fire fish on its side gasping

Good morning,
I woke up this morning. and one of my fir fish was on its side gasping its belly is red and thin. what should I do. the other 2 gopies are low to the grond but seem fine. I also has a solor fairy wrasse and a clown and they are doing fine.

its all in a 55g gallon that is 2 1/2 months old. I don;t have any ammonia, but I have a very low reading of nitrites. I'm trying to find the text kit work sheet and I will let you know. It is a very light translucent purple. The nitrates are probably very low as well a golden yellow. api test kit by the way. salinity is 1.022. I got the fire fish yesterday.

I will be watching the boards. so if you have a questions I will respond quickly.

Don'T have a qt but have a 10, that only has a 10g rated filter. if needed I can start mixing salt for it.

 

It appears I have lost that fire fish. the other 2 are fine though and seem to be swimming well.

 

Sorry for your loss. You might want to check with your LFS- most provide some type of guarantee; even a 2 or 3-day warranty would allow for credit or refund in your case.

Don't mean to cause panic, but it sounds like your fish may have had brooklynella. That's a very rapidly-multiplying parasite that only attacks the gills and can kill a fish literally within hours without any signs or symptoms until the fish is lying on it's side gasping. Of course, by then it's too late. Hopefully I'm wrong, or at the very least it didn't spread...

 

and the another death now my clown fish

ok first water perimaters.
am 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 5 or 10 think its 5
salinity 1.023

ok came home and my clown was in the sand bend bleached in color dead. very sad. like the other didn't have an mucus on it however.

I just checked out my solor fairy wrasse and he seems to be back to his hiding; however with one big difference he is sluggish when going after food eating less then normal. the 2 remaining fire fish look fine.



I am learning the hard way to qt my fish. the not so local fish store (1hr drive each way) that comes highly recommended that obviously can't be trusted. when I was in their Saturday he was trashing all the other stores telling me stories of how people had bought one fish from his competitor and it whipped out their tanks. I am experiencing that buying fish and not qt'ing the is like playing Russian roulette.

Also, It doesn't seem like my lfs offers any credit on dead fish.

 

Yeah its the same around here in Kansas. No credit at any LFS for dead saltwater fish even if its overnight and you provide a water sample.

Have you changed anything in your tank over the last week? Did you add anything new? Your water parameters seem fine.

Sorry for your loss. We have all been there