Gun shy getting new fish

[chirojosh]

Its strange how easily I seem to forget easy things. I've had a fowlr setup for years, a 75g with a Picasso trigger, so easy when established. Well I love my tank so much I decided to put one in my office, I'm there as much as I'm home. So I pull out a 29g for a qt, while the new tank cycles at the office. I don't remember cycling my qt in the past. Just bought another emperor hob filter, took one of the bio wheels from my home tank, and a couple small pieces of live rock. Thinking that would be enough biomedia. Got specific gravity and temp o point. A day later went and got a small coral beauty, 1.5 in. Was swimming eating etc. at fish store for last 2 weeks. Dead in my qt within 24 hours. Thought it had to be ammonia spike. Did API test, can't tell on reading if it's 0 or .25? Why don't they make test with ammonia, where levels should be zero, that zero is yellow and any ammonia is like red, would make life easier. No nitrite or nitrate. Used primed tap, so no chlorine etc killed bio.
It had to be ammonia right? Just shocked between the chunks of rock and bio wheel, it couldn't handle that little fish. So I'm not adding anything right now, just standing still, not knowing what my next move is. Cycle it? Shrimp chunk and all?

 

[MuffsAbby]

If you have LR and a seeded (I presume) biowheel, I doubt it was ammonia. Further, even if ammonia were 0.25, and not 0, I wouldn't expect instant death. Finally, you said you used primed tap, so the Prime would also have turned any ammonia into ammonium, which is far less toxic.

You may never know the cause, although perhaps it was the acclimation process. Was there a huge difference in salinity between the water the fish was in at the LFS (assuming you tested) and your tank?

 

[laurie64]

Sometimes there are chloramines also added to local water that some water treatments don't remove. I do not use prime, so am not familar with what it removes. I use kordon's amquel and on the bottle it says that it does remove chloramines. How long was the qt setbup before you added the fish. Sounds like something toxic about the water that would kill the fish so fast.

 

[chirojosh]

The qt was setup for about 24 hours at the time. Ive never lost such a healthy looking specimen in a short period of time like this. I was swimming a little strange, really quick jerky ,ovements, but I just figured he wasnt comfortable yet. Three hermit crabs are walking around fine though, would have thought theyd hit the bucket first if anything.

 

[chirojosh]

Ive just decided to go aggressive again. Triggers are pretty and more importantly bullet-proof:spin1: