clown dead, next one on it's way out. help

[lizardlady58]

Hi. I brought home a pair of juvenile perc. clowns about three days ago. I got them as they were being delivered to the pet store so they never came out of the suppliers bags until they got home. I put them in my fifty gallon tank and noticed that one was a bit off from the beginning. His dorsal fin was down and he was almost stiff in the way he swam. Neither one of them swam in the erratic up and down fashion that I see clowns do. Anyway, the morning after I got my clowns I noticed some lateral line erosion on the smaller sickly one and that night he was dead. There is no sign of ick on the clowns. Today I have noticed the other clown looks like he is on his way out too. I have fifty pounds of live rock, lots of assorted algae and caulerpa which I keep trimmed to avoid reproduction. My water quality is perfect, salinity right were it should be, no ammonias no nitrites or nitrates, no phosphates, nothing out of the ordinary. General hardness and ph are okay as well. I have a wet dry system, protein skimmer, biodenitrator, phosphate remover pads, u.v. sterilizer and all of this is rated for tanks a bit bigger then mine. I have a hepatus tang that has been in the tank for about a month and he is thriving. He eats well and is quite active so I am thinking that the fish may have been sick when I got them. I have live rock and two cleaner shrimp as well as a blood shrimp. I keep the tank at 76 degrees. I think maybe picking out a fish at the store and having the store hold it for two weeks may be a good way to go next time just to be sure. Does anyone have any tips to prevent this from happening again? Is it safe to use the same supplier for other fish?

 

[lizardlady58]

I forgot to mention that to acclimate them I dripped them for half an hour and floated them for twenty minutes. thanks

 

[jemshores]

Acclimation is so important...how did you do it? And your tank at 76 degrees is a bit cool, IMO. When fish are shipped, they usually put chemicals in the water for them to thrive during the shipping process...that's the water they lived in for the past 24+ hours. Your tank does not contain those, therefore, acclimation of new fish to your tank is crucial. But, on the other hand, it sounds like they were visibly ill too. Will the LFS give you credit or do they have a policy for loss of life? Clowns are pretty hardy..were they tank raised or wild caught? That's a question I always ask. But that also doesn't mean that they will tell you the truth...it depends on your relationship with the LFS. Sorry for your loss, and hopefully you will try again soon. There's nothing like a pair of clowns in a tank!

 

[lizardlady58]

yep, clowns may be quite common but they are one of my favorites. The pet store will guarentee them. Also, I put a drop of api ammonnia remover in each bag shortly after I opened them. I was tod the clowns were captive bred which doesn't always mean they are captive bred. I drained about half the water from the bags after I put in the amm. remover (don't want to overdose) I set the bags in a critter keeper container with a divider to hold the bags steady and dripped water from the tank in at about a drop per second. I will raise the tank temperature a few degrees too. thank you for your help.

 

[i<3reefs]

I personally never buy anything from an Aquarium store that I have not seen swimming, and eating over a 2 week period of time. Keep in mind quite a few Aquarium Fish providers run their fish on UV sterilized holding tanks, so they have a longer acclimation period.
30 minutes on a drip, and 20 minutes on a float is not long enough for acclimating fish imo. I would suggest you watch the Saltwaterfish.com acclimation video, and follow their acclimation guidelines for each critter you purchase.
I follow an hour and a half, to a 2 hour acclimation process. I float my bags for near over and hour, before I start the drip process. I allow my drip process to dilute the shipped water by 5 fold, and then I net the fish into my aquarium.

 

[richl]

Ditto on the acclimation and making sure the fish looks healthy before you bring them home. I would recommend that you view the short acclimation viseo on this site. SWF recommends 2+ hours drip acclimation for false perculas. I always check the SG and PH of the bag water on new arrivals. The greater the differences between the bag water and your tank, the longer/slower the drip acclimation needs to be. I would also recommend a Quarantine Tank so you don't introduce disease into your main tank. I usually QT 5 weeks including 3 weeks hyposalinity to kill off parasites. This also gives the new fish some time to de-stress without being bothered by existing tankmates. There's plenty of info about QT's on the SWF site. Good luck.

 

[lizardlady58]

This advice is very helpful, thank you

 

[calbert0]

floating the bag for an hour is way over kill.... the small amount of water in that bag will temperature adjust at 15 minutes max...
i'm not saying you shouldnt drip and slowly acclimate for a long time, im just saying that if you float the bag in the water for an hour without opening it you are subjecting the fish to more stress and less oxygen.
secondly, if you buy a fish while still in the bag, the store should offer a discount on the fish but no warranty on its survival...
so it's a toss up, pay more and get a fish you know is in good health, or take the chance....

 

[lizardlady58]

I have learned my lesson! I have decided to set up a quarintine tank. I WILL NOT put any fish directly into my display tank ever again even if they have been at the pet store for at least three weeks. I jumped the gun this last time because lately, clowns are almost impossible to get here and when some became available, I couldn't resist. But that won't happen again. Also, I have a fair bit of inverts and live rock and I don't want to have to dig the fish out of there. I would rather wait a few weeks then put the fish into my quaranteen tank for a few more weeks then risk having the poor things die. I have decided to set up a twenty gallon using my 50 gallon aquarium water, and of course I will use appropriate filtration, etc.