Kole Tang died in quarantine

[Jeremiahinsc]

Help! I am really bummed and would like to know what happened. We went saturday and bought a kole tang and a yellow tang. Both were acting fine at the store. Brought them home and drip acclimated to the quarantine tank. Both spent the rest of the day hiding in the pvc elbows. Sunday the kole started acting sluggish and kinda floating at the bottom, breathing heavy. The ammonia did creep up to .25 (just slightly green, the lowest level on the card) but I did a 50% water change last night and added some microbactor 7 and now its back down. The yellow is now out and swimming around. The kole showed no visible signs of disease, and really looked healthy until he started acting sluggish. I used the display tank water to start the quarantine tank, checked for ammonia and nitrites, salinity, and water temp were all good. Could the ammonia spike killed him? Was it the stress from the 2.5 hr ride home from the store? Any help is appreciated.

 

[Dmorty217]

The stress of being netted, bagged and riding in the car didn't help anything. The ammonia creeping up to .25 is what did him in.

 

[krullshards]

If I have a new QT set up, I now add prime to detoxify any ammonia that might spike while I'm not looking. Learned that the hard way.

 

[Deinonych]

Likely the ammonia combined with the drip acclimation did him in, but it's impossible to know for sure. Best practice for QT is to match the salinity of the QT to that of the transport bag, temperature acclimate for 20-30 minutes and transfer the fish directly into the QT.

 

[Jeremiahinsc]

Thanks for the replies. I am really bummed by this, to know that it is my fault too. To make matters worse, we've lost and I mean LOST a green chromis. This sucks.

 

[krullshards]

It definitely sucks to lose a fish. I've lost enough that I know what you mean. Don't let it get you too down. You never know, it might not have been your fault either. Maybe something else was, in fact, going on. The main thing is to just learn and try to eliminate as many of the factors in our control that can cause distress to the fish as we can.

 

[snorvich]

Likely the ammonia combined with the drip acclimation did him in, but it's impossible to know for sure. Best practice for QT is to match the salinity of the QT to that of the transport bag, temperature acclimate for 20-30 minutes and transfer the fish directly into the QT.

This.