cyanide caught fish

[rgentry123]

i have had a string of fish, mainly gobies, that all seem to die the next day after i put them in my tank and i feel like i am getting fish that have been caught using cyanide. I am pretty sure that it isnt anything i am doing becuase my levels in my tank are all correct i and always drip acclimate my new fish for at least 2-3 hours. are there any signs that i can look for to tell if a fish has been caught using cyanide? The last goby i got was a sleeper and he was doing everything it normally would, it seemed to be eating fine and was sifting the sand in the display tank so i am at a complete loss as to what to look for. any help as always is appreciated

 

[myerst2]

Where are you getting your fish? Where do the fish originate from? If this is your concern, change vendors. Buy a fish from LA or a very reputable company and then you know that us not the issue. Tim

 

[myerst2]

Also a fish who has been caught with cyanide will not die a day later after being purchased. Usually takes about a month. After buying the fish, did you go back to the place where you bought it and see if all the other fish had died as well? How old is this tank? Are you acclimating properly? What are the water parameters? Tim

 

[rgentry123]

i buy all my fish from a local store, they change people so often there it's hard to ever get a straight answer as to where the fish are actually coming from. i know thats a bad sign, but i dont have any othe shops in my area that i can go to and i really dont want to buy online becuase i like to hand pick the fish i buy. as far as my parameters go everything seems good, nitrates/nitrites non existent, no ammonia, ph is 8.2, salinity is 1.024 and temp stays steady between 79*-80*.tank itself has been setup for about 8 months now and for acclimation i always use a pieceof airline tubing tie a knot in it, and let it drip for about 2-3 hrs. am i just unlucky or am i cursed against gobies?

 

[myerst2]

Why are you afraid of buying on-line. I am the coplete opposite. I get all of my fish from divers and other retailers that send me the fish directly. I have some amazing LFS where I live but I know exactly where my fish came from, caught, and cared for. Try wetpetshawaii.com. Ask him for whatever your looking for. Tim

 

[rgentry123]

i may give that a shot, i was just worried that i would buy a fish online and once i get it at home it's going to be a not exactly what i would have picked color wise. for example coral beauties have such wide ranging color variations that i am just afraid i would be unhappy with what i got unless i picked it out personally. or maybe i'm just being anal about my fish

 

[ChrisKirkland]

What is you alkalinity, and KH (or dKH)?

 

[rgentry123]

to be perfectly honest i have no idea what it is at right now. i havent checked it in a while.

 

[Chibils]

Another thing to consider when dripping fish (I lost a pearlscale this way):

Use an airstone. 2-3 hours in a bucket with 8oz. of water (unless your lfs is very generous) is often too long without supplemental aeration.

 

[flinster]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13150056#post13150056 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rgentry123
to be perfectly honest i have no idea what it is at right now. i havent checked it in a while.

So these cyanide caught fish die the next day in your tank? What happens if you buy them a day later? You have no idea what your KH is? Most likely you need to check your parameters....

 

[Conesus_Kid]

Have you calibrated your refractometer?

I lost the first three fish I put into my tank b/c my new refractometer was reading 1.025. My water was actually 1.034. Even two hours of drip acclimating won't allow fish to adjust to that. The fish all died in a day or two.

Check out this article: http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-06/rhf/index.php

There's a recipe about halfway down for a homemade calibration solution.

Good luck!

 

[snorvich]

Specific gravity is a likely culprit if the fish are dieing that quickly. But you should be keeping track of your water chemistry as that too could be out of whack. As far as picking out fish, I only buy online. I have a much better control of origin and treatment that way. I only have a small number of places for fish in my various tanks and my fish live for a long time thus not needing replacement. I don't look for cheap fish, I look for high quality fish.

 

[rgentry123]

the thing is i have had a consistently healthy population of fish until these recent issues with gobies. my first goby lived for about 6 months and then mysteriously disapeared. honestly, i never found a trace of him. i then picked up a pink spotted goby to replace the dragon goby i had lost and he died within a day. The next fish to come a few weeks later was a mandarin. he's as healthy as can be. Next fish about a month later was a sleeper goby and again within one day he was toast. I'm thinking i'm just giving up on gobies altogether. are they notoriously hard to keep or am i just having a bad string of luck? like i said, i havent any other fish die except for a wrasse who went carpet surfing on me.