Now I know why my clown died

[DDS4]

To make a long story short, my tank is running great (parameters were good...no ammonia, no nitrites, etc.), more than a month old, I bought my first fish a week ago that died in two days.

The fish started developing blanching of his top fin and having erratic behavior before he died.

I went to this particular fish store because, well, it was the cheapest store.

I passed by that store again today and saw a man emptying his cargo from a white van. Literally, he dropped these boxes labelled "live fish" on top of each other onto his hand-dolly.

I stood there watching him for a couple of minutes. Most of the boxes were crushed from all of the stacking and his white van was full of these boxes. Mind you, it's nearly 80 degrees outside and there's no telling how long these boxes were in his van.

I was stunned. I'm not buying anything from that store again and I feel sorry for the livestock going into that store.

Eyes opened. Lesson learned.

[vanmo92]

yeah. definetly dont buy from that store again

[Sugar Magnolia]

Actually that's pretty common practice. Most LFS don't even acclimate farther than floating the bags for a while, then dumping the livestock in the tank.

IMO your clown could have died for a number of reasons. Just because your ammonia, nitrite, nitrate etc were fine doesn't mean your biological bacteria population was enough to handle the bioload that your clown put out.

What size tank is this, how much LR is in there, any mechanical filtration, skimmer etc? What kind of acclimation technique did you use. Was this a tank raised clown or a wild caught clown?

[Jovreefer]

You dont think the airports handle them worse than this, Or the wholesaler that picks them up from the airport? These fish go thru alot before comming to your local LFS. I would put money down that because the guy was rough with boxes is not the reason your fish died....

[DDS4]

Originally posted by Sugar Magnolia
Actually that's pretty common practice. Most LFS don't even acclimate farther than floating the bags for a while, then dumping the livestock in the tank.

IMO your clown could have died for a number of reasons. Just because your ammonia, nitrite, nitrate etc were fine doesn't mean your biological bacteria population was enough to handle the bioload that your clown put out.

What size tank is this, how much LR is in there, any mechanical filtration, skimmer etc? What kind of acclimation technique did you use. Was this a tank raised clown or a wild caught clown?

To answer your questions....

Ammonia, nitrites = 0
nitrates = 1ppm
temps at 78-80 degrees
ph= 8.1

12 gallon Nanocube with 15 lbs of Caribsea aragonite live sand with 12 lbs of live rock. Tank is more than 1 month old. Live rock rubble placed in the back chambers along with chaetomorphia macroalgae. Ammonia and nitrites were at 0 for two weeks before I attempted to put in fish. Inverts I put in are doing very well about 3 weeks after I started the tank.

Acclimation technique: drip acclimation for 1 hour using Pisces pro drip acclimator. Lights were turned off. Lighting period slowly increased per day.

Tank raised false percula clown.

Maybe the fish was sick to begin with, dunno for sure.

[DDS4]

Originally posted by Sugar Magnolia
Actually that's pretty common practice. Most LFS don't even acclimate farther than floating the bags for a while, then dumping the livestock in the tank.

IMO your clown could have died for a number of reasons. Just because your ammonia, nitrite, nitrate etc were fine doesn't mean your biological bacteria population was enough to handle the bioload that your clown put out.

What size tank is this, how much LR is in there, any mechanical filtration, skimmer etc? What kind of acclimation technique did you use. Was this a tank raised clown or a wild caught clown?

To answer your questions....

Ammonia, nitrites = 0
nitrates = 1ppm
temps at 78-80 degrees
ph= 8.1

12 gallon Nanocube with 15 lbs of Caribsea aragonite live sand with 12 lbs of live rock. Tank is more than 1 month old. Live rock rubble placed in the back chambers along with chaetomorphia macroalgae and Chemipure. Ammonia and nitrites were at 0 for two weeks before I attempted to put in fish. Inverts I put in are doing very well about 3 weeks after I started the tank.

Acclimation technique: drip acclimation for 1 hour using Pisces pro drip acclimator. Lights were turned off. Lighting period slowly increased per day.

