Help... Damsel not eating after Tang found Dead!

[tk6411]

New to the hobby with a 29g reef tank, Emperor 280 Bio-Wheel filter, 2 Maxi-Jet 600 Powerheads and about 12lbs live rock so far, plus 40lbs of live sand. Cycled the tank several weeks ago with 4 Striped Damsel. Then we added our next fish a very small Yellow Tang. Everything looked fine for several days after we added the Yellow Tang to our tank (yes I realize now we should have a 75g for Tangs). Both the Four Striped Damsel and the Tang became best buddies and all was fine for several days. We next added a very small Nassarius Snail, a small emerald crab, and small star fish.. Meaning to do well and get better circulation for future corals I placed two Maxi-Jet 600 powerheads in opposite ends of the tank and in the process I know the live sand bed was disturbed a bit getting the powerheads in place with the fish in the tank. Still everything looked fine as they both played in the new current and ate normally. Then next morning the Tang was dead. Now the striped damsel just stays in one spot and is not eating... I'm very concerned. We took a water sample and had it tested at Texas Tropical ...ammonia was a bit high and trace nitrates/nitrites and PH was a bit low. It was suggested to do a water change and add a PH buffer which we did. Damsel still stays in one spot and doesn't eat but opens and closes its mouth very rapidly. We used our saltwater test kit to check the water quality and everything looks in the normal range for PH, Ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite....even the dssolved oxygen test looks good. But the striped damsel is still staying in one spot and not eating. I haven't seen any spots or anything on the damsel. Any ideas what happening? Is there any hope for my remaining Damsel.

[DeletedAccount]

Ammonia poisons fish. They can not handle it at all. Do another water change. SLow down on adding critters for a while. Let the tank restabilize. If the damsel is still stressing that badly there is something still very wrong with the water. They tolerate a lot. Change the water and leave the tank alone for a few weeks, other than normal water changes. Good luck!

And welcome!

[StephenA]

Slow way down! Do a 5% water change. Test the Ammonia the next morn, if it is still high, do another 5% change. Stay way from tangs in a 29G. The store should have told you not to put the tang in your tank.

[Instar]

You didn't complete the cycle before adding all those fish. If you will use a bacteria culture, the cycle will complete quickly and you will have less trouble. I use, in all my tanks, the BacterVital by Marc Weiss. Alamo Aquatics carries it. I also set up tanks very quickly when I have baby clowns and have never had an ammonia spike on a grow out system, even with too many fish in there. It doesn't work for the fry tanks, but, it does work when sand and rocks are involved and will straighten out your 29 gallon tank in a few days or less if you follow the dose instructions. Its quite likely too late for your 4 stripe damsel. By the time you test for the ammonia you have missed the spike. Once blood poisoning has occurred, it has. You can't tansfuse him so you will have to let it play out to either the morbidity of it, or by some chance, the recovery. And recovery will not happen until the ammonia and nitrites are both 0 all the time and that can easily be achieved with that culture. BTW, live rock, after the die off, may not have all the beneficial bacteria needed and it is definitely not in the correct ratios. So, cultures are very helpful.

[tk6411]

Thanks guys...I love this hobby and this site. You guys have great advice. I'll continue the water change and hope my poor damsel will do better. So we probably added too many critters at one time is that my understanding causing the Ammonia to spike. So far the Starfish, crab and snail are alive....along with the stressed damsel. So adding some bio-spyra bacteria to the water is a good idea. I'll definately get some. I feel real bad for losing the poor Yellow Tang and stressing the damsel...its the last thing I would have wanted. I try to ask around for advice at the various marine aquarium stores and seems I got some bad advice. Next time I'll ask here first for opinions as I have a feeling my poor damsel may not make it either. If the damsel fails to survive what should I do? I know I'm not giving up....so should I continue to water change and add another damsel? If so when would be advisable?

[Instar]

If your damsel fails to thrive, do the same thing you should do anyway. Add the bacteria cultures. The ones and brand I referred to I know that you can add even when there are fish and creatures in your tank with great results. Others I do not know if you can add them after adding live stock with good results or not. It would seem to me that you can, but, I haven't tested those. I use what I recommended because it works with newly hatched larval fish and shrimp as well as all reef inhabitants. So, you are going to add cultures and wait. Same thing either way if that fish lives or dies. Wait at least 2 weeks from the time that fish either dies or recovers. When you add the bacteria, do not change the water until it has a chance to settle and attach for a couple days. Then resume partial water changes to recover any other toxic conditions you have from additives. Use Ro/DI water and a good brand of salt mix. Do not throw a bunch of additives in there. None. You don't need them while doing water changes no matter what advice you get otherwise. There is already plenty in the salt mix. Next thing to remember is a tang eats a ton of food and needs a large amount of vegitation in its food. It would be hard to have anything that eats a ton in a new 29 gallon tank with much chance of success. That 4 striped damsel will own the tank and is likely to kill everything else fish wise. Just so you know, only the active fish or pugnacious ones can stand up to an established damsel in a small tank. They don't stay small and cute forever. You could add one more just like him and have a mated pair if both are small as I see in the stores around here. When the pair gets big, they really are tons of fun and its likely there won't be many people with a pair of those to brag about.

[matt]

You should probably get a quality (Salifert) test kit for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate ASAP. Sounds like you'll need them. Chances are TT is not using high quality kits for their customer tests; probably Hagen because they're the cheapest. So, the truth is, you don't really know how high your ammonia spiked.

Next step is to do some reading on marine fish and their care. I'm hardly an expert on fishes, but I know that Michael Scott (or is it Scott Michael) has written a pretty thorough book. Maybe a fish expert like MikeP or Larry can chime in here and recommend a good basic fish book. It's great that you're posting here to deal with problems, and we ALL have them, but it would be even better if you researched enough to avoid problems before they ocurr. When i had my first tank, which was a 29 gallon, I rushed the cycling process a bit and killed a few fish in the process. The thing is, the initial cycle is not really complete until the biodiversity in the tank has reached the point where it really stabilizes the water chemistry. This happens slowly, after the toxicity of a new system subsides. I'd leave fish out of the tank for a couple of months. This way your tank can mature without stressed fish eating beneficial small critters in the sand/rock. I'd also consider getting some "real" live sand; that is, sand from either an online vendor such as IPSF or inland aquatics, or from a good local source of very established sand that's filled with micro-life. Tim Marvin in cedar park is a great source for this.

Good luck!

[tk6411]

Thanks guys, all the advise seemed to pay off the damsel is doing much better...swimming around the tank...eating like a pig. Wow what a change. Thanks for saving my damsel.

[DeletedAccount]

That is wonderful! Try to take it slow for a while to give your tank time to get stable again. I am glad that your damsel is doing better. They are stubborn little guys.

[saltcreepette]

I recommend "The Conscientious Marine Aquarist" by Robert Fenner as a great starter book. and when you are done with that one, if you want a book on aquarium fishes so you know what will be good choices for your tank, get "Marine fishes: 500 essential to know aquarium species" by scott w. michael. I got my books from half.com just so ya know. :)

[tk6411]

Thanks for the further advice I just picked up: "The Conscientious Marine Aquarist" by Robert Fenner. So far, excellent book. Thanks again for the great advice guys. You all are the best.