just starting.. cause of death?

jroussey · 08-26-2006, 09:04 PM

Hi, I'm new to the whole aquarium scene, and I just started a saltwater setup. I'm going slow, starting simple, and only starting with a couple damsels initially. I've followed the advice of the local pet store (not a chain store, a store specializing in aquariums and fish), and I was just wondering if anyone might know why this happened:

I bought 3 damsels, one b/w striped, one about half light blue/purple and half yellow, and one mostly blue with a yellow tail. All three were fine when introduced last night, although only the blue one really ate a lot when fed. Shockingly, the other two almost seemed not hungry. This morning, the first two were swimming around with mouths open and would not eat, while the blue one again devoured everything, and its mouth was fine. Getting home tonight, the first two are dead, as I somewhat suspected may happen.

I added dechlorinator and salt in the correct order, had the temp at around 80F, a sufficient filter is running, the tank is clean and the specific gravity is about 1.024. Everything seems set up fine, especially considering the one fish seems quite healthy. Any idea what happened?

Thanks for your time.

ahill3780 · 08-27-2006, 04:01 AM

Welcome to FishTankForums!

You will need a test kit to check for Ammonia, pH, Nitrite, and Nitrate to see how toxic your water is.

It doesn't sound like your LFS is all that great when it comes to giving advice. Check out the post on cycling your aquarium.

There are several things that could have caused this. It's hard to tell without knowing your tank parameters, or how/if you acclimated the fish before placing them into the tank.

A few explanations would be:

Your tank could be cycling and have very high levels of either Ammonia, Nitrite, or both at the moment.
You could have rushed them into the tank before they adjusted to the water parameters.
They could have been wild caught specimens that were caught using cyanide.
They could have just simply been though too much shock during all the transporting through distributors and importers.

Read through the following articles to help you out in starting the tank:

Getting better answers
http://www.fishtankforums.com/fish-t...solutions.html
Cycling your tank
http://www.fishtankforums.com/saltwa...-aquarium.html
Acclimating your fish
http://www.fishtankforums.com/saltwa...livestock.html
Quarantining
http://www.fishtankforums.com/saltwa...rocedures.html

Salty B · 08-27-2006, 11:34 AM

Yeah, I lost fish the same way initially a few years back. Since you are "new" to the saltwater scene, I am guessing that you have not let your tank cycle long enough. Do you have live-rock and live sand in your tank as well? And how long have you had your fish-tank before introducting the damsels into it?

jroussey · 08-27-2006, 10:36 PM

As a matter of fact, everything I've read about cycling and acclimating and all that on this site, was already told to me by my LFS. The man gave up his white-collar electrical engineering degree-required job to open his own fish store because of how passionate he is about it. Point being, I don't doubt this man and he wouldn't risk losing a potential long-term customer as a small business owner.

That aside, the tank has already cycled for some time and the fish actually acclimated for a good deal of time and that was fine. Today (two days later), that third fish is still exceptionally healthy and eats like crazy. I'm almost certain that it was simply isolated to those two particular fish, and that as suggested they either had dealt with too much during transportation (MI is not close to any tropical environments as I recall) or were simply sick on their own.

Any other possible reasons to be concerned, or does this sound likely right?

ahill3780 · 08-28-2006, 12:43 AM

I don't doubt your guy there knows what he is about, or that he is willing to impart his knowledge to you in order to keep a long term customer. He should have warned you about the danger of upsetting the cycle with the addition of three fish at once at the early stages your tank is likely at. One fish is fine and will not throw things off horribly bad, but 3 is pushing the limit.

I would say that it is likely that the other two died from over-stress, but I cannot tell you for certain unless you can provide us with some test results to see how far into, or out of, the NC you are.

Jay · 08-28-2006, 06:57 AM

Sounds like it could also be an osmotic shock problem. Perhaps could have been prevented by a longer acclimation time. I also agree that if the two fish were already stressed and weakened, then it would not take much more stress from the osmotic reaction (to whatever) to do them in.

Aaron, I suggested you add a bit on osmotic shock syndrome to your excellent article on introduction of new fish.

Sounds like this lfs guy may be on his game and that is refreshing

, still osmotic shock will kill and the conditions do not always show up in test numbers.

A competent lfs owner cannot be expected to remember everything or deliver the Saltwater Tank 101 course with every sale, it is also the responsibility of the tank owner.

Regards,
Jay