Fire Fish died

[gnesh69]

I bought what looked like a very healthy firefish. Within 24 hours he lost the scales on his dorsal fin. He was still eating and swimming around. The next day I could tell something was wrong as he had stopped moving around a lot. He finally disapeared a few hours later. My guess is the clean-up crew finished the deed.

 

Any thoughts what might have caused such a thing? I have two clown fish in my tank. Should I be worried? And is there anything I can do to clean out my system?

[MagElvs]

Did you check your parameters and acclimate properly?

 

Perhaps the clownfish nipped at it?

[gnesh69]

I checked the params and adjusted the tank. Then slowly acclimated over 2 hours.

[idog]

Once again...

 

A two hour acclimation is overkill. Stress and the chemical soup in the bag are major factors in fish loss.

 

Check SG in bag and tank, if close, then float for temp for a few minutes.

 

...of course you may have picked up a dud. Take it back to your LFS.

[Reco]

A lot of the veterans here will say that acclimating more than 30 mins in the LFS bag will do more harm than good.

[wav3form]

Once again...

 

A two hour acclimation is overkill. Stress and the chemical soup in the bag are major factors in fish loss.

 

Check SG in bag and tank, if close, then float for temp for a few minutes.

 

...of course you may have picked up a dud. Take it back to your LFS.

 

There wont be much to take back if his cleanup crew ate the remains.

[clifford513]

Sorry to hear of your loss. My guess would be that the fish was already sick and the stress of a two hour acclimation was too much for it. The max I would go for acclimation would be 30 minutes and that is with a big difference in salinity. If that is the case, I just squirt a shot of tank water into the bag with the turkey baster every 30 or so seconds and watch the fish for signs of stress. Don't give up, try again!

[Upright Joe]

I'm not sure I buy the short acclimation stuff.

 

These fish are all shipped to the LFS and spend much more than two hours sitting in a bag on the way to the store.

 

If your params closely match the LFS, a quick acclimation may be more appropriate. However, if your params are not close to the LFS, I think a slow acclimation is much safer.

 

I've seen local shops with salinities that were practically brackish - nowhere near natural seawater...

 

I do 1-2 hour turkey baster acclimations. I usually do 1 hour for fish and rugged corals. I usually do 2 two hours for inverts and more difficult corals.

 

So far, in three years of reefing, I've never lost a fish <knock on wood> and I've only lost one critter within 24 hours of purchase. That was a cleaner shrimp that I rushed acclimation on because I had an unexpected visitor show up and had to leave.

 

I'd like to hear these stories of slow acclimations gone wrong.

 

Oh, and sorry for not replying to the original question... That was rude.

 

What were the parameters when you checked them (Including temp and salinity) and how long has the tank been running?

 

Another thing that I think could be an issue in some cases is trauma from being netted and handled poorly by incompetent LFS employees. There have been a couple situations in which I've almost backed out of a sale because the person netting the fish was so rough with it and took so much time to get it into a bag. It makes me just want to take the net out of their hands and do it for them.