2 of 5 green chromis died within 24 hours

within 24 hours of my purchase from lfs, 2 of 5 greeen chromis are dead. their mouths were WIDE open and they were floating beside a lr with feather dusters laying on them. when i put them in the QT last night there was some aggression but not huge. my parms are all ok. only 5 chromis in a 29 g tank. anyone experirnce something similar? could they have died from the others attacking & stressing? poor things....

 

the lfs guy scooped them up randomly

 

2 out of 5 green chromis agree that the ocean is better then the glass box. All kidding aside you probably just had a couple of stressed fish. next time insist that lfs feeds before you buy. They could have been sick, they could have been left over from last batch and lfs tank in poor shape as most are from constant fish deliverys. And pick your fish they are going to be your fish and you should have a choice. Only pick good healthy ones or ones that look good and healthy. How are the others doing?

 

The other appear to be doing OK. They are active and seem to be good tank mates. I'll be getting replacement ones today so I'll follow your advice. I had green chromis in a previous set up earlier this year and ended up returning 3 after 2 died. But they were only in a 10 g tank. I have the new ones in a qt tank waiting to move them into my new (3months new) 65 gal tank so I want them healthy and happy.
Thanks for your advice!

 

Hello John, It is pretty common for that to happen. For some odd reason Chromis like odd numbers and if put in even numbers will kill to get to the odd number. Now, you bought an odd number but another factor comes into play. At the LFS they were in their own established groups, even though it may be hard for us to see distinct groups, they know. I believe you got three from one group and two from another and although that is an odd number it was not the odd number from the group the three came from so they established their dominance over the two "intruders". I started out the same way, put in 5 and two were dead in 24-48 hours, added 3 more and over 1 week three were dead and so after inquiring and studying found out what I just explained so I left those three alone and they have lived and are thriving.

 

very eloquently put unclejed. i see exactly what you mean. interestingly, i returned to my lfs and they replaced the two (for 1/2 price). the replacements are about 1 to 1 1/4 inches., the originals are 1/2 that size. after acclimating them for a few hours, i puit the new ones in the qt tank. a few hours later i went back to observe if there were any problems. before i put the new guys in, the reamining original 3 were gettiing along quite well, staying together with no aggression. when i returned a few hours after putting in the new larger fish, i observed one of the smaller ones being agressive towards the other two original, smaller ones but treated the new large ones with respect. so it appears that the agressive one established himself as the "boss" and when the larger additions were placed in the tank, it wanted to re-establish himself to teh original ones by being agressive, while at the same time "kissing ass" with what it may have percieved to have been the senior team. lol .. or maybe they were all totally random acts. thanks for your input, it makes a lot of sense. i'll wait this one out and not replace any further victims