[Mattfish]

We brought a flame angelfish home Thursday afternoon. He acclimated fine - a little timid and hiding in caves at first, but by Friday morning, swimming around making friends, letting the shrimp clean him, and apparently happy.

We woke up Saturday morning to find him dead. All other fish are fine. We took a sample to the lfs, and saw that our pH had dropped to 8.0 (it had been 8.2 on Wednesday), but that seemed to still be reasonable, especially with no other problems.

With this little info, any thoughts or suggestions? Losing this one hurt - we thought everything was going fine and it was a beautiful fish..... I don't want to lose anything else, so the cause is kinda important.

BTW, we put pH buffer in when we came back from the lfs so we've solved that for now, but still.....

[e_baer]

i dotn think that the PH drop was the problem. Seems more of an acclimation issue if you ask me. Perhaps at night the flame was being harrased by other members of the tank?

[Mattfish]

I suppose that's possible, but there's only 3 green chromis, a Banggai Cardinalfish, a 6-line wrasse and 2 false clowns. No one seemed to be fighting, and everyone seemed to be swimming along happily, but who knows what happened after we went to sleep.

And FWIW, the flame was lying on the bottom in the morning (this was the second morning, so he'd had two nights) with no marks on him. I got him out and we brought him to the lfs who looked him over too - no apparent marks or damage.....

[e_baer]

i dunno then, that is odd.

[Mattfish]

The guy managing the lfs (this is the other one we go to, not our main one) said that perhaps it was just a weak fish - and the owner is away for a few days. Maybe she can hazard a guess, but I appreciate the thoughts and analysis - we're so new that all ideas are helpful.

[RyanG]

How long has your system been up and running?

[e_baer]

yah, i used to have that same problem, sometimes the only way to learn is through exoerience.

[Mattfish]

We've been up about 5 weeks.

[dragonboy4578]

That seems a little fast to be adding an angel of any kind. My lfs recomended that i wait at least six months before i got any angel. It had something to do with letting my tank mature. by the way sorry for your loss.

[blind1993]

i got an angel at 2 months it was a coral beauty angel and the guy said i would say wait till 6 months but this one has survived so many issues that we have had with our tank and i think u should not let this one go and plus it was only 25 dollars.

[Mattfish]

We did ask the question, of course, and the lfs said it should be OK. Normally, pretty trustable, but maybe we just learned a lesson. The other lfs, where we get most of our stuff, said adding the 2 false clowns was OK, but not yet for the anemone, so we're waiting for that. The lfs we got all of our eqpt. from said that we should wait for coralline algae growth on the back of the tank wall - not for chemical reasons, but that this was a sign of tank maturation.

So it looks like we'll be waiting a while for more "friends".

[rlcline76]

You are not having any luck are you???
I would save yourself a few bucks and wait for the coralline to take off on its own, provided you already have some to work with. This hobby is expensive enough.

becky

[Mattfish]

Well, some luck, but not enough with the tank. We've got 7 friends that all seem to be OK, but yeah, several haven't made it. And it's not even the money, which is not insignificant, it's dealing with the concern about waking up in the morning to see what's happened next.

And this despite a biz trip to Austin last week - I woulda thought some Texas luck woulda rubbed off, but I guess that's what happens when a Yankee gone to California shows up....

Anyway, good advice on waiting longer. We're adding Purple Up to help that along. Does that count as good advice and heading in the right direction? Any other "additives" we should think about? And is waiting for the coralline algae our next step before adding anything more?

Thanks!

[rlcline76]

I wouldn't have even messed with the Purple Up. I don't know much about the product, I don't think it will accelerate the maturity of your tank. I wouldn't even mess with "additives". Just keep an eye on your parameters and supplement if necessary and keep up with your water changes!

Becky

[jvharding]

Originally Posted by rlcline76

I wouldn't have even messed with the Purple Up. I don't know much about the product, I don't think it will accelerate the maturity of your tank. I wouldn't even mess with "additives". Just keep an eye on your parameters and supplement if necessary and keep up with your water changes!

Becky

Good advice! Use a premium salt mix for water changes.

[Mattfish]

We're using Oceanic Salt Mix. The Purple Up was recommended for increasing coralline algae growth without increasing green algae.....

[RyanG]

Originally Posted by Mattfish

We're using Oceanic Salt Mix. The Purple Up was recommended for increasing coralline algae growth without increasing green algae.....

I wouldn't use the purple up, there is no need to with regular water changes. I would wait to add any more intermediate fish, that angelfish was one of them.

Stick with "easy" fish, until you start to see coraline algae appear.

[dragonboy4578]

You need to be careful with the purple up. if you add to much your ph can plumet, this happened to a close friend of mine and it killed the whole tank. there is even a small warning on the bottle. So if you are going to use it be cautious.

[Mattfish]

Thanks everyone for the advice - I thought I'd read the PurpleUp bottle, but obviously missed the pH issue.

We're doing a water change today and no more Purple Up for a while. We'll let the water changes provide whatever the coralline algae needs to grow and take it slowly.

[rlcline76]

It won't take too long. It only took my tank a few months to start changing colors. The show is worth the wait!

[Mattfish]

I hear ya - at this point, we need to get the tank under control. And besides, I reviewed your rule #1.

[e_baer]

i need more corraline in my tank. is there any way to speed up the process? i have heard turn the filter and skimemr off, and get a razor nad scrap some algae off and dont turn filtration back on for about an hour. is this a good idea?

[Mattfish]

This made me realize I had (yet) another question.

So Purple Up is bad for the pH, and I won't use it anymore. But.... are there any other additives I should keep around or use or consider?

Becky's (and others) point about just waiting for the coralline algae works for us, and seems to be the next step in our tank maturation, and regular water changes to keep the water "fresh", but anything else I'm missing or should consider?

[rlcline76]

Really, just keep testing your water. As far as needing additives, mine has been few and far between. Once I had to use calcium to up my ppm. Sometimes I have had to use Kent's Tech A & B for calcium and KH. I buffer every week for KH, unless my water test is saying I am beyond the high end of the scale. If you have questions about supplementing things like Strontium, Iodine yadda yadda yadda, test first. This stuff should be found in your salt mix and as long as you do regular water changes you should be in good shape.

[Mattfish]

I think you probably hit on the issues for us - we just started doing water changes, so that needs to continue. We also only test now for specific gravity, pH, temp, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate. Sounds like we should start testing for other stuff like Calcium, Strontium, Iodide, etc. Just so we know where we stand.

Thanks!