Truckie
Reefing newb
On 6/1 I added 6 Green Chromis (from Petco if that matters. Usually I go to an actual fish store) to my 55 gallon aquarium. They all appeared healthy - they were very active swimmers, schooled with my 2 clownfish, and loved to eat.
Two days after I added them they began to die off one by one. The first one disappeared without any indication of a problem. The next one began to show discoloration of his scales with light color patches and began to separate from the school and swim near the surface. One of them had a red mark on his side (I couldn't tell if this was from illness or an injury). All of them would separate one by one, show similar symptoms suddenly, and then die within a day or so.
A week later I am left with one chromi, and now he is showing similar signs as the others did. Last night I noticed that one of my clowns appeared as if he may have been picking on him after we turned the lights out. He rammed him as the chromi was trying to hang out at the surface of the water. I can't confirm if this was an isolated incident or not because it's the first time that I saw it, but my wife said she thought the clowns were picking on him earlier in the evening as well.
Should I be worried that an illness killed them that could affect my clowns as well? The clowns are happy as can be and haven't shown any indication of any sort of sickness.
Or is it possible that my clowns were killing them off one by one while I wasn't looking?
Either way I want to get this figured out before I added any other livestock to my tank.
Tank info:
55 Gallons
60+ lbs of rock and sand
2 powerheads totaling 2000 gph
Small hang on back filter with filter sponges
Ammonia: 0 | Nitrite: 0 | Nitrate: 0 | pH 8.2 | sg 1.021 | Temp: 76*F
10 gal. water change done weekly
Thanks for your help! Pic attached of remaining chromi with discoloration visible.
Two days after I added them they began to die off one by one. The first one disappeared without any indication of a problem. The next one began to show discoloration of his scales with light color patches and began to separate from the school and swim near the surface. One of them had a red mark on his side (I couldn't tell if this was from illness or an injury). All of them would separate one by one, show similar symptoms suddenly, and then die within a day or so.
A week later I am left with one chromi, and now he is showing similar signs as the others did. Last night I noticed that one of my clowns appeared as if he may have been picking on him after we turned the lights out. He rammed him as the chromi was trying to hang out at the surface of the water. I can't confirm if this was an isolated incident or not because it's the first time that I saw it, but my wife said she thought the clowns were picking on him earlier in the evening as well.
Should I be worried that an illness killed them that could affect my clowns as well? The clowns are happy as can be and haven't shown any indication of any sort of sickness.
Or is it possible that my clowns were killing them off one by one while I wasn't looking?
Either way I want to get this figured out before I added any other livestock to my tank.
Tank info:
55 Gallons
60+ lbs of rock and sand
2 powerheads totaling 2000 gph
Small hang on back filter with filter sponges
Ammonia: 0 | Nitrite: 0 | Nitrate: 0 | pH 8.2 | sg 1.021 | Temp: 76*F
10 gal. water change done weekly
Thanks for your help! Pic attached of remaining chromi with discoloration visible.