefbones are now, I simply wouldnt take the risk.

Each creature handles their environment differently. Just like us humans, pne person might catch a cold yet another gets no symptoms at all. So its possible that this creature simply didnt suffer from the effects of the nitrite rise that greatly.

 

[Lynden]

I have been trying to stock up on live rock for a while now, because it does seem alot better than tufa. Thanks for the advice, I believe you 100%. But ive never seen reefbones at any store. Do you know where I could get some? I live in Canada by the way.

Ive read that live rock used to be purchased dry, and then there being enough eggs of invertibrates on it that it turns into "living" live rock. Could the same thing happen with reefbones?

Speaking of live rock, while changing the tank layout, i discovered a worm about 4-5" long under my largest piece of rock. It was pink, furry, and it shimmered under the light. It was gone by about 10 seconds after seeing the light. It went deep into the rock. Is this creature malevolent, or just a common worm?

 

[Navarre]

Any live rock purchased dry is commonly known as reefbones. This is "dead" live rock and will not carry any living organisms. It will of course seed itself with bacteria once the tank has cycled. If you want it to turn back into full liverock again however you will need some mature liverock to be in the tank with it so that it will seed the reefbones with new invert life.


The worm you saw was a bristelwrom. DO NOT touch it as it will give you a nasty irritating rash like strands of fibreglass under the skin.
Bristleworms are common in tanks and often get a bad rep, however they are excellant additions to the clenaup crew and shoulld be left in the tank unless they reach large sizes of 3ft or more