Uronema? New nanocube & dead fish

[cafishgirl]

Hi,
Hoping for advise. I currently have a 14g biocube and I purchased a used 28g nanocube to upgrade to; I put in live sand and live rock and have had the tank up and running for about 3 weeks. I picked up 2 blue/green chromis on Thursday the 19th from Lovely Pets for starter/cycling fish. The next day both fish looked as though they were missing scales on their left sides and were red sore looking. On Sat they both looked a bit worse with rapid breathing and by Sunday am they were both dead. From pictures and details I've found online it looks like the fish had Uronema. I don't know what to do at this point.
Is my tank now infected with this protozoa?
Do I get more starter fish and start again?
Any advise would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

[ljr]

what was the ammonia when you put the chromis in? My guess is the tank is a bit toxic from the die-off from the live sand/rock.

I would relax, maybe put a piece of uncooked shrimp in the tank and wait until your nitrates/ammonia come down before adding more fish.

 

[Turbosnail]

+1 3 weeks is to soon for fish wait until the ammonia and nitrates go down.

 

[yitbos]

Hurry up and WAIT!!!
Save up your money and don’t spend anything on livestock right now. Sit back and watch your tanks chemistry for the next few weeks. It is the hardest thing to do in this hobby, but as you learned, instant gratification with a saltwater tank results in dead fish. Next time you go to Lovely Pets bring a zip lock bag of your tank water with you and ask for Andrew. He is very patient and has a great knowledge of fish/reef compatibility.

 

[cafishgirl]

Hi again,
I was pretty concerned because when I tested my water I got the following parameters:
ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 5
pH 8.2
Nothing seemed crazy off the scale....I had a random bud of a green mushroom from my other tank that was loose and I put it in the new one and it's flourishing so I assumed that the tank was ok to begin some starter fish.
So a few more weeks of just watching and testing H20 ya think?

 

[yitbos]

It wouldn't be a bad idea to bring some water to the lfs to have it checked. If your tests are old, they may not be accurate. Good luck.

 

[cafishgirl]

Something other than water parameters?

So I tested my water again and came up with the same results...my test kit is only about a year old so I don't think that's the issue.

ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 5
pH 8.2

Although this is not a picture of my chromis that died, this picture from the web looks like it exactly. Purchased the fish on Thur and dead by Sun. These red marks showed up the very next day after I got the fish.
Just really worried that I've introduced some kind of bug to the tank....
I've read that Uronema doesn't need a host and can survive in your tank.

Any thoughts on the picture?

 

[MikeG]

From a quick scan of some literature, it looks like hyposalinity is a recomended treatment. If you are worried that is what it is and have no corals in the tank yet (besides your single mushroom) you can run hypo for a month or so before stocking the tank.

 

[cafishgirl]

Thanks so much. Really appreciate the advise. I'd rather treat the tank with hyposalinity now than deal with a potential bigger problem later.

 

[MikeG]

No problem, glad I could help.