Hi, i have a 60l biorb which i know isnt the best for marine fish but i was given it as a present. It has been set up for 4 months now and i have not had any problems, after about a month with the advice of my lfs i added over intervals: a dancing shrimp, common clownfish, blue damsel, striped damsel, regal tang (only a baby and only in temporarily until i move to bigger tank) and two seahorses (i know you arent meant to keep them with fast fish but i have been keeping a very close eye on them and they do eat alot of frozen mysis so competition for food is not an issue). they had been doing fine for the next 3 months and i had been testing the water weekly where the nitrates where high to start but went down to a safe level about a month ago. i have 4kg of live rock too. Then yesterday i saw that my clownfish and striped damsel were missing, later in the day i saw the striped damsel hiding at the very bottom which i found very odd as he is always swimming about happily, so i let them be, then later that day my seahorse died before my eyes (he curled into a ball first then started swimming into the floor then curled back into a ball) whcih was very sad: (then i waited until the next day but still no sign of my striped damsel or clownfish, later that day i found the blue damsel dead. at that point i then took all the rocks out in in search of finding nemo and the striped damsel, with all the rocks out the striped damsel was nowhere to be found, and the clownfish was dead and partly devoured by the shrimp it seems. i then put all the rocks back and now just have a regal tang, a seahorse, and a dancing shrimp and then the snails and hermit crabs. what could have caused this? and what should i do?
POOR Water quality for sure. This is why small tanks are NOT recommended for beginners. Things go bad quickly. Your tank was overstocked. You were trying to feed Sea Horses enough to live without enough filtration. You need more live rock at least 7 more KGs. I bet if you test your water now your numbers are off the charts. With that many fish Your PH was probably very low along with oxygen levels. Get more live rock. Get a good PH test kit or better yet a monitor. and get a good book. Test your water source levels as well. You usually can look up your towns water quality report on line. If your water is bad start using RODI water you can buy at any decent fish store.
pets question and answers,www.5d2d.com
Go slow and research any fish before buying. Keep Seahorses in species only tanks.
All them fish in a 60litre?? Thats 15gallons.
Two damsels in 60litres, I'm not surprised one damsel didn't rip apart the other damsel.
No wonder your fish are dieing. I kept my two clownfish in a 15gallon, on their own, and after 1 month moved them to a 22gallon, where they bred, 12 months later they'll soon be in the 40gallon I'm buying.
Even with the 40gallon I would never put those fish in there together ...
