If you were drip acclimating into the bag instead of transferring fish to a separate container, what most likely happened was not only the abrupt salinity rise but the pH rise causing the ammonia to become toxic inside the bag.
Foxface died during acclimation
- Thread starter kierstin1993
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Unfortunately seems like most likely a combination of things, mostly being stress, ammonia and sg issues. My lfs packs most their fish in 1.019 and most fish I acclimate in the bag for less than an hour. I had 2 anthias I acclimated in the sump just as you described and I raised sg over the span of around 2 hrs. Both fish did fine, I used a chip clip to keep the bag nearly sealed. This sounds like the experience your more accustomed to and seems the 2 hr drive home is the outlying difference. Imo stress of the animal along with very possible ammonia spike then adding the salinity change on top of that prolly was just too much too fast for the fish. When I bring fish home they usually go from store to home in 15mins or less.
I would think an lfs with low salinity would be either giving out store credits like crazy for dead fish or making sure customers are aware of proper acclimation for their fish considering. But going forward having a qt and matching lfs salinity sounds like the best way to cover bases. And helps me, if I ever get my new tank in the mail plan to have a one spot and know I shouldn't be leaving in the bag now
sorry about your fish tho, that's tough
I would think an lfs with low salinity would be either giving out store credits like crazy for dead fish or making sure customers are aware of proper acclimation for their fish considering. But going forward having a qt and matching lfs salinity sounds like the best way to cover bases. And helps me, if I ever get my new tank in the mail plan to have a one spot and know I shouldn't be leaving in the bag now
sorry about your fish tho, that's tough
What are you on about???
Agree with the most. You need to acclimate more time. Low salinity indicates that is very likely your fish has some diseases. Fish store uses low salinity to keep some disease like ich or velvet in check. I sorry for the loss, but the sad truth is that you were lucky. If this fish has somehow survived to your tank, it was very likely that you get an spread disease in your main tank. Always use a quarantine tank, or else...
Thank you for the advice. I do have a qt, but my qt is the same salinity as my tank as I’ve never experienced this before. it’s not the first time I’ve traveled far with a fish and done this method…totally didn’t see it coming, nor did I get the salinity higher than 1.021 before it died. I’ve never had an issue acclimating in the bag but after this experience I’ll be taking a different approach in the future.Unfortunately seems like most likely a combination of things, mostly being stress, ammonia and sg issues. My lfs packs most their fish in 1.019 and most fish I acclimate in the bag for less than an hour. I had 2 anthias I acclimated in the sump just as you described and I raised sg over the span of around 2 hrs. Both fish did fine, I used a chip clip to keep the bag nearly sealed. This sounds like the experience your more accustomed to and seems the 2 hr drive home is the outlying difference. Imo stress of the animal along with very possible ammonia spike then adding the salinity change on top of that prolly was just too much too fast for the fish. When I bring fish home they usually go from store to home in 15mins or less.
I would think an lfs with low salinity would be either giving out store credits like crazy for dead fish or making sure customers are aware of proper acclimation for their fish considering. But going forward having a qt and matching lfs salinity sounds like the best way to cover bases. And helps me, if I ever get my new tank in the mail plan to have a one spot and know I shouldn't be leaving in the bag now
he did offer me store credit but it’s a far drive back and I’m not sure it’s worth it, owner was kind of rude and told me he was mad I killed the fish. When I told him I thought I was doing the best thing for the fish due to low salinity he acted like 1.016 was normal and told me I needed to acclimated it much faster.
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Thank you, I always thought this was a rule for shipped fish as I’ve always done acclimation in bag and never had this issue. Even bought a fish at a expo once, drove all the way back home, and bag acclimated without any issues. Definitely didn’t see this coming but now I know better. Not a fun lesson to learn but definitely one learned.
I was putting it in qt. I should have specified that in the post but I knew I was buying fish Black Friday so I set up a 20 gallon with established media from my display tank weeks ago. After I saw that spot there was no way it was going into my display tank. But I used my sump to float the bag and keep it warm since they are both only a few feet away. I just never thought to match my qt salinity as I’ve always done bag acclimation without issues.
Smaller fish or certain species who may be more tolerant of ammonia spikes, you may be able to get away with, but that looks like a decent size fox and if it was in a standard size bag of water... It makes perfect logical sense to me that is what happened.
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