Shipped fish died hours from being placed into tank

javisaman

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Hi,

I had ordered two fish from a nearby (but still shipped overnight) store. A small captive-bred yellow tang and a captive bred royal gramma. Both came in alive and seemed okay. Even though they were captive-bred I still wanted to observe them before placing them into my display tank. My quarantine is a long (33") 17 gallon acrylic tank. I've used the tank to monitor and treat fish in the tank in the past. The last time I used it was 6 months ago to prophylactically treat 3 dispar anthias with general cure, metro, and copper power for 40 days. The fish made it out fine. After I used the tank I bleached the entire thing and rinsed it out at least 2 times with tap water and 2 times with RO/DI. The tank was left to dry for the last 6 months. In anticipation of these fish, I mixed fresh saltwater and used the same heater and PVC pieces. I added biospira bacteria to the tank and brought the ammonia up to 0.2ppm using ammonia chloride. I let this cycle for a week and both my seachem ammonia badges registered no reading.

I temp acclimated both fish. I added the royal gramma first (with most of the water in the bag) and the fish did seem a little skittish but went into the pvc to hide. About 15min later, I added the tang and it swam around for about half an hour pretty normally. I let the fish settle in for the next couple of hours without bothering them, then when I came back both were dead. I don't know what went wrong. I was dumb and didn't check the salinity of the bags. The only thing I guess is that my acclimation was not sufficient. In the past, I usually float temp acclimate and pull out the fish with my hand and place into the tank. I've always been under the impression that the sudden pH increase from O2 causes the ammonia to become toxic, therefore open bag acclimation can be dangerous. I'm totally bummed that I lost both fish :( and I'm hoping not to repeat my mistakes.

My parameters of the tank were as follows:

0 ammonia reading
77F temp
1.025 SG measured both from refractometer and Milwaukee digital.
0.02 V stray voltage

Any thoughts on what could have gone wrong?

PXL_20210205_192550096.jpg
 

gentlefish

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Highest on the list is salinity. You can still call the store to see what salinity they ship in. Double check your side, too. I have 3 meters and over 3 standards and none gives the exact same result. Lesser on the list is O2. But that implies real new water, and what you pointed out, you were very diligent here. It’s too sad. Sorry for your loss.
 

Bossman

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I just acclimated a Melanarus wrasse that was purchased from DD. When it arrived I put the entire bag contents into a small, approximately 2 gallon, tank (Red Sea ATO container). Then slowly removed the water that came with the fish and added the same amount of DT water into the acclimation tank. One half of a cup at a time. The wrasse was laying on it's side for 30 minutes and I was not optimistic. But after time, it came back.

I then put the fish into a fish trap inside the tank so that it would not be picked on and the other fish could get used to it.

I do not QT. Not saying I'm doing it perfectly. But I think the acclimation to your water should be a slow one and you don't want to add the bag water into your QT at any costs.
 

Tamberav

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Hi,

I had ordered two fish from a nearby (but still shipped overnight) store. A small captive-bred yellow tang and a captive bred royal gramma. Both came in alive and seemed okay. Even though they were captive-bred I still wanted to observe them before placing them into my display tank. My quarantine is a long (33") 17 gallon acrylic tank. I've used the tank to monitor and treat fish in the tank in the past. The last time I used it was 6 months ago to prophylactically treat 3 dispar anthias with general cure, metro, and copper power for 40 days. The fish made it out fine. After I used the tank I bleached the entire thing and rinsed it out at least 2 times with tap water and 2 times with RO/DI. The tank was left to dry for the last 6 months. In anticipation of these fish, I mixed fresh saltwater and used the same heater and PVC pieces. I added biospira bacteria to the tank and brought the ammonia up to 0.2ppm using ammonia chloride. I let this cycle for a week and both my seachem ammonia badges registered no reading.

I temp acclimated both fish. I added the royal gramma first (with most of the water in the bag) and the fish did seem a little skittish but went into the pvc to hide. About 15min later, I added the tang and it swam around for about half an hour pretty normally. I let the fish settle in for the next couple of hours without bothering them, then when I came back both were dead. I don't know what went wrong. I was dumb and didn't check the salinity of the bags. The only thing I guess is that my acclimation was not sufficient. In the past, I usually float temp acclimate and pull out the fish with my hand and place into the tank. I've always been under the impression that the sudden pH increase from O2 causes the ammonia to become toxic, therefore open bag acclimation can be dangerous. I'm totally bummed that I lost both fish :( and I'm hoping not to repeat my mistakes.

My parameters of the tank were as follows:

0 ammonia reading
77F temp
1.025 SG measured both from refractometer and Milwaukee digital.
0.02 V stray voltage

Any thoughts on what could have gone wrong?

PXL_20210205_192550096.jpg

always test bag water. I once had fish come in as hyposalinity by mistake of the shipper.

Then just add some RODI to lower the QT tank to match and add them.

Check the bleach bottle and make sure there is no fragrance and that it doesn’t say no splash to such.
 
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javisaman

javisaman

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I wonder if it was splashless bleach. All of the "regular/plain" bleach we have in the house is splashless.
 
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javisaman

javisaman

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O2 doesn't increase pH.
The idea came from this thread: Sorry it seems to have more to do with CO2 and not O2

 

Malcontent

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The idea came from this thread: Sorry it seems to have more to do with CO2 and not O2


It takes hours for CO2 to diffuse out of the water and pH to increase after the bag is open.
 
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