freaking po'd my ocellaris clown story

pufferpoison · #1 05/19/2006, 04:57 AM

ok finally my LFS just today got in the ocellaris clowns and they had 5, i was there about 2 hours after they get their stock in. Ok on the the clowns was upside down and shooting towards the top and fell back down, the rest were fine. I picked the smallest ones and came home and drip acclimated them for about an hour and added them. they were fine, then i went to work. Came home and only saw one of them, the other i found dead at the back of tank. SO i'm going up there tomorrow to complain, since i've spend well over 1000 bucks there alone. But i doubt it will do any good. my water is as follows:

salinity 1.025
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Phosphate 0
Calcium 420's
Mag 1300
copper 0
Alk 9
I use RO/DI 0TDs water with 15% weekly water changes.
I have:
bubble coral
frogspawn
numerous zoo's and mushrooms
folded brain
RBTA
Candy Cane Coral
Devils Hand
Cauliflower coral
and a few others i'm too upset to list and everything is doing great.

So i'm really bad at confrontations, how should i approch this?

other fish yellow tang, regal tang, 2 lawnmower blennies.

pufferpoison · #2 05/19/2006, 05:05 AM

what makes me mad is i have 7 tanks in the house.

90 Reef
55 FW semi aggressive
29 Green Spotted puffer tank
20 Mollies and platies (wifes tank)
10 Grow out tank for mollie and platy fry
10 Betta
5 DP tank

and i can grow babies from mollies and platies and have a 98% survival rate (100% but a few jumped out) and even can raise Ghost shrimp babies and mystery snails babies but this clown that i took great care of acclimating died. I am so upset right now, not just for the $25 for him, but i killed a living creature and i don't know why he/she died.

boxfishpooalot · #3 05/19/2006, 05:17 AM

somtimes fish are cyanide collected. This will kill them easily. Its said that a potent vitamin c food product can detoxify the liver. Such as selcon food supplement.

Sorry for your loss.

unimike · #4 05/19/2006, 06:52 AM

that LFS starts selling them as soon as they recieved them ? That must have overstressed the fishes!

blufish · #5 05/19/2006, 04:46 PM

Clownfish can come into this country infected with Brooklynella, which is highly contagious amongst clowns, and can kill them in hours. When clowns are put in holding tanks at the importer, one infected clown can spread the disease to the rest. To combat this, some stores will quaranteen clowns and administer copper treatment to kill the parasite.

If you bought imported clowns that were not quaranteened, you could have run into this. Tank-raised clowns are much more likely to be disease free, so definitely look for tank-raised fish.

I am not saying that this is definitely what your clowns have, but it is a likely scenario, so be aware.

Travis L. Stevens · #6 05/19/2006, 05:00 PM

I wouldn't complain. No offense, but it's a little bit of everyone's fault, so there's no room for pointing fingers.

Wholesaler: It could have been cyanide collected or diseased. It may even have spent too much time in transit while being shipped causing severe stress

Retailer: Shouldn't have sold you the fish just after letting it go. If anything, they should have sold it to you BEFORE they acclimated it and got it out of the bag. Most likely this fish went from CO2 enhanced, low pH, bag water shortly to tank water, back to CO2 laidened bag water (after respiration), and then acclimated to your tank which probably has different parameters than all the waters it has been in in less than three hours.

Consumer: Not Quarintining, new tank inhabitants, possible pre-existing pathogen in display tank, and added stress.

There are probably many more possibilities on all three people's ends, but there is really no one way to tell who is at fault. As you can see, this fish could have gone through a LOT of different stress factors, and it just finally quit and died. No one person is at fault, so just make do with what happened. Do inform the retailer so they know, but definitely don't demand anything. At most, the retailer should say they will hold a fish to watch for signs of illness and stress before they might possibly reimburse you. As always with this hobby; Buyer Beware.

gizmo7718 · #7 05/19/2006, 05:39 PM

pufferfish,
There's no harm in trying. The worst they could say is no. Tell them exactly what happened. It sounds like you're a repeat customer so they should be willing to accommodate you. Don't approach it as a confrontation. You go in with that attitude and your responses may be offensive.
Ask for store credit, or ask them to hold one of the other clowns for you for a couple of weeks to ensure it's a healthy specimen. Good LFS's should be able to do that for you.

Ursus · #8 05/19/2006, 06:58 PM

Next time, I would wait for the clowns to have been alive in the retailers tank for at least 2 weeks before moving them. See if you can get them to hold one or two for you.

racrumrine · #9 05/19/2006, 07:18 PM

You should have used a QT. Wild caught clowns are often hard to acclimate and often refuse to eat.

Best of luck,

Roy

pufferpoison · #10 05/20/2006, 03:23 AM

the problem is it's the only fish store around, and many ppl around here want clowns since they haven't been able to get them in for like 3 months. They would have all sold within two weeks for sure. The manager did give me a store credit. so we are good to go. I will go with Tank breed next.

zemuron114 · #11 05/20/2006, 04:25 AM

you bought it to early. When the fish store gets them in and acclimates them then you buy it re-bag it and re-acclimate it into your tank, it is extrememly stressful to fish, especially young ones. AND clowns do not ship well to begin with. Next time wait atleast a few days before purchase.

travisurfer · #12 05/20/2006, 06:22 AM

tank bred is the best way to go. zero impact. im going to let the lfs hold on to my future tb skunks for week or two before i buy them. next time you can place a deposit.

boxfishpooalot · #13 05/20/2006, 06:33 AM

The water they get shipped is almost toxic when they get in. Its most likely full of ammonia and low in oxygen and ph.

Ammonia is deadly at levels as low as .20 to some species.A fish that is using a lot of energy to osmoregulate will have less energy available to it for the production of a slime coat,wich can protect against disease. Acting as a barrier to the outside world. As ph drops rapidly and ammonia increases the fish need to use more than the normal 80% of energy to maintain a natural osmotic balance between the water and their body. The slime coat is removed, the ammonia starts its corrosive action on the skin, gills ect. It gets harder to breath.The fish gets sick or dies.

Fwiw, I would wait at least a week and make sure the fish is eating. Then buy the fish.A fish that wont eat is a dead fish.