Dying SAEs! This is heartbreaking - HELP!

[Absinthena]

MAN! I just lost my message I typed I will make this one short cause I'm stressing out.
30 G - Tetras, Danios, Cory and one CAE. Planted w/ algae "prblems"
10G - Livebearers, Cory. Lightly Planted with algae "problems".

Ordered 9 SAE and variations of shrimp from azgardens.com.
They seemed to have screwed up and didn't have me sign the package so it was sitting on my back porch for 3 hours in 45 degree weather.

I did correct temp acclimation (given circumstance) and correct water acclimation too. THEY'RE DYING! The next morning I wake up to dead SAE and missing Shrimp. They float around upside down and swim in spurts until they just fall to the bottom and dont get back up. The ones that are still alive are nicely colored but worry me by always hanging by the water line and seeming to "fight" the current from the canister filter in the 30G.

Does anyone know what is happening? This is horribly upsetting since I have lost 1 fish in one year. To lose multiple is like genocide!! I have also never ordered fish before. OH YEAH and by the way... They came "Overnight" delivery.

Someone please help me!!

A sad sad Anne

 

[Absinthena]

If you think you know something to help me out, I am on AOL and MSN right now. .. Probably will be all night.

 

[Allivymar]

Unfortunately, theres not a lot one can do atm. An extremely long acclimation time, with very small amounts of tank water added to the bag they came in was really the only thing you could have done. At this stage of the game, making sure there is enough aeration, temperature is not fluctuating and finger crossing is about it; sorry

Keep a close eye on your water parameters as the fish that don't make it may mess them up.

I would certainly contact AZGardens, and the shipping company as well.

 

[Christmasfish]

Overnight packages must be express if USPS. They require a signature in order to have the records and tracking proper. And if your package had perishible instead of live they may have wrongly assumed it was food and figured the cold would help.
Even being on the cold porch, if they were properly packed, it'd would give you plenty time to acclimatize your fish. Most breeders put packs in that last more than a day on the off chance the package is late. My daughter's overnight fish were lost for 12 hours before coming back into he system. they were delivered 24 hours late..and were still toasty warm and ready to rumble. You must have been that unlucky statistic.

Now it is a matter of crossing your fingers; as Alli said; that they can adjust to the pH shock/temp shock in time. The place they came from must have been radically different .. to make em wonky. Or they have that bacterial thing that kick starts in import loaches after being highly stressed. You didn't Qt them...? or are they in a QT tank? (if no,hopefully it is nothing your current occupants can catch!*Knock tank*

 

[Absinthena]

No! I didn't QT them because there were too many for my QT tank... So, I crossed my fingers and trusted the place I got them (which was supposed to be good).
Its has been more than a week now. I have 2 out of 9 SAEs left.
This morning I had two dead platys... I haven't lost a platy in a year. And I really don't know they checked out on me. Please see my latest post if you're wondering about the platy deaths... maybe someone could put two and two together?

<---- I have never seen this one before. Isn't that funky?

Anne