I think I killed my first damsels

[Guiids]

Hello,

I'm new to the hobby and unfortunately my first two damsels have died. I tried to research like crazy and have everything perfect, but I likely made a major mistake.

I had my Tank setup with a oversized hob, RODI water used, temperature at 80F. I was ready to go and when talking to the store owner he had mentioned hyposalinity as an easy way to avoid flukes. With everything I've read I'm not sure why I didn't think to lower the salinity slowly even though he didn't mention that part.

Basically, I dropped the SG to 1.010 in the tank, set the bag of fish friends in the water to acclimate for 20 minutes, and then... Took them directly out of their likely 1.02X water and plopped them in the 1.010.

They didn't die immediately, but over the course of a day one started to swim slowly, then would kind of freeze, lose orientation upside down or lay on its side, and then snap out of it and swim normal for a bit, doing that for hours until eventually passing away. The other did the same thing about a day later. I attached a video but warning it is sad and hard to watch.

I feel awful because with everything I've read this was the complete wrong way to do it. Something in my head and talking with the store owner made me think this was to be done prior to fish in the tank.

My question for the non-dumb fish keepers is: Is the immediate shock of such a drastically lower SG what for sure killed them? I'm worried I did something else wrong and I don't want to kill my next damsels if that wasn't it.

Thank you in advance for the knowledge

 

[gbroadbridge]

Hello,

I'm new to the hobby and unfortunately my first two damsels have died. I tried to research like crazy and have everything perfect, but I likely made a major mistake.

I had my Tank setup with a oversized hob, RODI water used, temperature at 80F. I was ready to go and when talking to the store owner he had mentioned hyposalinity as an easy way to avoid flukes. With everything I've read I'm not sure why I didn't think to lower the salinity slowly even though he didn't mention that part.

Basically, I dropped the SG to 1.010 in the tank, set the bag of fish friends in the water to acclimate for 20 minutes, and then... Took them directly out of their likely 1.02X water and plopped them in the 1.010.

They didn't die immediately, but over the course of a day one started to swim slowly, then would kind of freeze, lose orientation upside down or lay on its side, and then snap out of it and swim normal for a bit, doing that for hours until eventually passing away. The other did the same thing about a day later. I attached a video but warning it is sad and hard to watch.

I feel awful because with everything I've read this was the complete wrong way to do it. Something in my head and talking with the store owner made me think this was to be done prior to fish in the tank.

My question for the non-dumb fish keepers is: Is the immediate shock of such a drastically lower SG what for sure killed them? I'm worried I did something else wrong and I don't want to kill my next damsels if that wasn't it.

Thank you in advance for the knowledge

How long had the tank been setup?
Was it cycled?

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Its a huge difference in salinity, but damsels are very hardy, and possibly might have been able to overcome this.

Can we know more about your tank? Was it cycled before? What is the tank size? How did you cycle the tank? Can you show a tank picture? is the water surface properly agitated to help oxygenate the water?

 

[Guiids]

Its a huge difference in salinity, but damsels are very hardy, and possibly might have been able to overcome this.

Can we know more about your tank? Was it cycled before? What is the tank size? How did you cycle the tank? Can you show a tank picture? is the water surface properly agitated to help oxygenate the water?

Thank you both for the replies. To answer your questions, the tank was not cycled yet. I may be mistakenly believed that I could do a fish in cycle with live sand (the wet kind with bacteria), seachem stability, and seachem prime. I had the ammonia alert on it and it was the light green alert color but safe, and also checked with a separate ammonia strip regularly which was in the safe range? I also used one of the API 9 tests and all the other levels were in the safe range.

Tank info (attached pic):
-65 gallon with 2 lights and hoods
-Tidal 110 gallon filter with medias it comes with and filter floss set to max
-power head 1/3 down pointed up at surface (think it's 600 gph)
-300 W heater set to 80F

I actually had 3 damsel one is left, I thought she was going to die overnight and didn't want to complicate the thread, but luckily she's still kicking. I've been slowly raising salinity over the last 2 days to 1.014 now, any recommendations to give her the best shot?

Thanks again

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

there is not enough rock in the tank. The rock is the biofilter of the tank, the more rock you have, the stronger the biofilter. A 65 gallon tank should have about 55-75 lbs of rock.

Adding 5 fish right away to an uncycled tank is not the right way of doing things. A bottle of bacteria costs less than $10 (less than you paid for the dead fish) and would have cycled the tank in a couple of weeks for you.

I would also add another powerhead on the opposite side of the tank and point it at the water surface to help oxygenate the water.

You can still add some bottled bacteria to the tank (something like microbacter 7), it should help the process and help save the fish. Point your powerhead at the water surface so the fish can breathe, but adding another powerhead is better, that size tank should have good flow.

 

[Guiids]

OK so sounds like you're leaning more toward the cycle issue causing harm than the hyposalinity? I mean I know it's hard to know and probably both, just trying to understand why Stability, Prime, and live sand wasn't enough based on the videos I watched (must've been click bait ).

Stability is bottled bacteria right? Does that work or is microbacter 7 more likely to maybe save her?

I have another power head coming today, should both be pounted at surface or one of them more toward the bottom half of the tank?

Thank you much for the help

 

[Uncle99]

Lower salinity is fine.
It’s the increases that have to be done slow.
That change would not kill.

 

[Dbichler]

Biospira microbacter7 or dr Tim’s are the 3 to use. No this wasn’t a hyposalinity issue only high salinity would cause issues this fast. Your bio filter builds up over time and only one to two small fish should be added early on then slowly add more like one fish every month until fully stocked.

 

[Guiids]

OK so seems like it was the fact that the tank wasn't cycled. I wish I hadn't seen videos/threads on Prime and how fish in cycle is okay to do now, I feel horrible putting them through that .

One question, my ammonia alert is only the light green color and the ammonia tests I did were in the OK range... How do people do quarantine tanks and not kill their fish if there's little to no bio filter and ammonia tests aren't giving proper warning?

 

[gbroadbridge]

OK so seems like it was the fact that the tank wasn't cycled. I wish I hadn't seen videos/threads on Prime and how fish in cycle is okay to do now, I feel horrible putting them through that .

One question, my ammonia alert is only the light green color and the ammonia tests I did were in the OK range... How do people do quarantine tanks and not kill their fish if there's little to no bio filter and ammonia tests aren't giving proper warning?

For future reference, "Prime" does nothing to 'detoxify' ammonia notwithstanding it makes that claim on the bottle.

It works to remove Chlorine and that is all.

For a quarantine tank I usually use some filter media from the main tank in a hob filter - that way there is a working biofilter very quickly.

Also don't forget that most ammonia tests measure Total Ammonia, not toxic free ammonia which is a function of Ammonia, pH and temperature. Better test kits like Red Sea give a conversion table so you can see how toxic the tank actually is.