Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Please help. I am new to salt water. I have been doing fresh water for a long time and wanted to take a step up to salt. Got a 100 gallon tank. All live sand. 1 false coral cave. 1 live rock. and one statue for decoration and hiding. Tank is cycled. I have 2 powerheads and a Cascade 1200 canister filter. I have set up an all fish tank. No reef. I started out with a snowflake moray, some sort of tang, panther grouper, Lunare wrasse and a niger trigger. A few days ago my tank got too warm...way too warm. I came home and my house was hot inside nad the tank was around 90.. All my tanks were. My freshwater fish didnt seem effected by it. But my wrasse, tang, and niger trigger were all nose down, tail up spinning in circles. The tang died yesterday. The trigger is near death and the wrasse isnt far behine. They are both just laying on thier sides now not moving. breathing..but not going anywhere. I've been keeping hte house cool and the temp at around 78 since the incodent. I would say that was 4 days ago it happened. I go some new fish expecting those to die. A got a huma huma trigger, and I cant think of the name of the other trigger.. its very popular and pretty... alot of arching lines on its body, blue, black and white, and changes color as it gets older. Well, these guys are acting like poop too. Everything hides in the cave. Nothing eats. They act miserable. So now maybe it is not the temp effecting the other fish? The only thing eating anything in my tank is the eel. He seems fine. The grouper I used to see eat silversides the first few days I had him. But I havent seen him eat since that day I came home. he wasnt acting weird like the others. But he hides and doesnt eat..that I see. I am up all hours of the night so I know they dont just wait til night. Food just acumulates in thier tank. I was told to feed the aquadine. I also try throing in brine shrimp and sometimes bloodworms when I have some left over from my fresh water tanks. PH, salinity and amonia levels are perfect. Along with all the other nitrate and everything. No problems. I had an oily substance on the top of the water yesterday.. I dont know if it was from the dead tang or if some chemical got in there. I pulled the tang out that day. I also did a small water change. Prolly about 15% to try and get rid of the oily substance at the top. I dont know what else to feed these guys. Dont know why they are hiding. Dont know how to help my sick fish and keep my others from ending up the same way. PLease help in any way possible. Thank you.
PS. posting in other forums as well in hopes of answers

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.

I don't know a ton about saltwater and have only had inverts and coral, not aggressive fish. But I do work with them every day and my thoughts would be....

You have some rather to very aggressive fish in a tank that had the additional stress of the overheating. Stressed fish lay there. If there are not enough hiding spots they are even more stressed.
I would add some hiding and comfort spots, lots of them. I would offer live food (feeder mollies and or rosys) and some frozen reef mix with squid, clam etc. Feed at night and turn off the lights. Watch closely for brutality from each of the fish, outright biting but also muscling out of the way and pushing the others around. Give them time.

Took OUT thier cave... since they all over crowd it. Put in some plants..its all I could do as of right now. Turned off thier lights. The local fish shop is all out of thier shellfish mixes. They only had brine shrimp to offer. The angel and Hum huma are both eating the brinie shrimp hapily now and the niger trigger is swimming around again... I guess the wrasee is doing SOMETHING.. I still havent seen him eat. But he moved from where he was last night to a new spot when I got up. so he must be doing something. I still havent seen my grouper eat eitehr though.. that one bothers me since when I got him he was an agressive eater, up until the overheating incodent.. I hope he is ok. Everything seems to be happier now with plants and no lighting. Still havent SEEN anything eat the aquadine...exept for the niger trigger when I had him in the net. I dont know about adding guppies and rosys to salt water? Woudlnt they die shortly after? since htey are fresh water? I have been wondering what I can cheaply add like that as a live feeder....

Sounds better. Not guppies....feeder mollies. The mollys will live fine and allow the shyest fish to eat them. The rosys will fill up the more aggressive eaters first...as no, they won't live long in salt.

hmmm, I have never seen feeder MOLLIES..... Only mollies I ever see are the fresh water mollies that cost 3 dollars or more a fish.. Rosys.. I get those for my fresh water carnivores. so that isnt a problem.. I wonder why they dont supply feeder mollies? That would be great....