First Fish Disaster

[TCC]

Hi folks,

Please take a look at my thread I posted over in the newbie forum.
http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=403574

I bought the fish at Pet Connection and all the Percs in the tank looked really good and active. I don't think it was a problem with their fish. Does that LFS have a pretty good reputation in reality?

Any thoughts on what I might have done wrong? I described how I acclimated the fish. I'm curious if that seemed right.

I have a lot of experience with FW tanks and this is my first foray into SW and really know absolutely nothing. I've obviously done something very wrong here.

BTW- I've been a little lurker on your board for a couple of weeks. I plan on checking out the club at tonight's meeting and joining up. I look forward to meeting you.

Thank you

[duec22]

I had the same thing happen when I fist added clowns.. The I got my first clown from PetCon. and at the time they only have a couple so I only got one. It did just fine, I went back in the day that they got a new shipment to find my new clown a mate. That fish did not fair as well..It was dead within hours...I think from stress. It got shiped, stressed out, got acclimated to the pet store tank, got more stressed, then got baged up and driven to my house, even more stress, then acclimated to my tank, too much stress. From then no I will not buy a fish unless I know it's been in the pet store for a week or so. I finally did get another clown to acclimate to the tank, but it never seemed all that healthy and died about six months later. When I tried to get a another mate for the original clown I got it from Capital and I think it came with Brookinela(sp?). Both clowns were dead when I came home from work the next day. Sine then I haven't tried any more...

[thereefgeek]

Well, I think P.C. has fine fish, but (big but w/any LFS) check out the fish carefully before you buy. Sometimes I'll hang out an hour watching a fish, checking it's color, skin/scales, fins etc. Is it breathing heavy? Does it react to me looking into the tank? Having the guy feed it for you is no guarantee it'll be healthy, so I usually don't bother to ask. Study your fish on line or in a book before you decide "I just gotta have that fish!". Impulse buys are hard habbits to break (I know) but be sure you can care for any fish before you buy it. I think for most people, damsels are terrible fish, even if the guy at the LFS says you have to have one to cycle your tank. That's bull, and clowns are actually a really hardy fish, and can usually be introduced shortly after a tank is set up. Sometimes they die though, so don't give up the hobby just yet. Tonight we're having a Q & A session, so this will be perfect for you to come by. We have a lot of members with many years in this hobby, and any of us would be more than happy to chat with you, so come on out. BTW, I purchased 5 Pseudanthias tuka from Pet Connection a couple months ago, and now I have 3. Pretty good odds for a fish that's nearly impossible to get to take prepared foods, but the last 3 absolutely love Cyclop-eeze, and they're doing great so far. I guess my point is we ALL lose fish from time to time so don't take it personally. Just try to figure out what went wrong and do it different next time.:beer: