Hello all,
This is my first post, yay! Although, the post isn't for me, per se.
My friend and I setup new 90 Gallon Marine thanks in March of this year. My friend has been successfully keeping saltwater fish in another 90 gallon tank for years, so he's not new to the game.
Here's the problem. His new tank has been doing terrible since day one. He has had a super high mortality rate. He started out with 4 green chromis' and they are still doing fine, but every single fish he has added since then have eventually died off. Some would last for weeks, then croak. Like his current Firefish (which are apparently hard to keep). He still has 2 out of three original firefish. Some fish simply die the day after. Some fish that are supposedly bulletproof like damsels have all gone to fish heaven.
He has been very carful with aclimating using a pipet to drip. He feeds his fish a combination of mysis and Formula One. All the fish that have died were eating just fine.
About 20-40 lbs of Live rock. Argonite sand bed.
We've tested his water with test kits, brought the water into the
LFS for testing, did water changes. Both the
LFS and the test kids say water is Fine.
So, we are at our witsend. He is down to a lunar wrasse and porcupine puffer which he just added a few days ago, a tomato clown added last night, two firefish added two months ago, green chromis' added during tank setup/cycling. He is about to give up on this tank and sell it, so he's open to any suggestions. My first thought was, his water must be bad, but if it was bad, then all the fish would've eventually died, and sooner. He still has fish from way back, and the
LFS says water is OK, so weird.
Is it possible that something is lurking in his live rock that is killing his fish at night? I told him to first try increasing his Specific Gravity (gradually) to 1.024. If that doesn't help things out, then do a fresh water dip of the live rock.
A sample of fish he's tried and died:
Emperor Angel
Percula clowns
Scooter Blennies
Lawnmower blenny
Fox Face
Cleaner Wrasse
Red Sea Wrasse
box puffer ( I know, the can be poisonous when they die, so he quarnatined it while it was on its way out).
Tank stats:
90 Gallon All-Glass
2x maxi Jets (1200 & 900)
Eheim 2217 Canister filter
Heater
NO flourencent lights.
25% Water changes once every two weeks.
Test kits and
LFS say water parameters are OK.
Specific Gravity: 1.019 ( I told him this is low, so we are going to bump it up gradually to 1.023/1.024.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
P.S. I said origially that we both set up 90 gallon tanks. This is my first salt water tank so I'm rather inexperienced, but I've learned lots (mostly from the forums and my tank is doing superbly. I have lost very few fish, and have starting with easy soft corals. Thanks to all the good advices that I've read out there!
K.
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