Hello,
I have a 55 gallon FOWLR tank, been set up for 4-5 months now. I had a juvenile maroon clown, a sixline wrasse, a flame angelfish, and a bangai cardinal fish. I also have 2 skunk cleaner shrimp, and some hermit crabs and snails.
Everything had been doing fine, eating fine, etc up until a couple weeks ago. I’ve been using tap water with aquasafe, but recently bought a Coralife Pure-Flo 4 stage RO/DI unit. I’ve been changing about 5 gallons of water per week, but since I bought the RO/DI I wanted to trade some of that water for what was in the tank. So I started changing 10 gallons at a time, and I was doing that every 3-4 days instead of weekly. I got 3 of those changes in before I found my clownfish dead one morning. He had been doing fine just the night before. I stopped the water changes, but a couple days later the flame angelfish died, again having been doing great just the night before.
So far, nothing else has died. Could the water changes be to blame? I have the RO water heated to tank temperature, same salinity before putting it in the tank. I threw out the first trashcan full (30 gallons) of RO water it produced. The only thing I can think of is I haven’t been adding the Aquasafe to the RO water, as I didn’t think you needed to. Maybe I should have been? I do have chlorine in my water.
As far as water parameters, everything seems fine to me. There is no detectable ammonia, nitrites, or nitrates. Sg is 1.022, temp is 77F. It’s just strange to me that everything was doing fine, and the only thing I’ve changed is the source of the water, but it seemed like a good change to me. Maybe I was just changing too much too fast and the different water shocked the fish? The other strange thing is that the shrimp and other inverts were unaffected and my understanding is that they’re the first to go.
I want to replace these fish, but not before I find out what killed the originals. If anybody has any ideas I would appreciate it!
I have a 55 gallon FOWLR tank, been set up for 4-5 months now. I had a juvenile maroon clown, a sixline wrasse, a flame angelfish, and a bangai cardinal fish. I also have 2 skunk cleaner shrimp, and some hermit crabs and snails.
Everything had been doing fine, eating fine, etc up until a couple weeks ago. I’ve been using tap water with aquasafe, but recently bought a Coralife Pure-Flo 4 stage RO/DI unit. I’ve been changing about 5 gallons of water per week, but since I bought the RO/DI I wanted to trade some of that water for what was in the tank. So I started changing 10 gallons at a time, and I was doing that every 3-4 days instead of weekly. I got 3 of those changes in before I found my clownfish dead one morning. He had been doing fine just the night before. I stopped the water changes, but a couple days later the flame angelfish died, again having been doing great just the night before.
So far, nothing else has died. Could the water changes be to blame? I have the RO water heated to tank temperature, same salinity before putting it in the tank. I threw out the first trashcan full (30 gallons) of RO water it produced. The only thing I can think of is I haven’t been adding the Aquasafe to the RO water, as I didn’t think you needed to. Maybe I should have been? I do have chlorine in my water.
As far as water parameters, everything seems fine to me. There is no detectable ammonia, nitrites, or nitrates. Sg is 1.022, temp is 77F. It’s just strange to me that everything was doing fine, and the only thing I’ve changed is the source of the water, but it seemed like a good change to me. Maybe I was just changing too much too fast and the different water shocked the fish? The other strange thing is that the shrimp and other inverts were unaffected and my understanding is that they’re the first to go.
I want to replace these fish, but not before I find out what killed the originals. If anybody has any ideas I would appreciate it!