Tank raised false percula clown.

Maybe the fish was sick to begin with, dunno for sure.

[WendyMc]

:( I used to work in a LFS, & it's sad to say, but I can gurantee that those boxes went through much worse treatment by the airport/cargo companies. There's not much a store can do about the handling unless they drive out to the airport to pick up the shipment themselves, & that only cuts out on max 1/3 of the rough treatment. A better judge of whether or not that store is worthy is watching them put away the shipment. Is your store open during shipment days? If so you might want to poke your head in for further observation. I 1st worked at a large chain corporation which handled some saltwater, & they REQUIRED their workers to float bags for 10 min & just dump the fish in. That lead to alot of unnecessary suffering & death. If this is how your LFS handles shipments DO NOT buy from them. How long was your guy at the LFS before you bought, & did you observe its behavior (eating, interacting w/other tank inhabitants & its surrounding, breathing, defecating) before you bought? Also, by blanching on the top fin, do you mean the tissue turned white & sorta looked burned or eroded? Or just that the fin was split?

[steelhealr]

Although adding a fish after cycling, for most, is safe, there are so many problems that can occur after acclimation that it can be almost impossible to single out just one problem. However, what I do want to comment on is that there are so many other factors that can cause the demise of marine fish when 'params are normal':

-s.g.
-rate/type of acclimation
-newly arrived stressed out fish at the lfs (as above)
-pre-existing disease
-for those with corals, toxins
-chemicals (cleaners, perfumes, fumes, etc)
Just to name a few.

Fish can die with 'normal params'. Sorting out the most likely culprit could require a lot of detective work. SH

[DDS4]

Originally posted by WendyMc
:( I used to work in a LFS, & it's sad to say, but I can gurantee that those boxes went through much worse treatment by the airport/cargo companies. There's not much a store can do about the handling unless they drive out to the airport to pick up the shipment themselves, & that only cuts out on max 1/3 of the rough treatment. A better judge of whether or not that store is worthy is watching them put away the shipment. Is your store open during shipment days? If so you might want to poke your head in for further observation. I 1st worked at a large chain corporation which handled some saltwater, & they REQUIRED their workers to float bags for 10 min & just dump the fish in. That lead to alot of unnecessary suffering & death. If this is how your LFS handles shipments DO NOT buy from them. How long was your guy at the LFS before you bought, & did you observe its behavior (eating, interacting w/other tank inhabitants & its surrounding, breathing, defecating) before you bought? Also, by blanching on the top fin, do you mean the tissue turned white & sorta looked burned or eroded? Or just that the fin was split?

Here's a pic:
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b316/DDS4/IMG_0400.jpg

You can kinda see the top fin is kinda white. I didn't notice this until he was home. First day he was acting a little erratic, swimming up and down the tank glass on the right side.

I figured, no biggie. He was getting acclimated. Second day, he was exploring around the tank. Still was not eating but was swimming very actively.

On the third day, he seemed fine. Went out for two hours, came back and he was dead with a Nassarius snail on top of him.

[WendyMc]

It could have been a burn from ammonia (it could also be bacterial or fungal infection from physical damage). Do you know how long that store had him before you bought? In shipping water, ammonia builds up as fish breath & urinate/defecate, but PH drops so it's not as damaging to the fish. If a fish is acclimated w/out an ammonia nuetralizing product, the higher ph in system water causes it to burn tissue, both inside & out. Without being able to see much detail, that does look like many other shipping related ammonia burns I've had the misfortune of observing.

[fakename]

At one of my local Big Als stores I have watched them dump bag after bag of unaclimated fish into the tanks. The fish all lie sideways on the bottom and look dead.......When I asked about it one time they told me "some come back, some really are dead". It seems so wasteful! To think that these fish are shipped halfway around the world, and then die because the LFS is too lazy to acclimate them. Blows my mind!

[WendyMc]

One of the reasons I left the business. I hated seeing so many die, even when at the 2nd store I worked for we did everything possible to give the lowest stress, most healthy acclimation.