New Clown Trigger Breathing Hard

Just picked up a clown trigger last night. He's been at the LFS for about 2 months and has obviously been doing fine. He looks GREAT no ich and color looks awesome.

I brought him home turned the light off in my tank and floated the bag for about 15 min and then using a turkey baster I added some of my tank water to the bag about every 10 min to acclimate him. Finally I added him to the tank and all seemed well but I did note that he seemed to be breathing kinda rough. Not like really erratic but it didn't look totally normal. I figured from the car ride home and obviously being netted around that he was just a little stressed out. In any case after putting him in the tank he didn't really do a whole lot obviously he just kinda found him a spot to hang out and just posted up. I left the light off all night and decided to wait till today.

Well this morning I got up and he was roaming around the tank eating stuff off the rocks etc. I pull some krill in there for him to eat and he ate it right up. He's been swimming around just fine all day but I have noted that it seems as though he is still breathing pretty rough. Well being concerned I netted him back up and took him back to the LFS along with a water sample.
Well that obviously pissed him off even more cause then he started breathing even worse for obvious reasons. The guy at the LFS said my water was fine and that the fish prolly just needs more time to relax. Well I dunno he is back in the tank and he is swimming around like normal and his color is great but he still seems to be breathing abnormally. Please see video that is posted below for example.

CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO

Here is the low down on my tank.

30 gallon tank with about 50lbs of live rock. Been up and running for about 6 months now. I have 5 hermit crabs, 3 emerald crabs, and 1 coral banded shrimp. I am running a Fluval 305 filter and two Hydor Koralia power heads.

Here are my water parameters as tested by the LFS
AMMONIA - 0
NITRITE - 0
NITRATE - 0
PH - 8.0
SALINITY - 1.023
PHOSPHATE - 0

Here is a picture of my tank.

 

I notice you have nitrates and your nitrates are kind of high... I was going to ask how old it is but I see you wrote 6 months. I am wondering why you have nitrates...

BTW you should get your own test kit, can't rely on test from lfs when you brought water there in who knows what kind of container. Water test are most accurate when tested at the tank.

 

I have my own Red Sea Marine Lab test kit but I just figured I would let them check it. In any case I just re-tested the Nitrite and Nitrates and my tests came back as ZERO PPM for both tests.

 

My lfs told me that a lot of times lfs's will in a way scam you by testing your water to get you to buy stuff, also there are a lot of factors that affect water if you bring it some where to be tested.

I think you should try to relax and maybe your fish will too. I don't have any triggers but I bought a blue hippo tang that didn't emerge from the rocks for a week after I bought it. It was starving and stomach was sunk in too, it's fine now. Severe stress can do a lot to us and our fish!

 

I would check PH and Am, again and O2 levels.
Do you have airstone ?
Is he at the surface gasping for air ?

 

Yeah that's what the guy at the LFS told me was to just kick back and let him settle in. But kinda hard to NOT be paranoid when it's such an expensive and hard to come by fish. Hard to come by at this size anyways.

Nah no airstones I'm pretty sure those things are a NO NO when it comes to SW. He's not gasping for air or anything like that.

Yeah it is an awesome size thanks. That's one of the reasons I am so concerned obviously is that I know the smaller ones aren't as hardy as the biggers ones. But in any case like I said he is swimming around and being normal other than the breathing. He is eating as well which the guy at the LFS store said that's definitely one of the things to make sure the fish is doing.