2 clowns died after just a few hours?

[Rham1281]

Ive had a 10 gallon frag tank set up for a little over 2 months now. I've been obsessed with it and have kept up on water changes and tests. They're API tests which I know aren't the best. I have a few corals which are doing great, a turbo snail, and some hermit crabs. My tests were consistent so I figured it would be a good idea to pick up a couple of clowns.
After I got them, I put the bag in my tank to match temp and I began adding a little tank water to the bag.
After about 2 hours I netted the fish and released them in the tank, keeping lights off.
They were swimming around and exploring and then all of a sudden they were upside down on the floor of the tank not breathing.

I did some tests and they were fine, consistent with what theyve been and consistent with the water in the bag the fish came in.

Ammonia-0
Nitrites-0
Nitrates-0
Ph- 8.5
Salinity-34
Temp-72

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[Aaron75]

Temp is low, may have been shocked. Other than that, oxygen?

 

[KrisReef]

The temperature is low but not so much that it would kill fish quickly.
I’m thinking that they were sick when you bought them and they died from disease, guessing gill flukes or Brooklynella only because they died so rapidly?
Other possibilities would be something toxic in the system (-an ICP test might provide a clue?

If it was O2 they likely would have been gasping at the water surface or similar behavior?

Id add a fresh water black Molly to see how that does in the tank. They are inexpensive and often used to detect disease in a system. Get meds and read how to treat for disease before adding more fish and figure out what happened. Quick death should be rare in a healthy system. Sorry about your losses.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Ive had a 10 gallon frag tank set up for a little over 2 months now. I've been obsessed with it and have kept up on water changes and tests. They're API tests which I know aren't the best. I have a few corals which are doing great, a turbo snail, and some hermit crabs. My tests were consistent so I figured it would be a good idea to pick up a couple of clowns.
After I got them, I put the bag in my tank to match temp and I began adding a little tank water to the bag.
After about 2 hours I netted the fish and released them in the tank, keeping lights off.
They were swimming around and exploring and then all of a sudden they were upside down on the floor of the tank not breathing.

I did some tests and they were fine, consistent with what theyve been and consistent with the water in the bag the fish came in.

Ammonia-0
Nitrites-0
Nitrates-0
Ph- 8.5
Salinity-34
Temp-72

Any help is greatly appreciated.

besides acclimating to very cold temperatures (77-79) is best, and adding a little tank water inadequate as you need a rate of exchange for both ph and salinity matching the salinity of bag water with that of the tank. Osmotic shock may have occurred.
For the future, your acclimation is simply not long enough. Just alone, you would have floated bag to equalize temperature and you want to empty bag and fish into a CLEAN bucket and they add tank water until AT MINIMUM you matched the salinity in the bucket with that of the tank. I add a cup of water every 15 mins until you have assured salinity, ph have been equalized
My acclimation method (not the only one out there):
I generally:
Float for 20-30 minutes
Transfer fish and water into a clean bucket
Then . . . .
Measure the Ph, salinity and temperature of the bag water. If you can, make up some water in a container that has exactly the same measurements as the bag readings and move the fish right over, then you can add a cup of tank water to bucket every 15 mins 6 times (almost 1.5 hours)
Then check salinity in bucket and compare to tank. If no match or very close, add a cup of water every few mins until youve reached salinity and trap fish in same cup and pour off water and release into display. Release under LOW light before lights out. Fish in shipped bags produce carbon dioxide and ammonia which lowers the pH of the water in the bag, and in turn makes the ammonia toxic to the fish. When you acclimate them, if not done just right, you drive off the carbon dioxide faster than you are diluting the ammonia which then raises the pH of the water in the bag, and in turn makes the residual ammonia very toxic to the fish.
Sometimes, the fish will die right in the bag

 

[Tamberav]

Did you drip them for two hours in the bag or bucket? Did you add an air stone?

Were they shipped?

Did you check the salinity of their bag water?

 

[Rham1281]

Did you drip them for two hours in the bag or bucket? Did you add an air stone?

Were they shipped?

Did you check the salinity of their bag water?

I had the bag floating in the tank and gradually added water.
All my water parameters matched the bag they were in. I got them from Petco locally.
I'm definitely going to be finding a new acclimation process.
Thanks for the response!

 

[Rham1281]

besides acclimating to very cold temperatures (77-79) is best, and adding a little tank water inadequate as you need a rate of exchange for both ph and salinity matching the salinity of bag water with that of the tank. Osmotic shock may have occurred.
For the future, your acclimation is simply not long enough. Just alone, you would have floated bag to equalize temperature and you want to empty bag and fish into a CLEAN bucket and they add tank water until AT MINIMUM you matched the salinity in the bucket with that of the tank. I add a cup of water every 15 mins until you have assured salinity, ph have been equalized
My acclimation method (not the only one out there):
I generally:
Float for 20-30 minutes
Transfer fish and water into a clean bucket
Then . . . .
Measure the Ph, salinity and temperature of the bag water. If you can, make up some water in a container that has exactly the same measurements as the bag readings and move the fish right over, then you can add a cup of tank water to bucket every 15 mins 6 times (almost 1.5 hours)
Then check salinity in bucket and compare to tank. If no match or very close, add a cup of water every few mins until youve reached salinity and trap fish in same cup and pour off water and release into display. Release under LOW light before lights out. Fish in shipped bags produce carbon dioxide and ammonia. The carbon dioxide lowers the pH of the water in the bag, That in turn makes the ammonia non-toxic to the fish. When you acclimate them, if not done just right, you drive off the carbon dioxide faster than you are diluting the ammonia. That raises the pH of the water in the bag, and that in turn, makes the residual ammonia very toxic to the fish. Sometimes, the fish will die right in the bag

Holy cow! Thanks for the detailed response. I really appreciate it.
I'll definitely be adopting some of your acclimation techniques.

