Coral beauty died :(

[sweetobsolete]

I had my coral beauty angelfish for one week (and one day) before she died suddenly on Saturday. Since I am completely new to saltwater aquariums, I thought maybe you guys could offer some insight. I'm obviously pretty sad about this (she was such a beautiful fish!) and I don't want to go and spend a lot of money on fish in the future and have them die again.

So, she was in a 47 gallon tank. I can't say the exact specs of all the levels off the top of my head, but I check them every day and they very close to what they are supposed to be (ph 8.something, ammonia almost zero, nitrites zero, nitrates almost zero). I probably should get a better testing kit for the ph and nitrates, as its hard to tell exact dimensions with the one I have. I know the nitrates and ammonia should ideally be non-traceable, but it doesn't seem like they would have been high enough to kill her. Temps are between 75 and 80.

There's a snail and a pink spotted watchman goby in the tank (she picked on the goby a little when I first put her in, but after they had each established their own territories they seemed to leave each other alone.)

There's crushed coral and live rock in the tank (and some regular non live rock). I don't know the exact poundage. I have a hang on back filter... like the kind that trickles water through carbon pads, and a small powerhead in there (I think its 500 gph or something like that?) I intend to get a protein skimmer in the future (when I can afford it) and another powerhead.

The lighting I'm not sure about (I got this tank and everything from craigslist). But it looks like just a standard florescent light.

She didn't have any signs of disease whatsoever. Beautiful color, normal eyes, swimming normally, eating whatever she could find (fed her frozen cubes made for angelfish). Just came home and found her dead at the bottom of her tank.

I cleaned some of the walls and moved some live rock around that day. Could I have stressed her out being all up in the tank? Any ideas?

 

[ErinCahir]

Especially since you have crushed coral, there is a good chance when you moved the rocks around you released a bunch of crap into the water, which would've caused a spike in your nitrates. You should probably consider switching it out for some sand.
How often do you change your filters?

 

[sweetobsolete]

I would think it would be pretty stressful for them for me to switch out their substrate... there wasn't any spike in nitrates, I checked them, if anything they've went down.

The tank is only about a month old, I've changed the filters once.

 

[wontonflip]

Did you feed her any algae sheets? Coral beauties need algae sheets (or at least enough algae on the rocks to graze off of). Mine eats everything in site, but primarily picks algae off the rocks, and off the algae clips. In fact, my coral beauty decimated all signs of hair algae in my tank its first week.

Yours might have just been stressed. Sorry to hear, though. I have one, that's a big fat pig, and I really love her.

 

[sweetobsolete]

Did you feed her any algae sheets? Coral beauties need algae sheets (or at least enough algae on the rocks to graze off of). Mine eats everything in site, but primarily picks algae off the rocks, and off the algae clips. In fact, my coral beauty decimated all signs of hair algae in my tank its first week.

Yours might have just been stressed. Sorry to hear, though. I have one, that's a big fat pig, and I really love her.

I didn't feed her algae sheets, I fed her frozen cubes of stuff that said they were meant for angel fish. There is plenty of algae in my tank though, so I doubt she was short on that

Thanks.

 

[ErinCahir]

Did your tank properly cycle before you added your fish?
And those HOB filters are really freshwater technology... they can trap big chunks of stuff (like your substrate) and as it decomposes it can cause problems. You should be cleaning/changing the filters every few days.

 

[sweetobsolete]

Yeah, my tank was properly cycled.

I'll clean the filters more often, thanks. I will be getting a protein skimmer soon.

 

[wontonflip]

I just noticed you said your ammonia is "almost zero".....that would indicate that your cycle might not be done, or you put in too many fish too fast and the tank did not have enough bacteria to handle the excess bioload.

 

[sweetobsolete]

I just noticed you said your ammonia is "almost zero".....that would indicate that your cycle might not be done, or you put in too many fish too fast and the tank did not have enough bacteria to handle the excess bioload.

By that I mean that it looks like zero, but it is hard to tell by reading the colors. Its like it goes from yellow green to lime green... really difficult to read. I will wait a while before putting anymore fish in though, in case it does need more time to cycle.

 

[ErinCahir]

In case you didn't already know... you should wait three weeks between adding fish. I don't know when you added your goby.

 

[little_fish]

It would be better to start removing the crushed coral now, than when its totally full of junk and your tank is full of more sensitive items. Just suck out a portion of the substrate when you do your water changes, and then when its all gone, you can add dry sand right in. But i would rise out the dry sand to get rid of all the dusty particles.

And sometimes fish just die for a reason we can never figure out. But i would think that she hadnt been getting the correct nutrition for some time (between being caught, wholesalers, and then fish store who knows what she was eating) and your water not sounding like its 100% it might have been too much for her.

But, good news is you can fix all of these things!!! I would just work on removing the crushed coral and feed algae sheets next time, plus the angel food. And unless you are changing out the filter media every 3 or 4 days, i would totally remove the filter media and instead put some rubble in there to increase your live rock. I also think your water isnt oxygenated enough for such an active fish. You can get really cheap maxi jet powerheads for around $20 and that will help immensely. People underestimate how important flow is in an aquarium. Make sure that the current powerhead you do have is pointed at the surface so you get some serious ripples going on to get good oxygen exchange.

Dont worry, we will get this sorted out so the next one will flourish for many many years!

 

[Smitty]

Sorry to hear about your loss.

 

[Bifferwine]

Any ammonia above zero can be dangerous to fish, especially sensitive fish. Coral beauties are pretty hardy though. Such a pretty fish, I'm sorry to hear that she didn't make it. :(

That said, many ammonia test kits give false positive readings when the value is actually 0.

If I were you, I'd not add any more animals for a week or two and continue to test the ammonia. If it goes down to zero eventually, the ammonia could have been the culprit. If it stays in that borderline positive/negative area, you may very well have 0 ammonia in the tank.