Questions about newer FOWLR environment

Hi, we started our 75 gallon FOWLR tank in April (sorry, can't remember exactly) and we put mostly established Live Rock in it with some dry live rock. We currently have 2 pairs of percula clowns (one pair black one pair traditional orange) a pineapple trigger, a rougue damsel that made it through 20 minutes of hiding in live rock out of the tank, a scooter blenny, a lawnmower blenny, a cleaner wrasse and a pajama cardinal. (Also a starfish) We have had trouble lately in that we lost two Angles in a row, first a coral beauty and then a fire angel. We lost 2 cardinals although we figured out that was due to them being very picky eaters and we weren't putting their favorite food in the tank, now corrected. Then most recently we lost our lion fish and our dottyback. The Lion Fish and the Angels were able to be easily retrieved out of the tank. We finally found one of the cardinals and retrieved it out of the tank. But there are still at least 2 fish we don't have a clue where their remains are, is this a problem? Also, we have a green mossy looking growth going at the top of some of the live rock now, is this desirable? We do have a nice red coloration on a lot of the live rock as well which I know is good. Anyone know why we might have lost the Angels and Lionfish? The Lionfish was a heartbreaker, he seemed to be doing well and we fed him the feeder guppies because we couldn't get him to have anything to do with shrimp. Everything always seemed to go so well with this hobby until we started losing fish and that is NOT a good feeling, any ideas are appreciated!

 

Posted By crony333 on 09/10/2009 08:40 AM
I don't have a fowlr but for a 75g tank .. am I counting semi correctly ? 16 some odd fish a few large ones, were they all in there at the same time when they started dying? How are your parameters i know predatory fish especially when they are feed feeder fish create a ton of bio load, that with some dead fish in there must be doing some crazy stuff to your numbers. Some of the fish you have are pretty aggressive, I don't do much about mixing them since I have mainly a peaceful community, not sure if that could be a problem. The moss your seeing is most likely from the high amounts of nutrients in the water. And you said red coloration on the rocks, can you wipe it, blow it off? If you can its most likely cyno another form of algae. Algae is pretty common in new tanks and will go away but trying to minimize or reduce your nutrients helps speed up the process of it going away.
We currently have 10 fish. They are all fish that will not get over 7" with the possible exception of the cardinal. All are fairly small now and the trigger won't get over 4-5" big. He is one that Iowa Pet had for at least 3 months and did fine with all types of fish. He is quite docile and doesn't seem to harm any fish. The only fish that is overly aggressive is the damsel and it is smaller than all of the other fish so it was put in it's place quickly and seems to coexist just fine. We didn't have all at the same time as we added some when we lost some (never had two angles at once) however we have always asked Iowa Pet, usually Tim, for advice on whether different fish will be ok together and whether the totals were ok. The red coloration is not one that blows off like the cyno which we experienced early on and were able to adjust things and get rid of, it is a coloration to the rock that you will often see in established reefs.

 

I should add that it isn't really a red color, it is a pinkish purple color that I have been told is very desireable.

 

Just an update. Hopefully our problems are solved however we lost a number of fish in the process. As begginers in this hobby we were taking our samples every so often to Iowa Pet and didn't realize that PH was critical. EVERYTHING else in our tank was perfect but the PH had fallen to a dangerously low level, hence the mossy algae growth and fish death. We have adjusted that, got our own test kit and seem to be doing well once again. We are howerever going to wait an extended period before we add any fish.

 

No problem, I always figure that there are others like us that are just learning. We used the crushed coral that Iowa Pet stocked and recommended.

 

Thanks for the advice! My wife does do light suctioning of the substrate and we do have a Lawnmower Blenny and Scooter Blenny which really help keep things cleaned up. So far we havent' had any trouble and I hope that continues.