 

[Rham1281]

The temperature is low but not so much that it would kill fish quickly.
I’m thinking that they were sick when you bought them and they died from disease, guessing gill flukes or Brooklynella only because they died so rapidly?
Other possibilities would be something toxic in the system (-an ICP test might provide a clue?

If it was O2 they likely would have been gasping at the water surface or similar behavior?

Id add a fresh water black Molly to see how that does in the tank. They are inexpensive and often used to detect disease in a system. Get meds and read how to treat for disease before adding more fish and figure out what happened. Quick death should be rare in a healthy system. Sorry about your losses.

I'll look into the mollies.
They weren't really gasping at the surface. They were just swimming around mid to low tank.

Thanks for all the info!

 

[zaddy]

The temperature is low but not so much that it would kill fish quickly.
I’m thinking that they were sick when you bought them and they died from disease, guessing gill flukes or Brooklynella only because they died so rapidly?
Other possibilities would be something toxic in the system (-an ICP test might provide a clue?

If it was O2 they likely would have been gasping at the water surface or similar behavior?

Id add a fresh water black Molly to see how that does in the tank. They are inexpensive and often used to detect disease in a system. Get meds and read how to treat for disease before adding more fish and figure out what happened. Quick death should be rare in a healthy system. Sorry about your losses.

not brook, brook kills much slower than that.

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

First of all sorry for your loss. It is frustrating when something like this happens with no apparent clue to how it happened. Your tank has living/thriving animals in it so we can rule out that as a source. Other clues are your fish came from petco so it is not stated or unknown how long they have been there. Most of their clowns are aquacultured so they are used to an artificial environment. But they would sell fish that have just arrived because they do not have holding tanks. So in theory they could have just been shipped the fish and put them in their tanks and you walk up and purchase them. That is a bit hard on any fish. The other factor is your temp, it is on the cool side, it is not what the fish are used too. If you want to acclimate fish to a cooler temp that can take a while. Most fish on average can do a 1-2 degree difference in a day, but you brought them down 5+ degrees from what they are used too. Also just the stress of being caught and bagged is a huge thing. So it could be a combination of factors that over stressed the fish. So in the future it may be helpful to reduce or eliminate some or all of these factors.

 

[Tamberav]

I had the bag floating in the tank and gradually added water.
All my water parameters matched the bag they were in. I got them from Petco locally.
I'm definitely going to be finding a new acclimation process.
Thanks for the response!

There is no need to leave the fish in the bag and drip for two hours when parameters match. You can float and add them. They are basically being left in a small amount of water with no flow and it is stressful.

Reef Beef has an episode, Don’t drip fish that you can watch in youtube. I know biota says to NOT drip their fish on their acclimation instructions on their website.

I bet you petco does not drip their fish for hours. I know my LFS doesn’t. Why are we taught to do this? It’s like a bad rumor that won’t go away.

Ofc if the fish is in low salinity then this changes things but even then, we match new water to the bag and put them in a bucket of new water and then acclimate up from there.

The idea is to not keep them in the dirty bag water with no flow for long periods.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I had the bag floating in the tank and gradually added water.
All my water parameters matched the bag they were in. I got them from Petco locally.
I'm definitely going to be finding a new acclimation process.
Thanks for the response!

I wonder if the fish were being housed in lower salinity at the LFS? Acclimating fish from low to high cannot always be done in one action, you sometimes have to acclimate the fish in a tank by themselves over a few days.

Here is an article I recently posted here on fish acclimation:

Acclimation Methods

Acclimating Animals to Aquariums Jay F. Hemdal c.2020 Introduction to acclimation techniques Most beginning aquarists hear that they must “acclimate” any new animals they add to their aquarium. Acclimation (sometimes termed...

www.reef2reef.com

Jay

 

[Lagoonreef13]

What test kit are you using? Also are you using a digital thermometer or are you basing the temp off of what the heater says? Maybe I'm wrong, but from what I noticed is salinity readings seam to change depending on water temperature? Maybe the swing was more significant due to a possible 10 degree temperature difference

 

[Rham1281]

I wonder if the fish were being housed in lower salinity at the LFS? Acclimating fish from low to high cannot always be done in one action, you sometimes have to acclimate the fish in a tank by themselves over a few days.

Here is an article I recently posted here on fish acclimation:

Acclimation Methods

Acclimating Animals to Aquariums Jay F. Hemdal c.2020 Introduction to acclimation techniques Most beginning aquarists hear that they must “acclimate” any new animals they add to their aquarium. Acclimation (sometimes termed...

www.reef2reef.com

Jay

Thanks for the article! I'll definitely check it out.

I checked the salinity of the Petco water and it was 34 which is right where I try to keep mine.

 

[Rham1281]

What test kit are you using? Also are you using a digital thermometer or are you basing the temp off of what the heater says? Maybe I'm wrong, but from what I noticed is salinity readings seam to change depending on water temperature? Maybe the swing was more significant due to a possible 10 degree temperature difference

Im using API (I know. Not the best) but I also tested it against the Petco water and the results were the same. Petco water actually had a higher nitrate level than mine.
I'm using a digital thermometer to keep track of temp.
I just discovered today actually that my thermometer is low. It was a crappy coralife.
So the temp was actually 76°F.