got ethical husbandry?

Dead fish why?

popper

Supporting Member
Added to a purple and yellow tang two days ago to a newly two weeks cycled 100g. Only live (correction, dead not live, I can't strike out "live") dead rocks and about ½” of sand bed. They're the only occupants. Added a 2lb live rock from my established tank.

No aggression after observing for 1hr.

Lights are off.

DEAD rocks went through citric acid cleansing, let dry for 2 days then went into tank.

Sand from an established tank. Let dry and removed shells.

Today found yt dead. Pt is hiding

Ammonia .15
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Phosphate .28
Ph 8.6

Added two filter socks yesterday and the skimmer went crazy. The socks were recently washed without soap and let air dry for 3 days. The same sock goes to my other tank and it's fine.

What's the cause of the dead yt?

Should I move the pt back to the other established tank?
 
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I’m not a fan of adding expensive fish to a new aquarium. Could a be many different things. Bio load isn’t established, fish are weak or sick. Those are just two things that come to mind. Where did the fish come from ? Fish store or another aquarist ? Did you QT ?
 
Cycle not done. 2 weeks is really short. That’s what pops into my head.
I’m not a fan of socks. Even tho you washed it with no soap. There’s stuff in the drum of the washing machine. I would remove the socks for now. See how the purple does. Feed heavy, test often.
 
Cycle not done. 2 weeks is really short. That’s what pops into my head.
I’m not a fan of socks. Even tho you washed it with no soap. There’s stuff in the drum of the washing machine. I would remove the socks for now. See how the purple does. Feed heavy, test often.
just added "The same sock goes to my other tank and it's fine."
 
So this is just what I think. I don’t have any data. Just what I observed over 20+ years of keeping aquariums. I think there’s bacteria or something like that in rocks that keep fish and coral alive. Back in the day. I couldn’t keep fish for a long amount of time. My buddy had a 240 that was super established. I gave him one of my fish. He put it in his sump and kept it alive for a year. Before returning it to the lfs. My aquarium was all dead rock at that time. Yeah it was cycled but I still struggled.
 
Nope. Citric acid. The stuff that cleans equipments.
Maybe this is the cause. Most people use muriatic acid and bleach to clean their rocks. It’s also recommended to soak in water for 48hrs to remove any residuals and let dry in the sun for a week. As phc567 mentioned the tank hasn’t been cycled long enough. Did you add a bottle of Dr. Tim’s or good bacteria to help the cycle? It’s also a good idea to not wash off your filter socks from a established tank because you just washed away all the bacteria to jump start your new tank.

I would recommend removing the Purple Tang. Start out with less expensive hardy fish and add the Purple back once tank is more established.
 
Sad
And I would assume that the person you got these established fish from is sick to their stomach.
Hope you save the purple tang
They can live for over 15 years
 
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Tangs are sensitive to ammonia, and new tanks often have ammonia spikes. I think that is the answer to put the purple tang in an established tank to save it while the tank cycles.
 
Calling out another thing, if you acid washed the rock and you dried out the sand, you would've started with no bacteria. Sorry if that's obvious, but you used the term "live rock" and mentioned the established sand, but everything would've been dead due to those two things. That's not necessarily bad, it's just not live nor established at that point.

Additionally the sand likely had dead stuff in it which would eventually decompose and start adding ammonia in. The rock also could, depending on how long you did the acid treatment, how much acid, and if you took the chance with doing bleach first.

So if you haven't been doing a modern fishless cycle with bottled bacteria + an ammonia source, the tank would be dead when the fish went in.

If all that's true, pulling the fish may be the safest option. However, the other option is ASAP do a good water change with good water that's mixed appropriately, and then run to an LFS and buy an ammonia test kit, some bottled bacteria, and some Prime / water conditioner. I'd get home and grab a water sample, then dump some bacteria in, and then if the sample reads ammonia I'd toss some Prime in. Dr Tim's and co make the case that you can safely put fish and bacteria in together immediately. The prime is the backup.
 
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Calling out another thing, if you acid washed the tank and you dried out the sand, you would've started with no bacteria. Sorry if that's obvious, but you used the term "live rock" and mentioned the established sand, but everything would've been dead due to those two things. That's not necessarily bad, it's just not live nor established at that point.

Additionally the sand likely had dead stuff in it which would eventually decompose and start adding ammonia in. The rock also could, depending on how long you did the acid treatment, how much acid, and if you took the chance with doing bleach first.

So if you haven't been doing a modern fishless cycle with bottled bacteria + an ammonia source, the tank would be dead when the fish went in.

If all that's true, pulling the fish may be the safest option. However, the other option is ASAP do a good water change with good water that's mixed appropriately, and then run to an LFS and buy an ammonia test kit, some bottled bacteria, and some Prime / water conditioner. I'd get home and grab a water sample, then dump some bacteria in, and then if the sample reads ammonia I'd toss some Prime in. Dr Tim's and co make the case that you can safely put fish and bacteria in together immediately. The prime is the backup.
Also if you need some Prime and an Ammonia test kit, I'm in Redwood City and you can get both from me if needed tonight. If you have water ready that's the immediate improvement. I actually even have a 5 gallon jug of water mixed if needed.
 
When you said tank was cycled for two weeks, did that just mean it sat there two weeks? Did you ever check ammonia nitrite or nitrate?
Your test results posted show ammonia, bad, but no nitrate. There should be nitrate and no ammonia if the tank has cycled.
 
Thanks all for the advice. PT was moved back to the established tank last night and is swimming this morning.. Will treat for ammonia.
. If you're interested in doing the bottled bacteria, Neptune carries multiple brands in stock. If you don't have any animals in it, I'd skip the Prime/ammonia treatment. There's conflicting views on if Prime and such adversely effect the cycling process.

I personally found the bottled Fritz bacteria did a solid job on dosed ammonia, but it wasn't until finally getting the first fish in the cycle fully completed and nitrite was efficiently getting processed completely. Between the Fritz and Liferock, there was too much efficient conversion straight from ammonia to nitrate going on, and not enough nitrite consumption.
 
Most likely an ammonia spike.

1) Eliminate the ammonia
Large water changes are best.
API ammo lock works, but do it carefully. In general adding chemicals is not so great.
This is not a one time thing. Do it every other day, until stable, which is likely 4 weeks.

2) Add bottled bacteria
You rushed the cycle, and there is not enough natural bacteria.
The only way to push it faster is to add the bacteria manually.

3) Reduce lighting, and put a towel over the front
Fish is already stressed. This will help a lot.
 
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