Is my Banggai Cardinalfish sick?

[TheSWHobbyist]

Hello,
So I just bought two Banggai Cardinalfish and about 2 hours after I put them into my aquarium I noticed one of them was breathing heavily and it is always either lying sideways on the sand or leaning against the glass on the bottom.



I am curious if he is doing this because i just put him in the tank and maybe he is stressed or is he sick? I was wondering if I would be able to do anything or if I should just wait and see how he is in the morning.

I have a 75 gallon saltwater tank, with 2 ocellaris clownfish, 1 yellow tang, 10 hermit crabs, and 15 snails, and one cleaner shrimp. The tank has been running for a about 2 months now and 2 snails have died so far, nothing else.

 

[TheSWHobbyist]

The banggai cardinalfish is now at the top of the tank with his mouth grazing the surface of the water. however when I moved him to make sure that he was alive he sank to the bottom of the tank and did a few somersaults, but i did notice that we was still breathing, heavily. can someone please tell me what i should do

 

[dread240]

At this point he's already in the tank.. all you can do is see if he's better in the morning. I also wouldn't leave them in the bag for 2 hours with it open because ammonia can buildup very fast and will burn their gills

 

[TheSWHobbyist]

The 2 hours that they weren't in my tank was when I was acclimating them, the store owner of where I bought all my fish told me that I should acclimate them for 1-2 hours before putting them into my tank. Is that still to long to have them in the bag??

 

[dread240]

I keep the bag sealed and float it to match temp... Everything I get goes into a QT tank that has had the salinity lowered to match or be just a point or two lower then where it's coming from... once they're temp matched i open the bag and pour them in

This is where a QT tank comes in real handy, as most stores don't keep their tanks at the same salinity as we keep our display tanks

 

[Spar]

I have 8 Bangaii in my tank and occasionally one will start to act funny like you are describing. Not sure what causes it but they never end up dieing (knock on wood). I even had one get some weird jaw-lock thing going on while acting like that and eventually worked itself out. Seem like strong fish.