Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi,
I'm new to salt water tanks.. Set up my fisrt. 100 gallon tank. Its cylced, PH levels aer perfect, salinity is perfect. TEsted Amonia levels nad everything. I see no problems anywhere. But every fish I have put in there has either died or is miserable and I havent seen them eat once. All except my snowflake moray. My eel eats and seems fine. But the fish are just miserable. I have lost 1 tang already and my Lunare Wrasse and Some sort of Trigger (cant think of its name right now) is dying. Theey just lay on thier sides and dont eat. I THOUGHT thier problem was due to temperature since I came home the other day and the house had been too warm and the tank got to around 90 degrees. But since then I have made sure to keep the house cool enough and the tank stays around 78. I since then added a huma huma trigger, and another sort of trigger..again blanking on the name..very pretty, lots of lines, blue black and white..changes color when it gets older.. anyhow I dont know if the name matters. They are both triggers and both hide in teh same cave with my panther grouper, and the other triggers. Everything seems to gravitate to that cave or that corner of the tank. And they just hide. I know they dont come out at night because I am up jsut about all hours of the night. Nothing eats. I put in Aquadine which is what I was told to feed them. The grouper has eaten some silverside pieces a few times. BUt i havent seem him eat lately.. he was there when the tank got too hot. But he wasnt acting all weird like the others did. And he isnt on his side...yet. Anyhow I am all out of ideas here. I dont know what is wrong. All levels are perfect. I dont know if the temp needs to be even cooler? is 78 still too warm? Could I possibly have gotten some chemical in the water? I had to clean some water yesterday as I noticed a oily looking film on the top of the water. It could have been from the dead tang taht was in there. but again I dont know. All my fresh water fish are happyy and healthy. I even have expert level fish in those tanks and have no problems. But I just cant seem to figure these salt water fish out. What else should I try feeding the triggers? I also put brine shrimp in and sometimes try bloodworms since I have some left over from my other tanks. I am not sure if I need any flake or pelet food what KIND of flake and pelets since all I have for that is tropical fish foods...for freshwater. So I doubt that will work. Any help, suggestions anyhting please. I dont want to lose these beautys....or the buttloads of money I have spent on them! lol

The fish I could not think of the name to was not a trigger but a Emporer angelfish. An interesting thing I have seen in the Niger trigger is I put him in a big fish net and put food in. He has been laying on his side in one spot for the last 2 days. But now that I have him in the net he is swimming upright and eating the food in the net and acting fine..... Ok, so maybe I need more hiding places to make these guys feel more comforatble to eat? I have the antient temple statue thing, false coral cave, and one live rock with holes in it. But perhaps this isnt enough.... Is there any plants or anything else I can do to make these guys feel more at home? I dont want to do reef since I have critters like the eel and others that will tear it all up. I also tore up some shrimp and threw it in tonight. The huma huma looked like he might have been nibbling some. Still havent seen the angel eat. The wrasse is also still laying in the same spot.... I havent seen it eat either.

What about adding some more circulation to the water? It could be they are oxygen starved. The one in the net may be getting better air circulation?

Add in a power head or two and maybe that will help?

I run an extra one in the back of my saltie just to be on the safe side.