Sad sad day

[kkiel02]

Got a call today at work from my girlfriend that my yellow eye kole tang and black and white occeralis(sp?) had passed away. Well my ph was at 8.8 after usually being around 8.0-8.2. Ich looks to be on most fish. Looking for confirmation that a ph spike could stress out the fish which gave them ich? I tested everything else and nothing out of the ordinary. I can't believe the clown died he survived brooklynella.

[Europhyllia]

Wow I am so sorry.
What caused that spike?

[kkiel02]

My best guess is my kalk reactor. I teed the intake line and put a valve on it to be able to manage the flow going through it. I think I had it turned up a little high as I cool by evaporation. Lately I have also taken down my fuge after a mishap. Other than that everything has been usual besides me losing a frag last week. Everything is growing great besides the fish at this point. The only other bad looking fish are the other female clown and the blue hippo has quite a bit of ick. Hope it looks better tomorrow. I turned off the lights and retested a few hours later and it dropped to 8.2 so hopefully everything else makes it.

[justahobby]

I believe the ich was definitely a pre-existing condition, but elevated Ph certainly didn't help them fight it. The ich came from at least one fish and spread to the others. Ich has a fast reproduction cycle, but not fast to the point of infecting all your fish within hours. Rem. the ich you see are the pregnant parasites. Have you had a new fish addition to the tank that may have brought it in? Sorry for your losses. Look on the bright side, you know where the mistake was made, and you didn't do it when you were leaving for vacation :)

[ErikH]

I lost my huge fat mandarin today, it got stuck in a temporary powerhead. I feel your pain.

[CoryDude]

Wow, the clown survived brooklynella? Man, that was a lot to go through and lose him to this. Really sorry about that.

[joelb]

that stinks, ive had my black n white clown since finadict was up and its been through about 5 home changes... and ick. i was beginning to think it would never pass away. id give it to you but my wife claimed it as her pet.

[JimD]

Running a kalk reactor without an accurate Ph monitor is a mistake. A Ph monitor does two things, it lets you know the current Ph of the tank and it lets you know when its time to recharge the reactor. Kalk has an inharent Ph of 12.4 so you really need to keep an eye on the system. I would imagine that the stress of a rapid increase in Ph could contribute to the fishes demise, but, unless the Ph was high for a lengthy period of time, I might be inclined to look at other possibilities. Im thinking maybe temperature, if you had a low temp event, this could have brought out the Ich due to elevated O2 levels..... Just some stuff to consider..

[Kristy]

Oh wow... sorry to hear it. Hope you don't lose any more. Kalk reactors scare me!

[kkiel02]

Yeah I've had the ich and I'm hoping that's all it turns out to be. I'm starting to think it is something else though. I'm hoping my female will pull through. I don't think it's anything with my levels as the corals are fine and my tests were good. I hope it's not a disease at this point. My qt is only a 10 gallon so I will be in trouble.

[snfkotara]

I am sorry to hear about your fish dying and I hope the other ill ones pull through and if you need a bigger QT tank I have a 29 gal. your more than welcome to use for as long as you needed it.

[kkiel02]

Sherry I might take you up on that as I lost my cleaner wrasse and prolly another clown soon. Its not ich but have posted some pics and more info in the emergency forum.