fish is slowly dying :(

hi guys, set up a nano tank, got sand,rock, water from an established tank, let it run, tested it, came consistently clean on all params, finally added on tiny tiny green chromis BUT i did not look at it at the petstore i just asked for one and was given one i saw them all swimming around vaguely but i didn't really get close up or pick one out so i was given one, and it was breathing hard while i was acclimating but i was like mmmm maybe its stressed because its not in its school of 2983749234 other baby chromis (today was fish delivery day at the lfs) and it legit has only been in the tank 3 hours and is slowly dying.


what should i do

anyway to save it? because its my first nano/pico watever u wanna call it i purposefully got a cheap fish to throw in there but i still feel bad its dying. am i at fault? should i do a water change? there is NOTHING else in the tank, cept rock sand and the water thats been going for a while.


and all that came from a tank that was running for 7 years.

anyway can we save the little guy, i knew there was a chance he'd die since he was the first to go in the tank but i feel bad, how can i save it!

 

he's not gonna live thru the next few hours i dont think :/ poor thing. oh welli did a half gallon wc and it didn't seem to make a difference. he's still struggling to breathe and on his side.

 

i dont think there is anything really you can do at this point if all your params are correct.. is there any parasites on him? or any other symtoms other than breathing heavily?
The only thing is just to make sure you get a healthy fish before you buy it. You know... seeing it eat, swim normally, and no signs of parasites.

sorry for your fish. and good luck.

 

he's dead just died, i'm sooo sad.

i'm such an overachiever at failure it seems. he only lasted 3 hours

sooo bummed.


no he didn't seem to have any parasites :/

 

Hey Tadpole

Sometimes this sort of thing just happens. If all your parameters are solid (pH, temp, salinity, NH3 etc.) you may have gotten a fish with FTA syndrome (failure to adapt)

In nature, when all conditions are favorable, some individuals will still simply not strive. It's unfortunate, but it happens.

He could've literally stressed himself to cardiac arrest etc.

I respect your respect for life. From here, I would dust myself off, recheck all parameters twice, then as a control, have an independent source (store or friend) recheck and compare results. If all things check out, take a deep breath, have confidence and try again.

Good luck friend

 

did you acclimate him?

 

yes he was acclimated very slowly :/ and i know nano tanks are much harder to keep stable and its my first go at a tiny tank and i just feel so bad that he died. I retested and everything is still reading as it was before.

i'll wait another week or two and try i again i guess but i feel so bad for the poor baby chromis, it was SO FAST thats wat really gets me :/

 

thanks i appreciate the words of encouragement

 

Sorry to hear, small chromis have a higher mortality rate from what I hear anyway so the additional moving stress may have been too much. I agree with dorian as well. Well put.

Also depending on how large your tank actually is, it might be too small for a full grown chromis, just something to keep in mind. It might be better to look at a fish with a smaller adult size, or one that doesn't swim constantly like a chromis does.

 

Tadpole1mill, it sounds like you got an unhealthy specimen. You really want to make sure a fish is healthy before buying and you never want to buy a fish on delivery day. The fish stores toss em in their tanks, then you come a long and buy them before there even acclimated completely to their temp home. Then bag it up and shake it on the way home, then acclimate it to new water. i think this is the fish stores fault for selling you a fish the same day they got it. They probably didn't know if it was healthy or not.

Next time you acclimate a fish, do not do a water change. If the fish seems to struggle and you know your water is on, a water change will only stress them more. Your not to blame though, the fish store made a poor choice and sold you a fish they did not check out first.