FishNPups

New Member
I woke up from an hour nap (3:00 pm) and my black clownfish, female clownfish, and my court jester ( my 3 favorites) were all stunned, trying to swim around, for approximately 20 minutes before perishing

All the fish that were ORIGINALLY a part of this tank, through all my noob mistakes, have perished.

My Firefish is MIA

2 days ago i added a yellow watchman goby and pistol shrimp

When I woke up from my nap the pistol shrimp was wandering around the tank (for the first time), his watchman and him are the only 2 in the tank still alive.

Only new things in the tank are a SMALL bubbletip anemone and zoanthids, which had closed up magically after my nap. other than these two.
When I left the house to go to work after scooping out the clowns (I had to go to work, court jester was pulled into the pistol shrimp burrow, couldn't get to around the rock work to get him, i was already late)

I did a 25% water change this morning at 9:00 am. All fish were fine until at least 2:00 pm when i took my nap

20 gallon half moon, hang on filter, internal filter, 4- 240 mph wave pumps
Parameters last night(before wc): Ph- 8.1
Nitrite- 0ppm
Nitrate- 80 ppm
Ammonia- .25 ppm
Salinity- 1.025

I have not had time to check the params since the water change but my tank is a year old and stable usually at 0 levels for everything but nitrates which usually stay at 20 ppm.

(Nitrates were spiked from a failed bta id recieved from saltwaterfish.com which was shooting out "cottage cheese" was in tank for the day to watch for recovery and promptly removed.)

Also I was wondering if I should order more fish? or are they doomed to the same fate?
 

DaveK

Well-Known Member
There are some shrimp such as mantis shrimp that do prey on fish, but I don't think your pistol shrimp is the issue here. Even if it went after a fish, I think it would be unlikely to go after 3 fish in that short a preiod of time.

I'd be looking at water quality issues. Any reading other than 0 for ammonia indicates a problem. You also have a high nitrate reading. On top of that you made a 25% water change, and it's quite possible that water was not prepared correctly or was contaminated.

You also have a 20 gal tank with what seems to be five fish and the pistol shrimp in it. This is gross overcrowding for SW. Typically, you want about 1 inch of fish per 5 gallons of actual water in the tank. A 20 gal tank is going to contain about 15 gal of water by the time you add sand and rock. This means you should have about 3 total inches of fish in the tank. This would work out to about 2 small fish. Roughly speaking, you had about double the amount of fish in there that you should have.

At this point you don't want to add anything until you figure out what went wrong. You might end up needing quite a few partial water changes to lower the nitrite and/or remove any possible contamination.

Long term, you might add 1 additional fish. If you really want a lot more. consider a much larger tank.
 

FishNPups

New Member
My tank has been stable with 0 readings in the nitrite and ammonia for a few months continuously. like i said earlier my nitrate ppm has been at 20 ppm steadily. the spike was from a bad anemone I'd ordered.

That being said I understand where you're coming from but since they didn't die following the water change- until 6 HOURS after (which usually isn't the case with bad water), where they'd already be acclimated. I believe it was from something else.

These are the same fish I've had for a YEAR that have actually dealt with my entire noob mistakes

Also in my nano tank I understand it's small but it's a tall tank ( half moon) and there are ample hiding spots for all the fish as well as a 4" sand bed for the shrimp and watchman to burrow, which to me is most important, yes the tank is small but i'm not trying to fit tangs, angelfish, etc. in there.

My water was most definitely prepared correctly., I used to work at the local pet store and definitely learned a lot there. It's in my 5 gallon container with a heater and aeration and mixed and shaken every day, as well as salinity checked with a refractometer, kept at 1.025.

I also run weekly water tests for ammonia and Ph
And that tank runs a carbon activated filter as well, if that effects anything

My dwarf seahorses are not dieing from the saltwater I pre mix and the corals (xenia, zoas, sylophoras, bta, and mushroom) are happy, as well as snails that are in the 20 gallon, which are still kicking

That's why I am confused- 3/5 fish died but all inverts are doing fine?

Now I understand that I sound like a noob due to my parameters but as I said it hasn't been that way. It was due to a bad anemone (params were only like that for 1.5 days max).

With that being said I really don't think the params are what killed my mated clown pair and court jester, the only new addition is the pistol, and the fact the pistol and watchman are the 2 that are left I was coming to the conclusion the pistol had caused it, nothing else made sense to me.
 
