Coral poisoning?

[Leedowlrods]

My friend is losing fish at a very fast rate, tangs goby, clowns, plus others. His parameters are all correct, it's a well established setup, regular WC's it does have a lot of algae on rear glass which the goby got stuck into. He bought a new coral a week ago, it turned nasty and died too.
Could the coral be poisoning it?
He's at his whits end and is about to give up

 

[Sniperhank]

If there is a lot of algae on the rear glass, then it is being fueled by nitrates/phosphates. He using ro/di? How often does he feed?

 

[Leedowlrods]

He's stopped feeding until algae disappears, it's his first tank and it came with a thick carpet on the rear glass,
Should he scrape it all off?

 

[Sniperhank]

I'd scrape it off. The tank came already established? Did it go through a mini cycle? Were these fish that came with the tank? It might just be that the move stressed everything enough along with stirring up all of the debris that has built up around the rockwork caused a mini cycle and was too much for the livestock.

 

[Leedowlrods]

A mini cycle is very possible, he's had it for 6 weeks with the fish that came with it, he also introduced more new fish and kept testing the parameters.

 

[Sniperhank]

Yeah, I'd say something was kicked up. Remove the algae, feed minimally, and keep testing. Don't add anything new for a month to make sure it is stable.

 

[Leedowlrods]

He Just bought a new refractometer and it turns out him old one was way out,
His salinity was through the roof
Thanks for your help

 

[Leedowlrods]

Ok people be my hero and save my tank. We are still loosing fish big time,
Nitrate 20
Nitrite 0
Ammonia 0
Ph 8.3
Sg 1.025
Temp 78

2 cleaner shrimp ok
10 hermits ok
Sailfish tang ok
Corals doing ok

Dead fish over two weeks = 10

Please please help

 

[Rutrag]

How are the fish being acclimated?

Also, are these fish all coming from the same source? If so, I'd check their specific gravity. I've heard of LFS using hyposalinity on an ongoing basis to try and control ich. The problem comes sometimes when you bring the fish home. Apparently, fish can take a downward move in salinity prety well, but can't adapt to an upward move nearly as fast.

Finally, I would strongly advise you to invest in a quarantine tank and place new fish in quarantine for a minimum of two weeks. (Longer is almost always better.) That way, you can make sure they eat and get settled in before going into the main display. If there is a disease breakout, you can treat it in quarantine, away from your established fish and inverts. Almost all of the proven effective disease treatments out there will kill inverts. There are a lot of people out there (myself included) who learned this the hard way.

 

[TheTodd]

Did the fish start dying within days after the move or was it weeks later? Any chance something bad was introduced during the move...cleaning chemicals or something on someone's arms or hands when setting up the tank after the move? Are the fish showing any signs of illness? Stress from the move might have dropped immunity.

I'm no expert at this, but if parameters are ok, which it looks like they are, then I'd start doing large water changes in case it is something not traceable by testing.

 

[Leedowlrods]

It took six weeks before the new fish started to show distress and die. I think the move went ok, then it was set up with a faulty hydrometer which has now been corrected.
Sg now dropped and new fish added a day later. Two days after that they woke up floating, all paras good.

 

[intdes]

I moved about four months ago and it took 6-8 weeks until I had issues. I kept my water as the move was just across town. I use an RO for my water but I lost my shrimp, urchin and starfish within a few days. I was able to keep the eel alive as well as the hermit crabs and a few snails.

Oddly enough, the move across 4 states was smoother than across town...

I hope you can stabilize the tank! Good luck.

 

[Albino]

What size tank is it? If u have a sailfin tang and 10 other fish it must be a big size? Maybe I missed something, if I have I appoligise.