Dying fish

buckeye88

buckeye88

Member
Hello!
I have a problem with my tank. Every new fish that I get dies. Right now I have a lunar wrass and 2 three striped damsels. I tried adding a coral beauty angelfish months ago and it did not eat and died a few days later. Then I tried a tomato clown and the exact same thing happened. Last week I tried adding a blue tang and once again the same thing happened. I feed my fish a variety of foods including frozen mysis shrimp, freeze dried plankton, flake, pellets, and algea sheets. Could they not be eating because of the agressive fish in there? Any ideas or suggestions?
Nitrate - 10 ppm
Nitrite - 0 ppm
Ammonia - 0 ppm
pH - 8.2
Salinity - 1.024
Thanks any advise!
 
buckeye88

buckeye88

Member
I have a 55 gallon and my LFS told me (and this is how I do it) to float the bag for about 15-20 minutes. After that I need to slowly add my tank's water to the bad until the water in the bag is mostly water from my tank and it is at this point when I should release the fish into my tank. I was kinda wondering if that was wrong too.
 
buckeye88

buckeye88

Member
*typo* I meant to say slowly add water to the bag (not to the bad)
Anyhow it might be another important detail to add that when I asked about acclimation at my lfs he told me when adding my tank's water to the bag that this process should take no longer than a couple minutes but on this site it suggests several hours. I always thought this was because the shipping process is hard on the fish but should I spend more time acclimating the fish?
 
puffer32

puffer32

Active Member
Adding the water so fast is useless. The idea of acclaimating is getting your fish use to your water. Doing it fast like that doesn't get the fish use to anything, might as well just drop him in. I always acclaimate until the water in the bag is identical to mine,but don't do it fast cause that stresses the fish. Testing the water while acclaimating until water in bag is identical to mine. One of my lfs has the same exact salinity and PH as my tank, so his fish i acclaimate faster because there is no dramatic change. But when i buy a fish online or from another lfs who's water is way off mine, i take up to 2 or 3 hrs to slowly acclaimate the fish to my water.
 
trigger11

trigger11

Member
I would say yes that more time is needed to acclimate the fish to their new environment. There is a good little video which shows a good method for doing so on this website. It looks like your water parameters should be ok. As an fyi, you had mentioned you had a tried a blue hippo tang. Their recommended minimum tank size is 125G. They grow to be pretty large. Good luck when you get ready to add your next fish.
 
buckeye88

buckeye88

Member
Thanks for the advise guys! Does anyone think however that the agressive fish in the tank have enything to do with it.
The tang I added was also a baby (only about 2 inches long). I was planning to give it a biger home eventually but since it's so small I don't think that played a role in its death.
 
petjunkie

petjunkie

Active Member
Sounds like maybe your lfs and your tank water are drastically different and is shocking the fish's system. Have you tested the water in the bags at all and how are you testing, refractometer or hydometer and what kind of test kits.
 
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