Dead Fish !?!? Please Help

[ksbhondaracedr8]

My clownfish died. I do not know what happened. Here is the story.

Friday=Went to the LFS. Baught 2 false Percula. Put them into my tank after acclamating them. Did fine the first night.

Sat.=In the morning I fed them both. Both eating good and acting normal. In the afternoon, i came back from work, both fish acting normal and even trying to impress each other!

Sun.=7 o-clock am, got up to 2 happy fish. Both still eating good and swimming naturally. Left at 8:30am to go to town and to work. Got home at 6:30pm to see the smaller fish floating tail down with a slimey mucus hanging off of its body. It would flinch every 15-30 sec. to let me know he is still alive. 7 o-clock pm, the fish is now dead. I emediately removed the fish so that the body would not get lost in the rock work and cause an amonia spike to kill the other clown. I then did a water test to see if I had something wrong.
PH=8.2
Amonia=.25
Nitrites=0ppm
Nitrates=.5ppm
salinity=1.025
If any one has any idea about what happened then please help me out b/c I can not think of any reason the fish could of died.

I mean how much could of happened in 12 hours while I was gone?

 

[reefinmike]

i work at a lfs and we get fish dirrectly from bali, tonga, etc... recently clowns all around have been coming in bad. they look fine one day then the next there are a couple dead. this is especially true for fish from the phillipines... many people buy from the phillipines because of the cheap fish there but they dont realize they loose in the long run as something funky is up with phillipine fish. they do good for a week or two then just die. me and my boss suspect the use of cyanide.

 

[reefinmike]

btw, just read, your ammonia is too high for fish, especially if those clowns just came in to the lfs.

 

[Aquabucket]

How long has the tank been set-up? Adding 2 clowns to an 8 gallon tank can be tricky. You may have encountered an ammonia spike with the extra bio-load of the fish and from feeding. Your ammonia should be 0 but the reading you got may have occured from the dead fish rotting in your tank.

I would run some fresh carbon and do a water change to get your ammonia back down.

 

[ksbhondaracedr8]

Well i just put them in there and its not a big tank ( 8 gal.). I was planning to do a water change as soon as I got home this evening. And I did after removing the dead fish. Also he was tank raised, not wild, they both are.

 

[ksbhondaracedr8]

The tank has been set up for about 6 weeks and has 10-12 Lbs of live rock. Most of the live rock has seemed to heve cured. If that is any help. Also they are small clowns only about 3/4 in. long.

 

[Myrphie]

Was the ammonia level elevated before you put the fish in there?

 

[Aquabucket]

Don't forget to run some fresh carbon ASAP.

 

[ksbhondaracedr8]

no the amonia was at zero when they were added.

 

[Myrphie]

Hmm... it's really hard to say then. There are so many factors that I think you might just have to chalk this one up to "anomalous fish death". Assuming they actually were TR (I've seen unscrupulous dealers lie about that countless times, unfortunately) it could have been any form of stress imaginable, from shipping to the handling at the LFS or anything else. I'd agree with lowering that ammonia with a water change ASAP and keeping at eye on the remaining clown. If you encounter no problems on that front I'd say you probably had nothing to do with this fish's demise.

One last question: How did you acclimate the fish?

 

[Peter Eichler]

Ocellaris and percs never seem to ship well IME. If they make it past the first few days they're quite hardy though.

 

[ksbhondaracedr8]

I did as I was told by the LFS. I put the bag ,w/ the fish in it, into the tank and let it set for 5-10 min., then I cut a slit into the bag so that the salinity, ph, and others would slowly change from the LFS water to my water. This was done for almost an hour. Then I opened the bag completely and alowed the fish to swim out on its own terms. ( They both did so promtly).

 

[Aquabucket]

Dang LFS. You should never put LFS water in your tank. My preferred method of acclimation is emptying the bag into a floating container of sorts. This way you are matching temp and can easily remove water from the container and add yours at an OZ or so at a time. A non-transparent container is also less stressful to the fish. I also only run my moonlights during the process.

 

[ksbhondaracedr8]

well the bag was clear. But did i do something really bad? Or just not suggested or recommended.

 

[Aquabucket]

Slitting the bag was your mistake and you did things too quickly.

EDIT ~ The advantage of having a non-transparent container is the fish remains calm and is not constantly trying to swim through an invisible barrier. The constant rubbing can also irritate the fish's mouth and have an effect on immediate feeding.

 

[ksbhondaracedr8]

well, is that maybe the reason that he died? And how wrong is it to put the LFS water in my tank?

 

[Aquabucket]

I don't think its the reason it died ~ just adding some input for future additions. It could have been several factors as mentoned. Acclimation may have played a role but your fish seemed to have made it through the process and was feeding for a few days.

 

[ksbhondaracedr8]

ok well thanks for the info.
Do you have any idea about the clear slimey mucus on its body?

 

[Aquabucket]

The mucus could have come from a feeding snail or just the result of decaying flesh.

 

[ksbhondaracedr8]

Do not have any snails yet. LFS has a back order on them. Can not seem to order enough and i can never seem to get there in time to buy them, when i go they are all gone. But one of the workers there is going to hold some for me. i am testing amonia agian after the water change i just did an hour ago to see if it helped. I'll heep you posted on its levels.