Help - what's wrong with my firefish?

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

Newbie1

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Mar 30, 2010
Messages
9
Hi - I have had my firefish for about 4 weeks now, and it was doing good. Did a water quality test at my lfs on Sunday, and my nitrates were at 160ppm, and salinity at 1.025. LFS recommended a 25% water change with only r/o water, provided by them. I did that, and salinity dropped to 1.019, but nitrate remained at 160. Did 1 more 1litre water change, but still no change in nitrates. This morning, fish is hanging at front of tank - usually it hides in its cave under rock, and not interested in feeding. Is this ick?
My tank is a Fluval Edge (6 gallon).
I should add that I got a feather duster from LFS on Saturday - all water parameters were fine then- only deteriorated after the duster.
 

Attachments

  • Firefish is sick!.jpg
    Firefish is sick!.jpg
    39.2 KB · Views: 103
  • Firefish is sick_2.jpg
    Firefish is sick_2.jpg
    62.1 KB · Views: 134
160ppm Nitrate is probably the orignal cause. Then, dropping salinty so far so quickly has likely made the issue much worse.

Did you mix the salt right for the 25% PWC? It almost sounds like you used fresh water for the PWC with no salt in it.

You need to take the fish back until you figure out why your nitrates are so crazy high, and you cant just do a 100% PWC all at once either. (With the fish still in the tank)

Matt
 
This LFS told you to do a water change with plain RO? Whaatttt.
Your salt levels were perfect. As mrg02g said, Sudden salinty changes would of caused stress and the nitrates are bad, Not helping anything.

I recomend slowing topping up the tank with saltwater untill you reach 1.025 again, And do a 30% water change every 3 hours untill you have reached 0nitrate or close too.
 
Firefish

Thanks guys - I have started with 25% water change (SALT WATER) and will repeat over the next few days until salinity reaches 1.025 again.
I will definitely NOT be taking advice from LFS henceforth!!!!
Their advice - feed 2x daily, and when nitrates shot up, 25% water change using pure r/o water (no salt). Hmm.
 
Do not feed 2x daily either. Another piece of bad advice, unless you got anthias or something that require more frequent feeding. Heck, a lot of us feed once every other day. On the SW PWCs.... if you're trying to elevate the salinity, be careful to ony try to raise it about .001 daily so you won't stress the fish with sudden salinty swings - either up or down.
 
To answer the questions about Ich, yes he has it. It's probably a result of the stress of the sudden salinity swings. What your going to have to do now is QT him and do either a hyposalinty treatment or a copper dosage to clean him up and make him healthy. Also since ich is present in your main tank now, it should remain fishless for about 6-8 weeks to break the ichs life cycle to prevent further infections down the road with other fish. If you don't then you run the risk of infecting every fish you put in there and that can cause you to lose all your livestock.

Sorry to hear you got such bad advice from your LFS. Sometimes I think they just make stuff up when they don't know.
 
Im willing to bet the lfs thinks you have a freshwater tank. Everything would make better sense then.


I would suggest the copper based ich treatment unless you have a refractometer. Hyposalinty requires precision.

Once in quarantine, do a huge water change on the main tank unless you have more critters in it.

The frequent (over feedings) likely contributed to the high nitrates for the most part. Now you know. :)

From now on, come here for all your questions.
Matt
 
It sounded like the LFS was telling you to use their RO/DI water instead of "TAP" water for your water changes. Of course you would still have to mix that "Water" with a saltmix to do your water changes.
 
I think thincat has the right theory. Theres no way a LFS could remain a LFS for more than one day if they were using freshwater for their PWCs and not using any salt. :D

There are alot of crappy LFSs out there, but they at least know what they are doing. (Well, enough to keep fish looking good enough to buy).

Make sure to let us know how things turn out. Also, make sure you mix your salt water outside the main tank to avoid caustic burns (from undissolved salt) on the critters in the main tank.

