First New Fish Dead
 

Hi, I recently started a 65 gallon FOWLR tank. I cycled it with live rock, and the lfs guy said the water was perfect (salinity/ammonia/nitrites/nitrates/Ph) to put the fish in. So I bought three blue/green chromis and drip acclimated them for an hour and 15 minutes until the water that they came from doubled. I put them in and they all died within 12 hours :( there are no other fish in the tank so I'm not sure what the fish died of?

How long had the tank been cycling?

The problem is that sometimes lfs want to make a sale. They will tell you anything to make that sale. I would if it was me get your own test kit to be sure. It sure sounds as if there was alot of ammonia in there.

That's crazy! Chromis are so hardy. I'd take the fish back and have them retest your water. There are so many variables, but ammonia is the only thing I can think of that would kill good fish that fast...

Depending on which test kit he used could matter. Im going with ammonia while they were acclimateing.

When a fish is in a bag, there is no gaseous exchange, which in turn makes the Ph go down and turn ammonia into non-toxic ammonium, but once the bag is opened then the ph rises and the ammonia starts to build up. 30 minutes maximum time for dripping a fish.

Also i reccomend getting an API master kit, works great for me and others, also nice to not have to go to the lfs and get your water tested.

Either you got sick fish or the water was bad somehow. Are you sure he tested the parameters? Do you have your own testing kits and are you testing the parameters yourself??? If you did I'm curious what were the results?

Some LFS guys can be unscrupulous. I hope he is trustworthy. If so, then the the only thing that could kill a fish that fast is if the tank hadn't really cycled yet, temp too high, fish were sick, etc.

+1 on all that fish man. I do the 4 minute cup method instead of drip, and I don't let it go more than 30 minutes. API tests are great.

Cup method is an ok way to acclimate but not the best. IMO and experience ive found that dripping is much more effective.

No problems so far, fish are maniacs, I just never got around to setting up a drip. Now my tank is almost stocked but I will try to drip I get another fish.

Another thing is temperature shock, when you float the bag to match temp and then start to drip ive found that temp drops by a few degrees during dripping, but i always drip for 20-25 minutes and then float for 5 to get temp matching again. 2° F difference within the tank and bag water should be fine.

A great thing to use for this is your finger or an electrical thermometer, i use coralife electrical thermomters on all my tanks. So handy. You can just take the probe out of the tank and stick it in some WC water and it will bring you the exact temp.

Fish are maniacs, my dads been overfeeding the 37g and my nitrates were at 80+! Did a 35g wc and got them to 40, now doing a 20g wc and added a 5oz of chemi pure. Never lost a coral, fish, or invertebrate!

I had two different places test them and they said the water was fine in both. I have been cycling it for 2 weeks and 4 days.

Could stress have killed them?

I opened the bag when they when they were acclimating and the volume of water doubled

1 hours still would be enough to build up a high enough amount of ammonia.

Maybe get 3 more chromis and only drip for 20 minutes. See how that goes? Or maybe 1 as a test.

duplicate threads merged.

Okay I'm going to try to get maybe two today and put them in the tank with the bag to stabilize temp, drip them for 20-30 min and out then in?

Just a thought.. One of the fish stores I shop in Tampa use copper in their fish holdings but not their coral/invert tanks (obviously.) they instructed me that after acclimation to net the fish into the aquarium as to not add copper. I know it's not pertinent to your situation so much, but just in case you were going reef at some point it may be good to know. I hope all goes well for you and your new fish.

I just pick my fish up with my hand when putting them back in, you can do the net but its really not needed. Also less stressful ive heard.

Such little copper is in the fish that it doesnt really matter, ive treated many fish with copper in QT and put them in my reefs with 0 problems.

Best of luck, Nat!