Should I be worried?My first dead fish :-(

[Ab129]

Picked up my royal gamma basslet three weeks ago. Had him in qt for two weeks and moved him into display. He looked great, seemed well acclimated, not hiding. After two or three days I never saw him again. I've read that they can be shy and it's not uncommon for them to hide. I had my doubts but was hopeful.
Today I did my first legit water change. At one point I looked over and saw him afloat, lodged against my ice cap gyre. At first I thought he got sucked into it but it was powered off. I guess when the water level dropped he was dislodged from wherever he was and floated up there.
Obviously I feel terrible but I'm also a little bit worried that if he was sick, I may have introduced whatever he had into my tank. His body was pretty much intact, his fins seemed to have decayed away and he had a little grayish film around parts of his body.
Since I am a total newbie I don't k ow if this is what any fish that's dead for a couple days will look like or what.
For what it's worth the others seem fine.

 

[Sk8r]

These things don't just happen. Tell us:
1) your salinity, temperature, tank size,
2) your alkalinity, magnesium, calcium
3) source of your rock (if live, there are some dangerous hitchhikers.)

 

[Bent]

Picked up my royal gamma basslet three weeks ago. Had him in qt for two weeks and moved him into display. He looked great, seemed well acclimated, not hiding. After two or three days I never saw him again. I've read that they can be shy and it's not uncommon for them to hide. I had my doubts but was hopeful.
Today I did my first legit water change. At one point I looked over and saw him afloat, lodged against my ice cap gyre. At first I thought he got sucked into it but it was powered off. I guess when the water level dropped he was dislodged from wherever he was and floated up there.
Obviously I feel terrible but I'm also a little bit worried that if he was sick, I may have introduced whatever he had into my tank. His body was pretty much intact, his fins seemed to have decayed away and he had a little grayish film around parts of his body.
Since I am a total newbie I don't k ow if this is what any fish that's dead for a couple days will look like or what.
For what it's worth the others seem fine.

Two weeks is not sufficient.

What did you do in this time period?

 

[Ab129]

These things don't just happen. Tell us:
1) your salinity, temperature, tank size,
2) your alkalinity, magnesium, calcium
3) source of your rock (if live, there are some dangerous hitchhikers.)

1)1.025, 78 degrees , 75 gallon tank w 30 gal sump
2) ph is 8.4 I don't have test kits for the other parameters you asked for
3) rock is caribsea dry rock
Started cycling tank back in September first fish added late December

 

[Ab129]

Bent -
I know 2 weeks was too short. I'm usually very patient but I balked.
The two fish I had in there looked so good and the qt maintenance was getting to be a pain in the ***. I was doing 2 gal water changes every day to keep ammonia down. Tank is a 10 gal bare bottom with a sponge filter and a powerhead.
The basslets salinity from the LFS was 1.018.
I started the qt at 1.019 and over the course of a week slowly raised it to 1.024-1.025. Not increasing by more than .001 per day.
As I said he seemed VERY happy when introduced into the DT.
I was worried because he looked very stressed during the drip acclaimation to the DT but once he was in there he seemed great.

 

[oldhead]

If your qt salinity and temp are matched to the display there is no need to drip acclimate when it comes time to transfer them over.

 

[Uncle99]

Was the gramma eating well for all two weeks?
Did you use any meds?

 

[Ab129]

Was eating. Not ravenous, but eating.