Damsel Disaster :(

So this is a continuation of my post from yesterday... All was going good that night after adding him, but this morning I woke up expecting to be up swimming around and that was not the case. He was on the bottom and seemed to be breathing heavily and trouble staying up right. I knew this wasn't good. I pointed my K1 even more to the surface then it already was but I know I have good gas exchanging going on but It was worth a shot to me. I come home from work and he had passed on in that time. So something is obviously wrong with my tank as I managed to kill the easiest to care for fish possible... anyways maybe I'll get things figured out.

I know my salinity was good b/c I had it tested before I got the fish. As far as my other parameters I'm going to take some water and get that tested tomorrow.

My post from yesterday below.
It has been only a week into my cycle, but I used live rock/base rock/sand/water from the LFS so it should be a quick one. I just needed to see something swimming in there!

The LFS said adding a Blue Damsel shouldn't be a problem even with the tank not being fully cycled. I acclimated him, and then set him free in my tank to swim. Or so I thought... but he thought it would be much cooler to chill in one of my caves in the rock...

I'm hoping that after a bit he will decide to come out and swim around instead of being a bump on a log. I shouldn't be worried about the fish though right? I had my water tested at the LFS, and everything was good.

Has anyone else had this happen with a Damsel?

Thanks!

------------------------------------Update!---------------------------------------------------------

So I snuck into my room quietly to look at my fish tank and my new damsel was swimming around which is awesome! But then I get a little closer to examine him and he darts back into his cave!

Looks like my new damsel is a little shy lol, ah well maybe he'll come around to letting me admire him/I]

 

You may want to purchase some test kits. Taking the water to the LFS and having them tell you it's "Good" doesn't tell you what is really going on in your tank. You may have added him to a tank full of toxic levels of ammonia without knowing it. Not having the biological filter ready yet the sand and rock you added may have had some die off and the biological filter just wasn't ready to handle the ammonia and turn it into nitrate or nitrites fast enough. Sorry about your loss.

 

well good to hear your damsel is okay, but most of us salt water tankers dont like to have damsel in our tanks, they are really aggresive to other fishes, and at times kills the tank mate, my damsel killed 2 of my clown when I first started. Once I found out the damsel is aggresive, he already stressed out or killed my 2 clowns, and after finding out I didnt want him, I tried to catch him, but failed because they are jet fast, I had to remove every single rocks to catch that guy, which is also pain in the butt if you have lots of corals in there, took me hours and hours to set up them all up again.

So if your just gonna have damsel and a reef tank his good, if you want clowns and other fish, I wouldnt suggest him. If you decide you dont want him, take him to your LFS and ask them for a store credit. I got 5$ from my blue fin damsel after I caught him

 

Sorry about your loss. You need to buy some test kits so that you can test the water at home. Buy some today. The ammonia and/or nitrites may have been high, which is what killed him.

 

Yeah, I might just buy a test kit at the LFS even though it will be more expensive. It was just a real bummer because he was swimming around and it was really neat my first saltwater fish, and to see it struggling on the bottom when I woke up was disheartening :-/

Plus I feel super lame for killing what is considered one of the easiest and hardiest saltwater fish there is...

 

It feels bad anytime something dies in one of our tanks but the best thing to do is learn from our mistakes and research what went wrong so it doesn't happen again.

 

tank might have not been done cycling, it happend to me as well, sorry about ur loss

 

The best thing to do is to get your own testing kits, but if for some reason you cannot afford them right now at least get the LFS to write down the exact numbers from their testing results. If possible watch them run the tests so you can learn all you can about this hobby. The water chemistry is probably one of the hardest things to understand but yet one of the most important.

Very sorry for your loss and I understand how you feel. We all feel bad when we lose something. As someone else said, the best thing you can do is learn from your experiences and do everything you can to not repeat any mistakes.