HELP! Fish going nuts!

[Crabraham]

I have a 30 gallon reef tank that has been set up for almost 3 months now. Everything has been doing extremely well, until this evening. I had to go downstairs to get a drink, and upon glancing over at my aquarium, I noticed that one of my percula clowns was laying on its side at the bottom of my tank. I turned a light on in an adjacent room (so not to overly stress the fish) and saw that my other percula clown was swimming almost vertically. I tested water parameters, and everything showed up normal (ph 8.3, ammonia-0, nitrate-slight trace, water temp 78, SG-1.023). When I watched for a bit, the female clown started swimming into the aquarium walls wildly, up and down, while the other percula swam under a rock. My yellow-tail damsel (left over from cycling) came out of its hole, almost white, and did the same thing-swimming about wildly. I havent added anything other than a sailfin blenny about a week ago, and it doesnt seem to be acting odd. The strange thing about it was that not 2 hours before, everything was going well and all the tank inhabitants were fine. I dont know what to do or where to start, as I am fairly new to marine aquaria, so your help is greatly appreciated.

 

[fishfanatic2]

Possibly there is stray voltage in the tank. Do you have a grounding probe? Stray voltage comes from equipment gone bad, and it can cause fish to do crazy things. However, it's hard to tell since 3 fish don't swim into walls every day!

 

[Reefguide]

How's are the corals ?? Stray Voltage will definatlt affect corals. Check for stray voltage anyways. Get a volt meter put the black probe in the ground pin on a outlet and the red probe in the tank ! A friend of mine coulnt figure out what was wrong with his tank for about a week till he tried checking for voltage. He ended up loosing 2 corals...

 

[Anonymous]

All this occurred during the lights-out portion of the day? They could have just been out of sorts because you woke them up! How do things look next day?

 

[klingsa]

Stray voltage is definitely the first thing I'd check. If that's all ok, or if they keep doing it once you put in a grounding probe (be prepared, they're a lot more expensive than I'd have thought!), the only other thing I can think of that would cause that kind of behavior is a bacterial infection in the brain. Nothing you can do about it, if that's what it is. I've seen it before, and it makes fish do craaaaazy things. Kinda like meningitis, I would imagine. In my experience, it is almost always fatal. Sorry. But it could be the voltage, so we'll hope that's the problem!
I'd be interested to know how things were in the morning as well.

Good luck!
Sara

 

[Reefguide]

Nah man. I've seen Titanium Grounding Probes for about $20.00 localy !
Ket me know if ya need a link, I've also seen them online !

 

[klingsa]

Damn, I paid over $30! Hmm...that sucks. :lol:

Sara

 

[Reefguide]

Check it out !! $ 14.99 Titanium Grounding probe.

http://www.foryourfish.com/cgi-bin/webc.cgi/FYF-MME4.htm

 

[Crabraham]

Sorry it took so long to get back to you guys, but here is the follow-up:

The next morning, the fish were all up and waiting for me to feed them. There didnt appear to be any problems, no eratic behavior. I checked the fish, and they all looked normal, with the exception of one of my clowns, who had a little tear around his mouth, I assume from all of this "head-banging".

I went to my local LFS and purchased a titanium probe and grounding rod. I tested the voltage, and it turns out my voltage was pretty high in the tank. So with the grounding and a little adjustment, I fixed that problem. Thankfully, you guys were here to help me, otherwise I probably would have resorted to banging into walls myself.

The only problem now, and I made a post about it, is that my perc with the tear around his mouth, looks like the tear has developed into mouth fungus, and I truthfully do not know how to treat this.