Another death

[recliner]

I've been battling high nitrates for a while and also ich. It seemed like I was winning the battle...
I added some candy cane coral, 4 rbt anemone and a sea bay anemone 4 days ago. I had been testing nitrates and they were less then 5. When I added the coral I rearranged my tank. Now my nitrate is testing in the 15-20 range.
My angel got sluggish and seemed to hide in the rocks a lot. This morning he was sitting on the bottom of the tank and an hour later was floating sideways and not swimming away when I reached in and touched him. I pulled him out and put him in a bucket. He looked a little bloated and was not swimming at all so I had to put him down. His color also looked pale.
Doing another 25 gal change now. Is this a possible ich or nitrate death or maybe something else?

 

[Amba]

You added 4 rbta at the same time plus a sebae? Stirring up your sand could have caused the spike but going from 5 to 15 probably would not devastate your tank. What are your other parameters. Perhaps you caused an ammonia spike when you stirred up the sand, that can be deadly. What kind of angel? How did you acclimate the anemones? I think adding 5 anemone at the same time was a mistake, if I read your post correctly.

 

[wontonflip]

I agree w/ amba...I think stirring up the sand when you rearranged the rocks caused a spike and stressed your already-stressed fish. Not sure about the addition of multiple nems, because they don't really add bioload, but in stirring up the sand you caused a spike, one of the nems could die and take the whole tank with it.

 

[Bifferwine]

Please make sure you have the correct type of lighting for anemones. They are not easy animals to keep and require very high lighting as well as excellent water parameters. They do not tolerate nitrates. Whenever you rearrange rocks or stir up sand, you risk an ammonia and/or nitrite spike which can put your livestock at risk.

 

[recliner]

Ammonia has been testing 0. I had 5 rbt anemone right from the beginning. Even when nitrates were around 40 they seemed to do ok. I have 1 250 watt MH and 4 39 watt T5's actinics. The rest of the fish still seem normal so that's why I thought it might be something new. The angel had been fine weeks ago when my nitrates were much higher.
All 9 of my rbt anemone and the big sea bay anem look like they are doing great. Although rbt never keep their bubbles in my tank. Their tentacles are always long and skinny. It doesn't matter whether they are high or low in the tank or before or after they are fed.
Any idea why the angel seemed to bloat up before he died. I noticed it a couple days before he died but thought he was just getting fat.

 

[bjohanson1234]

Could be some sort of intestinal parasite. That would cause a fish to bloat up.

 

[recliner]

I've been running a uv sterilizer since the beginning. I have a 2nd one laying around, any benefit to running 2?

 

[chichimom79]

Some argue that there is no benefit to running one at all. The parasite would have to run through the sterilizer to be killed and since they stay inside the fish, at least to some degree, the UV is ineffective. Good luck.