I can't figure this out...

[kampkomfort]

I have a 55gal FO tank that I set up 1 month ago. I am running a skimmer, a power filter, and a power head (for water movement). I added 4 damsels and 4 fairly small blue leg hermits.

Problem 1: Over the last week, I have lost all of the fish (Ammonia and nitrites are zero, nitrate is around 8). SG=1.023, and I'm keeping the temp at 79F. I used dechlorinated tap water (tap is pretty ood here). I began to see the red algae 1.5 weeks ago, and it is now present on almost all the substrate and some on the glass. It seems like the first two fish died of ich, but the others showed no signs of. They quit eating, became letharic, and about two days later passed on.

I know that tank conditions are tough for them during break in, but my skimmer is efficient, and I haven't been overfeeding. I immediately removed the dead fish. Am I doing something wrong? I just didn't expect to lose all of them. I've run several tanks in the past the same way and never had a problem like this.

Problem 2: (Weird) I noticed today that there was what looked to be a dead blue leg hermit, out of his shell, in my tank. There are no fish now, just these crabs. I figured that maybe he got to large for his shell, left it, and died. Well, since removing the "dead crab" I have taken inventory on my crabs, and all four are still there...in their shells. What is this extra dead crab!? I don't have any live rock that might have picked up a hitchhiker...we're did this joker come from? He was about the same size as the other ones, just no shell.

Sorry for the verbose post. I'm just puzzled by this stuff. I'm in this for the long haul, so I don't want to make any stupid mistakes on the frontend (I may already have!)

Thanks in advance.

-J

 

[DEADFISH1]

I think one of your hermits just molted, they leave an outer shell behind that sometimes would appear to be a dead one.
as for your "dead fish", I would leave them in to get the water cycling.

[ October 09, 2001: Message edited by: DEADFISH ]

 

[tazdevil]

I am wondering about that nitrate level-8 is off the scale. That would explain the red slime algae growth, best advice (imo) would be a 20-25%water change to help lower this. The very first time I had seen the shedding of a shell (it was a coral banded shrimp) I thought I had killed it, when 2 days later, there he was, bright new outer shell and all. If your nitrate is this high-could be why fish are dying (nitrate CAN be toxic in high concentrations, although usually the crabs die first). The other fish could've had some sort of gill disease or velvet. Don't give up

, read up as much as possible and good luck!

 

[Rich-n-poor]

sound to me like classic new tank syndrome I.E. too many fish too fast they ate defecated produced ammonia which became nitrite which became nitrate as the bacteria culture grew

the problem is it didnt grow fast enough to remove the toxins before they killed your fish the ammiona and nitrate could be 0 now due to the fact that the bacteria culture has caught up with the cycle the end result of this cycle is nitrate and high nitrates produce algea blooms this part of the cycle hasnt finished yet

the 'crab you found was just an exoskeleton which the crab shed when he grew which they are probably doing like mad because of all the available algea mine shed all the time

my suggestions:

do a water change of 20 % immediately

do a water change of 10 % everyday until the nitrates come back down

do NOT add more than 1 or 2 damsels to this tank for at least two weeks or more

do NOT add more than 1 fish in a two week time period

if the red algea is hairlike the hermits will eat it

if it is red slime i cant help because ive never had it in any of my tanks

good luck

_________________
green crack strain

 

[jmeader]

You can rule out the nitrates as the cause of your fish deaths.Nitrate at 8ppm will only affect the pre-metamorphis stage of larval fish. At 100ppm the nitrate would still not have killed your damsels. Although they would probably get lost in all the hair algae. What you describe sounds like a reaction to a toxin. Your red algae might be dinoflaggelates. If it is, then they will be producing toxins. Try doing a search to find out how to control them. Meanwhile I would suggest WCs and syphon out as much of the red algae as possible.

 

[kampkomfort]

Thanks for all of the replies! I think my plan will include some water changes with an effort to remove some of the algae with the suction. I will then add one damsel per month until I think things are stable. The blue legs are doing great, and I think I just witnessed the result of the molting process. That's really neat. I don't know why that didn't cross my mind.

As for the deaths of my damsels, I'm thinking that they may have had some kind of gill disease in combination with the stresses of unprocessed breakdown products.

Jmeader, the info that I found on the dino's said that they might be stringy/filamentous with air bubbles trapped at their tips. I think my algae is more of the brown/red powdery algae that appears with a new tank cycle. I think they are the result of diatoms. Regardless, I will do my best to remove these with the water changes.

Thanks for the advice and encouragement. Any other ideas are welcome. I'm in no hurry to get this thing going...I'm DEFINITELY sticking with it. Even with my loss, I'm loving this hobby--and learning every day.

-J