Bad Weekend!

[b-towndoc]

Not the best weekend for my fish.

Yesterday morning I found my goby had decided to carpet surf overnight (amazing he jumped through a 1.5 x 3 inch hole that has since been covered) and this morning my Banggai Cardinal is dead. Examined it and cannot see anything odd, no ich, no lesions, nothing out of the ordinary.

It is a 30g tank, no sump, HOB skimmer, uv sterilizer, ~30lbs LR, 40lbs sand. Now I have a coral banded shrimp (doing well and recently molted), cleaner shrimp, and a coral beauty. The other fish/inverts are all very healthy appearing and nothing odd.

Parameters stable with no recent changes, did a 10-15% water change yesterday. Salinty 1.023 (measured with hydrometer..), Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 5-10, Phos 0.5, PH 8.4, Temp between 78-80.

It was eating well until last night when I noticed he only ate a few bites. I have been feeding with marine cuisine cubes and a few flakes.

Any ideas?

 

[Krypt]

It may have just been the Cardinals time. When you got him, was he already full grown? Also just a tip, you may want to raise your salinity to 1.026. Inverts don't live for very long at lower salinities. Sorry for your losses

 

[b-towndoc]

He was fully grown when I got him, but that was only a few months. Will work on getting that salinity up then. Is the best way to do that simply replace evaporated water with salt water instead of plain ro water?

 

[mrg02d]

He was fully grown when I got him, but that was only a few months. Will work on getting that salinity up then. Is the best way to do that simply replace evaporated water with salt water instead of plain ro water?

Yeap. Easy does it.

Sorry to hear about your loss! Thats why I always try to buy a fish that is small. Some fish dont have very long lives at all.

Matt

 

[thincat]

A word of warning on your coral banded shrimp. They can become preditorial as they get larger. I had a pair in my tank and had to remove them because I was losing small fish. They were the problem...

 

[mr_X]

if you have a hole in the cover over your tank even slightly larger than the fish you are keeping, they will actually aim for it if they want to get out.

btw, an average salt water fish has a lifespan of about 10 years i'm told.