Cali Kid Corals

Alright, what the heck did I do wrong?

Raddogz

Raddogz

Guest
BARcard
I bring home a new female anthias (lyretail). I put the bag and the fish and let acclimate to the tank for about half an hour, take the fish out and put in a bucket (clean), along with the bag water. I then slowly proceed to add a cup of tank water into the bucket. I do about four cups total - one cup every fifteen minutes.

Now here is the weird part: I take the fish out via plastic measuring cup and stick him into a net which is floating now in my tank (this fish is for my tank at work). The fish kinda sinks to one corner of the net with it's mouth gaping open.

Of course, I'm freaking out cuz I think I killed the poor fish. I poke it with an airline tube (notice I said poke not skewer - no kabobs here), and the fish swims away, but now panting.

I put the fish back into the bucket and now floating the bucket with an airline tube in the bucket. What the heck did I do or didn't do? I've never had this happen to me.
 
Not that I have a experience with a large variety of fish...

Is anthias a type that "plays dead"?

Were the fish already acclimated into the tank where you got it, or was it a new shipment and still bagged? Don't shippers add stuff to the water to make the fish "sleepy" or something? I've seen a lot of fish drip acclimating at the LFS that look like they're half dead, but they always perk up when the acclimation is done.

Did the bag have 02 in it?

I've seen panting with amylodium kind of ailments.

Do any prophylactic dipping? I've been doing rid-ich(malachite green, formalin) at 10x concentration for 1 hour with air stone once the acclimation water has been equilibrated with tank water. If no air stone, the malachite green can be a problem I understand.

Sorry, I'm not the fish expert. I pretty much only keep one kind of fish, y'know :)
 
Anthias can die simply by looking at them, no joke. I've had to bring back many after they do that. Sometimes, if you put their mouth under some direct current and have it forced over their gills, they can be brought back. Sucks about your loose.

hint for the future: Keep the bottom of the bag blacked out when acclimating them, use a dark container (no white buckets or clear cups), do it at night or in a dim situation.
 
Well, as I posted before I let the fish sit in the container as it floated in the water with an airline slowly bubbling away. At this point, well let's hope for the best, so I turned off the lights and went to bed.

It's 2:30 a.m and the thought of me killing this fish is really bugging me, and I can't get to sleep. I go downstairs and decide to put a flashlight in on the fish and "holy crap Batman" the fish is this weird creme, and funny blue (okay in hindsight I should not have used the blue led flashlight that I use to shine in on the corals at night - it floureces everything). I'm thinking it's dead, so I unplug the airpump from the wall, and turn on the main room lights. Well, shiver me timbers Spongebob - it moved. So I slowly rotate the container in the water and sure enough the fish's mouth is back to normal, breathing quite well, and giving me the evil eye. I plug the pump back in the wall, turn off the lights, and go back to bed.

So the saga ended right? wrong - almost...

I am getting ready to leave for work in the morning, and look in on the fish making sure it did not go carpet surfing - it did not. It's panting a little bit, and I also notice there's no airbubbles coming out of the airline. Heh?????? I go to turn up the air, and nothing nada zilch. I look around the corner, and the black plug is plugged into the wall - doh...the wrong one...double doh. I plugged in the powerhead to circulate the tank last night not the air pump.

Ah....^#%$#$#$ <grumble> <grumble> I plug the air pump back into the wall, and let a nice stream of air bubbles back into the container for a good twenty minutes before leaving for work.

I get to work with fish in tow and acclimate again. This time it went without a hitch.
 
I did initally acclimate the fish when the lights went out in my tank. So who knows what happened? I knew people talk about Anthias being sensitive, but this fish was like a big mouth bass out of water.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top