Well...things ended up not going so well with the chromis. I may be new to reefing...but in over 15 years of knowledgeable fishkeeping, I've never lost fish so quickly.
Lost one chromis over the second night, rather unexpectedly, as it wasn't the fish with the tattered fins and red gills that dropped first. Went another day and everyone was still looking healthy and swimming...the one sickly fish had even started eating. On day 4 I noticed one fish had a square-shaped red spot on his side; I suspected a bacterial infection, but wanted to keep an eye on things before jumping the gun an treating the tank, as I had already added prazipro 2 days before since everyone was eating. The next morning when I woke up 3 chromis were dead on the bottom of the tank; the remaining 2 looked fine. I had been testing throughout this time, and the water checked out. Ammonia - 0, nitrite - 0, nitrate - 2.0...I also dosed a little prime in the tank on Day 1 and added it back in with the daily water changes to make sure any ammonia that did end up in the QT wouldn't be toxic, and saw no signs of stress from ammonia...no change in color, no rapid breathing, no red gills.
Looking at the 3 fish that died that morning, and all 3 of them had the same red square/vertical streak on their side. No aggression was seen between fish prior to this, and there wasn't a single nipped fin in the tank. I also took care to slowly drip in my new salt water to avoid any rapid changes in parameters...so I didn't suspect a temp/salinity fluctuation either, and those parameters remained stable as well. So, at that point, I knew it was a bacterial infection, and suspected I was seeing uronema as the vertical streak on the side looked exactly like the pics I came across prior to picking these guys up, and the fish died rather suddenly with no warning. After pulling the 3 dead fish, I waited about 30 mins to feed the other 2 and they didn't take to the food at all. :/ They were both actively swimming though and seemed OK (no lesions), so I figured maybe it'd be worth trying some formalin when I got home from work that day to see if they responded.
When I got home, one fish was swimming upside down, the other was laying on it's side...both had lesions appear while I was at work that were not present in the morning. They were both goners within a few hours of getting home.
So...yea. A little frustrating to say the least, lol. I think I'm going to stay away from chromis for a bit, as I had heard that they were coming in with uronema with some frequency in recent months...I thought maybe trying something other than the standard blue/greens would allow me to dodge that bullet, but I guess not. This makes 2 botched attempts at getting chromis in the new tank, both hindered by fatal bacterial infections. On the one hand, I almost wonder if skipping QT and tossing them in the tank could have saved a few...but at the same time, it would've sucked even more to have whatever caused their death (whether infection or the uronema parasite) end up in the main DT and knock out all of my livestock with the first swing in parameters/power outage/temp fluctuation after the tank was established.
The build is going to be on hold for a bit while I figure out my stocking list again. I think I'll be adding my current 4 healthy fish to the DT after a round of prazipro in their current tank...I've had them for over a year now so hopefully things start to run a little smoother. Once I get those fish moved in, I'll use the old nanocube as a QT since it's been established for over a year as well; I'm leaning towards picking up a pair of clowns and a pair of mandarin gobies once the pod population is established, but we'll see. In light of my bad luck starting out I think I'm going to avoid any potentially difficult fish.
Lost one chromis over the second night, rather unexpectedly, as it wasn't the fish with the tattered fins and red gills that dropped first. Went another day and everyone was still looking healthy and swimming...the one sickly fish had even started eating. On day 4 I noticed one fish had a square-shaped red spot on his side; I suspected a bacterial infection, but wanted to keep an eye on things before jumping the gun an treating the tank, as I had already added prazipro 2 days before since everyone was eating. The next morning when I woke up 3 chromis were dead on the bottom of the tank; the remaining 2 looked fine. I had been testing throughout this time, and the water checked out. Ammonia - 0, nitrite - 0, nitrate - 2.0...I also dosed a little prime in the tank on Day 1 and added it back in with the daily water changes to make sure any ammonia that did end up in the QT wouldn't be toxic, and saw no signs of stress from ammonia...no change in color, no rapid breathing, no red gills.
Looking at the 3 fish that died that morning, and all 3 of them had the same red square/vertical streak on their side. No aggression was seen between fish prior to this, and there wasn't a single nipped fin in the tank. I also took care to slowly drip in my new salt water to avoid any rapid changes in parameters...so I didn't suspect a temp/salinity fluctuation either, and those parameters remained stable as well. So, at that point, I knew it was a bacterial infection, and suspected I was seeing uronema as the vertical streak on the side looked exactly like the pics I came across prior to picking these guys up, and the fish died rather suddenly with no warning. After pulling the 3 dead fish, I waited about 30 mins to feed the other 2 and they didn't take to the food at all. :/ They were both actively swimming though and seemed OK (no lesions), so I figured maybe it'd be worth trying some formalin when I got home from work that day to see if they responded.
When I got home, one fish was swimming upside down, the other was laying on it's side...both had lesions appear while I was at work that were not present in the morning. They were both goners within a few hours of getting home.
So...yea. A little frustrating to say the least, lol. I think I'm going to stay away from chromis for a bit, as I had heard that they were coming in with uronema with some frequency in recent months...I thought maybe trying something other than the standard blue/greens would allow me to dodge that bullet, but I guess not. This makes 2 botched attempts at getting chromis in the new tank, both hindered by fatal bacterial infections. On the one hand, I almost wonder if skipping QT and tossing them in the tank could have saved a few...but at the same time, it would've sucked even more to have whatever caused their death (whether infection or the uronema parasite) end up in the main DT and knock out all of my livestock with the first swing in parameters/power outage/temp fluctuation after the tank was established.
The build is going to be on hold for a bit while I figure out my stocking list again. I think I'll be adding my current 4 healthy fish to the DT after a round of prazipro in their current tank...I've had them for over a year now so hopefully things start to run a little smoother. Once I get those fish moved in, I'll use the old nanocube as a QT since it's been established for over a year as well; I'm leaning towards picking up a pair of clowns and a pair of mandarin gobies once the pod population is established, but we'll see. In light of my bad luck starting out I think I'm going to avoid any potentially difficult fish.