Matt
 
mrgo2d: LFS perfectly aware that it was marine tank - they sold me the fish in the first place!
thincat: They also sold me the R/o water with explicit instructions - no salt to be added! this was after testing the water for salinity, nitrates etc.
Anyway -water under the bridge now. I need to look forward and try to get my poor fish healthy again. Luckily, there are no other fish in the tank- only critters and anemone (which surprisingly is thriving!) Oh, and the feather duster.

melosu58 - thanks for the link - I will do some research tonight.
 
mrgo2d: LFS perfectly aware that it was marine tank - they sold me the fish in the first place!
thincat: They also sold me the R/o water with explicit instructions - no salt to be added! this was after testing the water for salinity, nitrates etc.
Anyway -water under the bridge now. I need to look forward and try to get my poor fish healthy again. Luckily, there are no other fish in the tank- only critters and anemone (which surprisingly is thriving!) Oh, and the feather duster.

melosu58 - thanks for the link - I will do some research tonight.

Wow, I am surprised then at the stupidity of the LFS if they truly instructed you to replace 25% of your water with freshwater like that! JEEZE! People like them are the reason others think reef tanks are so hard to run. Good thing for this site!

You can go to walmart and get a 10g tank for $10 to use as a QT tank. Add a little heater (unless its warm enough at night) and a small HOB filter and away you go with the treatment. Make sure to acclimate the fish to the QT tank water, and do PWC on the QT so as to keep the ammonia at zero. (Youll want to monitor it closely since the fish is about to really get upset).

Good luck!
Matt
 
"explicit instructions - no salt to be added!" WOW!!! that was bad instructions,,,,
 
OK... I'm not agreeing with the advice the LFS gave, but I don't think their advice was really that stupid as folks here suggest.

Many books and LFS work under the impression that a lower salinity (around 1.020-ish) makes life easier on a fish. That's why you often see recommendations for lower salinity in FO or FOWLR tanks. It gets down to the amount of energy the fish has to expend on balancing the osmotic pressures and pH levels between its body and the surrounding water. Lower salinities are thought to give the fish more energy to fight off diseases, etc since they don't have to expend that energy to just plain stay alive. I don't know if this is true or not, but I've read it enough times to assume there is some truth behind it somewhere.

There's also the fact (?) that fish can deal with a quick lowering of salinity better than a quick raising of it. The hyposalinity instructions I have followed in the past basically take the 1.025 water down to 1.009 in about 2 days - but then take about 10 days to bring it back up. Things seemed to be just fine - the fish endured it, and it's still alive to this day.

So the advice the LFS gave was essentially to lower the SG from 1.025 to something around 1.020, probably to help the fish fight the ich. If there were no inverts in the tank (maybe they didn't know about the duster), and it was just fish only, this advice isn't as bizarre as it seems. Not necessarily what I would've recommended, but it's not like the LFS was just making stuff up. LFS are people too!
 
Thank you so much for your comments, everyone. Sad to report that fish went bellyup this morning - lesson well learned here. Feeling very foolish and naive here...
thincat: Tank is about a month old. This was my first attempt at marine fish :(
Never mind - onwards and upwards we go...
Did a second water change this morning, salinity now at 1.023 (1.021 yesterday). Will do one more tomorrow to notch it up again.
Surprisingly, I have a shrimp in there that is doing really well (touch wood), and the anemone are thriving. However, I ordered anemone off ebay, and they don't look anything like the anemone in the lfs. Here's a pic of the anemone:
 

Attachments

  • IMAG0069.jpg
    IMAG0069.jpg
    61.5 KB · Views: 84
  • IMAG0071.jpg
    IMAG0071.jpg
    63.2 KB · Views: 67
  • IMAG0059.jpg
    IMAG0059.jpg
    30.2 KB · Views: 62
OMG! Update: The dead fish was swallowed whole by the anemone! Only the tail sticking out is evidence that the fish existed! Lol.
I'd asked my hubby to take the fish out of the tank as I had to rush to work, and when he went to do so, all he saw was the tail sticking out of the Anemone's mouth! Wish he'd taken pictures!
Sorry - that's a bit gross, but I just had to share :)
 
I can't seem to see what type of lighting you have on your tank and how much.
 
Back
Top Bottom