Yesterday I made a bad impulse buy of a royal gramma. Bad as in I was at petco and said “what the heck” I’ve only ever purchased one other fish from there and it did fine. Anyway, long story short it is now dead. Fortunately I kept the receipt and got my money back but here’s what happened:
the store employee got the fish out by removing most of the rocks in the tank kicking up dust and debris
Store employee in transferring to bag and close bag was exceptionally rough with the fish (probably shoulda changed my mind right then but I’m too nice)
Fish road around with me for 2-3 hours before I got home and started acclimating
temp acclimation by floating 15-20 minutes
Started slow drip into bucket by using air hose to siphon water with a nozzle on the end to control drip
Poured fish and water out of bag and into bucket
Let slowly fill for 30-45 minutes
Netted fish and put in tank
After a minute of hiding he swam around for a minute then decided to hide in the corner. I have a picture and was concerned then because it wasn’t really swimming around much and just stayed in the corner not moving except to turn around occasionally until I went to bed. When I got up this morning he had moved to the other side of the tank and while still staying more out of sight than not, was s inning and seemed okay. Then when I got home about 30 minutes ago he was dead. Had been alive just a couple hours before according to my family.
just trying to see if I did something wrong or got a bad fish or something else I didn’t think about
yes, I know I’m supposed to quarrantine and buying from petco was not my greatest decision ever.
I’ll get the tank parameters later when I get back home, but salinity is around 1.024-1.025 and the tank has 2 clowns, large hermit crab, emerald crab, serpent star, trochus snail, and a BTA. The store employee said their salinity was at 1.027-1.028
this is long so all the pics and video I have of the fish to follow:
the store employee got the fish out by removing most of the rocks in the tank kicking up dust and debris
Store employee in transferring to bag and close bag was exceptionally rough with the fish (probably shoulda changed my mind right then but I’m too nice)
Fish road around with me for 2-3 hours before I got home and started acclimating
temp acclimation by floating 15-20 minutes
Started slow drip into bucket by using air hose to siphon water with a nozzle on the end to control drip
Poured fish and water out of bag and into bucket
Let slowly fill for 30-45 minutes
Netted fish and put in tank
After a minute of hiding he swam around for a minute then decided to hide in the corner. I have a picture and was concerned then because it wasn’t really swimming around much and just stayed in the corner not moving except to turn around occasionally until I went to bed. When I got up this morning he had moved to the other side of the tank and while still staying more out of sight than not, was s inning and seemed okay. Then when I got home about 30 minutes ago he was dead. Had been alive just a couple hours before according to my family.
just trying to see if I did something wrong or got a bad fish or something else I didn’t think about
yes, I know I’m supposed to quarrantine and buying from petco was not my greatest decision ever.
I’ll get the tank parameters later when I get back home, but salinity is around 1.024-1.025 and the tank has 2 clowns, large hermit crab, emerald crab, serpent star, trochus snail, and a BTA. The store employee said their salinity was at 1.027-1.028
this is long so all the pics and video I have of the fish to follow: