Gramma died in QT

[canadian_eh]

Well I lost my first fish

I set up a QT tank (10gal) about a week ago. Then the day before I bought the fish, I changed out about 25% of the water with water from the main tank and filled up an AC200 with bioballs that had been in the main tank for 6 months. This seemed like a pretty good way to reduce or eliminate the cycle.

On Saturday I bought a Royal Gramma that looked nice and healthy and was swimming around trying to eat anything floating around.

Brought it home and acclamated it over about 45 mins then put it in the QT. It spent all of its time over the next couple of days in the PVC piping but that didn't seem abmormal to me. Then this morning I noticed that one eye was really swollen. FIgured I would stop by my LFS after work but when I got home it was dead!

I took measurements post death.
NH4+ between 0.1-0.2
NO2 0.1
ph 8.2
SG 1.025

I'm wondering if anyone has thoughts on what killed it and what the next step is. For right now I'm leaving the tank up and running and will add a bit of shrimp to it to finish off the current cycle before getting another fish. Does that sound good or should I tear it down and clean it?

Thanks for any help
-Ron

 

[quarryshark]

Then this morning I noticed that one eye was really swollen

Probably a physical injury.

I'm wondering if anyone has thoughts on what killed it and what the next step is.

Hard to say, could have been a lot of things.

For right now I'm leaving the tank up and running and will add a bit of shrimp to it to finish off the current cycle before getting another fish. Does that sound good or should I tear it down and clean it?

I would clean it, just in case.
So sorry, this hobby can be tough at times.

 

[Fluff]

I agree with quarryshark. Sometimes, even our best efforts aren't good enough and things die. There's not always a clear reason or answer as to why. Sorry for your loss.

 

[canadian_eh]

Thanks to both of you. At least it doesn't look like I did anything wrong so that makes me feel better. I'll clean the QT tank out well and try again.

This has definately convinced me to keep using the QT tank. There was a brief moment where I considered just putting the gramma in the main tank when I got it...phew!

-Ron