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DaveK

Well-Known Member
I will try and explain further. Looking at this again, I suspect the tank had some condition where the water was very low in oxygen, most likely due to the water change.

You have a tank that is small and very over crowded. This means that it might seem to run OK for awhile, but the slightest problem can get quickly out of control and do a lot of damage fast.

You also had a massive spike due to the anemone.

You also mention in your most recent post that you have a DSB. It is possible that the shrimp and gobie did some digging and that released a lot of bad stuff from the DSB.

Dwarf seahorses are considered difficult to keep mostly because of the feeding requirements, but they are not very fussy about water requirements. Seahorses tend to live in tidal areas where the SG of the water can vary a lot over a short period of time.

Inverts have a lot slower metabolism compared to fish. They can survive low oxygen conditions much better than fish.

All this makes me think that you most likely had water quality problem.

I could be wrong about this. It's rather difficult to make an exact diagnosis based upon limited information in any post. After all, I'm not there. However, what you describe is a lot more typical of water quality issues rather than shrimp attacks.

Perhaps someone else will have some different thoughts on the matter.
 

FishNPups

New Member
I will try and explain further. Looking at this again, I suspect the tank had some condition where the water was very low in oxygen, most likely due to the water change.

You have a tank that is small and very over crowded. This means that it might seem to run OK for awhile, but the slightest problem can get quickly out of control and do a lot of damage fast.

You also had a massive spike due to the anemone.

You also mention in your most recent post that you have a DSB. It is possible that the shrimp and gobie did some digging and that released a lot of bad stuff from the DSB.

Dwarf seahorses are considered difficult to keep mostly because of the feeding requirements, but they are not very fussy about water requirements. Seahorses tend to live in tidal areas where the SG of the water can vary a lot over a short period of time.

Inverts have a lot slower metabolism compared to fish. They can survive low oxygen conditions much better than fish.

All this makes me think that you most likely had water quality problem.

I could be wrong about this. It's rather difficult to make an exact diagnosis based upon limited information in any post. After all, I'm not there. However, what you describe is a lot more typical of water quality issues rather than shrimp attacks.

Perhaps someone else will have some different thoughts on the matter.
Thank you. My bad if I seemed rude last night. I will admit I'm very sadd to have lost my favorites/originals last night.

I ran a water test when I got home. Most definitely is the water quality. And now I feel like I'm doomed. The court jester had been dragged into a burrow under the sand and I can't find it. pistol is done for. My rainbow bta is unattached. Nitrates are at 80 with ammonia at .25.

I'm just going to let this run its course, be it a month or two, hopefully the yellow watchman sticks through it, though the corals are no longer looking happy.



It's so upsetting that it all started with the sick bta :( wish I'd never tried to online order an anemone. Now my whole tank is wiped out.
 

FishNPups

New Member
I'm doing 20-25% water changes every day as well. Just trying to keep as much as I can Alive Though obviously they won't thrive for a little while. Just long enough for the bristle worms to help eat everything and let the water settle back to normal. Then restock my clownfishes with some snowflakes
 

FishNPups

New Member
I was initially just really weirded out because it was 6 hours after the water change.
But I suppose the pistol could have released something in that hour I was sleeping. I used to have a diamond watchman that sifted but he'd jumped out the very back that's precut for the filter few months ago.
I thought they'd make it :( sorry for triple posting. I can't figure out how to edit posts on here
 

Jesse Podolsky

New Member
I have a pistol and watchmen pair, two small clowns, a Bangui cardinal, a royal Gramma, and a small white spotted puffer in a 20g. I've never had any problems with fish (only the puffer picking at snails).I've
nearly killed my 2 rbta by them getting shredded. I almost never done water changes. I've also had my watchman jump but I put he back in the water after only 30 seconds.
 

StevesLEDs

RS Sponsor
I had a relatively large pistol shrimp in a Biocube 29, and he did "click" quite a bit, usually defensively, or perhaps trying to attract a mate - I never saw another fish stunned by this. Even visibly watching the shrimp click right next to my mini rabbitfish, had no effect. Perhaps some fish/shrimp are more sensitive than others to the effects of the shrimps cavitation clicks, I've yet to find one though.

Some people consider these a severe threat, but I've never had an issue in the past 18 years.

-Jeff
 
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