ID please

[roilciuc]

I dont know what this fish has but the tank was just set up. Thing is it had water sitting in it for months and we used that old water. Salinity is fine, ammonia 0, nitrite 0, and nitrate i think it was 200 but im not sure, im on vacation right now so i cant give exact details. 40lb of live rock were put in but the old sand was left in. A UV sterilizer is coming once i get back from vacation. Can u explain what it is and what i should do, i dont want to scare the person whos tank this is. Thank you

 

[Smitty]

Wow, nitrates at 200...that's high. What other fish are in the tank with the damsel? Looks like he's getting beat up.

 

[eddie240]

I agree with smitty, those cuts are from bites of another fish. usually a wrasse, cus i had the same problem. if there is bigger fish, the reason they are going after him is because they are hungry, try feeding them more.

 

[Smith11]

It looks like he got cut on a rock, because i dont see any rips on his fins. It looks like theres a fungus growing on the cut too.

 

[roilciuc]

That's what I thought but there are no other fish in the tank. I was thinking it was a weak praying mantis but I don't think they come that weak.

 

[400gallonnano]

Praying mantis? Didn't know they could swim

 

[jcarlilesiu]

You used sand and water that had been sitting for months? Was the tank still up and running, just nothing in it or did you just shut down all of the equipment for a few months and then turn it back on and start stocking?

If you shut everything down but didn't change out sand, water, etc. and you also added additional live rock that wasn't cured, that would explain the crazy high nitrates. You may have had a ton of bacterial die off that the cycle finally caught up with, but now you have very high nitrates.

In a FOWLR, this isn't a huge deal. I would however start taking action to reduce those nitrates by doing medium 10 - 25% water changes.

If the fish is healthy otherwise, it may recover.

 

[roilciuc]

The tank was shut down but the rock was cured and transported carefully so not much would die. Sadly the fish died. It will b a fowlr tank, I hope this doesn't happen with the new fish