Green Chromis's Dying

[krafty]

Hi All,

I am having a problem with my Green (Actually Blue-Green) Chromis'.

I had a school of six. When I bought them the LFS guy told me that typically his customers will loose three of them and be down to a school of only three. This is what has happend to me. I dont know the symptoms of the first two because they hid and then died. This last one was out all day today and was breathing really fast and has (well, hes dead now so I guess 'had') not eaten for two days.

Is this normal? It didnt seem like the other three were being rough and not letting him eat...he had every opportunity...he just didnt. Then he started breathing really rapidly and died.

Help?

Levels are all 0 except nitrates which are <20ppm. SpGrav ~ 1.022

I have been adding 'purple up' but that is about it.

I am very new to the hobby. Are there any actions that I should be taking when a fish appears to be unhealthy? Remedies?


Thanks!

Josh

 

[nluchau]

Josh - What your pet store didnt tell you is that you should have gotten an odd number to start out with. Like 3,5,or 7

I also learned the hard way. I started out with 4 but now I have 2 - they are best buds. One has lockjaw as you might have noticed in another thread I posted. Its getting better though.

Good luck. How big of an aquarium and who are the other inhabitants?

 

[Bebo77]

they are damsels and they kill each other and thin out the "herd" i have never heard of a fish that could count so i dont know what good an "odd" number of fish will do but it is expected with these fish. I had a school of 10 and now i have 4. it happens.

 

[nluchau]

Bebo,

Chromis are a damselfish but a very docile one if your comparing them to the blue damsels.

This website gives someones opinion on them. It doesnt give much info but if you do more searching it says you should buy them in Odd numbers.

http://mmarine.blogspot.com/
Behaviour: Green Chrmois are one of the least aggressive damselfish. They school in groups as a defensive mechanism and prefer to have other members around. (They are not solitary fish) It is probably best to keep a group as an odd number as an even number seems to have an odd man out that can be picked on. They add a flash to your tank as they are always on the move and get along well with other tank mates.