Extremely Stressed Candy Hogfish?

My tank finally finished cycling thursday so today I decided to go out and buy a fish. My LFS had this candy hogfish that I know they'd had for a couple weeks and always looked really healthy. I asked them to catch it and I ended up with this kid who had absolutely no clue what he was doing chasing the fish around the frag tank. It took several minutes before we finally caught him and when we did and put him in the bag the fish was laying on it's side and just looked really stressed out. When I got home and gently dumped the bag into a bucket for acclimation the fish went bezerk for a few seconds and then settled back down and started laying on its side. After about a hour and a half of drip acclimation I put the fish in the tank and he slowly swam down to the bottom and went into the rocks. The tank is fairly small and there isn't TOO much rock but I still haven't been able to find him all day. I know it's not at all unusual for a fish to go into hiding when it's first introduced to a new tank but I've seriously never had a fish that stressed out just from being caught. My question is, how worried should I be?

 

I would def give him some time to acclimate to the new tank, a few days at the very least. But you should start to see him more and more. It is normal for a new fish to go into the rock work and hide though. I see that you said your tank has finished cycling so if it was me I would leave the lighting very low/leave the whites off and the blues low to help from even more stress in the meantime since you don't have to worry about coral at the moment.

 

First off 1.5 hours is a really, really, really, really long acclimation process. Secondly you mentioned your tank is small, how small is it?

 

It's a 24" 60 gallon cube, so not too small.

 

I wouldn't be at all worried; the behavior you described is what I'd expect to see.

 

Before I purchase a fish, I test my water. Then once the fish is bought, I test that water. And compare the results. I was suprised how off some lfs tanks are. This behavior seems normal to me. Could you please post your parameters as your tank is fairly new?

Keep us posted.

 

You guys will be happy to know that today the fish came out and, though timid, seemed healthy and was having fun exploring his new home.

 

I'm sure he will be timid and try and keep an eye on him if you can. Want to make sure that he is eating hopefully as well as be on the look out for any potential diseases that it might have been carrying that could be brought on by stress a little later. Not trying to alarm you at all just want to make sure your new addition stays healthy and happy