Sand sifting goby died...

[CordellWalker]

So I bought a sand sifting goby (v. Bella) for my mature 65 gallon reef and it died almost immediately- I set it on a drip for about 2 hours then added it. It seemed settled, so I left it, and when I came back to check on it about 4 hours later, it was on its side, mouth agape, unresponsive, and with no noticeable gill movement. I left it for about 30 minutes and came back and a hermit was picking at it so heartbroken, I fished him out...
My thinking is that I simply didn't acclimate long enough. Nitrates are 0, other tank mates are a mandarin, a pair of occelaris, a cherub angel, and a ring eyed dotty (p. Typus). Am I missing anything or did my just rush and kill my fish? :sad2: Any thoughts would be appreciated, I've never had one just die like that, so I'd like to at least learn from this one...
Thanks!

 

[Crooked Reef]

Did you have it shipped or was it a local purchase?

 

[slief]

Did you check the salinity of the bag water? Stores regularly keep their salinity at 1.021 or lower and many companies that ship fish keep it as low as 1.014 and I’ve even seen it as low as 1.011. You cannot just acclimate to fish from any of those to salinities to reef tank salinity and expect it to live unless you match the salinity of the bag water & raise it over the course of days. Also, if you had it shipped and drip acclimated for two hours, that could be a real issue in and of itself because of ammonia spikes.

 

[CordellWalker]

Noted- I bought it from a retailer, but special ordered it and it was never acclimated in store. This must have been it. Don't I feel stupid! Thanks for responses, In the future I'll be MUCH more methodical about the acclimation process with shipped items.

 

[Tastee]

Do you run a QT?

I run my QT at 1.020 which is what our LFS run for fish, acclimate fish to that over 1-2 hours, and then gradually increase salinity to match my DT in that over a week by adding SW to the ATO. For all my fish I ran a 2 week quarantine. Day 1 into QT. Day 4 start increasing salinity. Day 11 salinity matched. Day 14 into the DT.

When I first started in the hobby I lost a fish by drip acclimating from the LFS to the DT over 3 hours, the osmotic shock of the 1.020 —> 1.024 was still too much. After I moved to the process above I had no more issues. I also know lots of the experienced reefers would QT for much longer than 2 weeks, in my case I am comfortable I have high quality LFS that I use (there are only 3 in my area I would consider buying livestock from, I would not trust the others).

 

[Louis Z]

Lesson for us all . So match bag parameters and move to QT and then over time match salinity

 

[alton]

If you dripped the fish for two hours then you probably used 4 gallons of water? If you only dripped a quart then it ran out of oxygen while in the bag. Or sometimes fish just die when being transported.

 

[ZenGuitarGuy]

Do you run a QT?

I run my QT at 1.020 which is what our LFS run for fish, acclimate fish to that over 1-2 hours, and then gradually increase salinity to match my DT in that over a week by adding SW to the ATO. For all my fish I ran a 2 week quarantine. Day 1 into QT. Day 4 start increasing salinity. Day 11 salinity matched. Day 14 into the DT.

I do it similarly to this, but I QT for four weeks. I do not acclimate longer than an hour though.