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Bad Experience with Saltwater retailer

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  • Bad Experience with Saltwater retailer

    Sorry, I'm new to posting here and hope I'm not out of line.

    I'm very new to saltwater fishkeeping but I have about 5 years experience with freshwater. I set up my tank almost four months ago and ran very little until I put my first fish in it maybe 3 months ago, it was a green chromis. It died within a week but the 10 hermit crabs I have bought are thriving, I was a little disheartened and blamed myself, it took a few weeks and I bought a cute striped damsel and a turbo snail a month ago exactly. The turbo snail keeled over two days later. Just this Tuesday, I bought a lawnmower blenny and two peppermint shrimp. The blenny died today. Everything was purchased from the same shop and I noticed a lot of fish appeared to be in poor health. I acclimated them very slowly over a 3 hour process as instructed, I had a water test done that day at the store and was told my nitrates were good, I have an ammonia test of my own so didn't have that tested. My water salinity is at .021, theirs is at .016 or so so I knew it was important to acclimate.

    Salt fish aren't cheap, I'm doing it slowly step by step on a budget, so it's a little upsetting to spend money with little result. I don't know how to approach this retailer that has a no satisfaction guarantee or whether to blame myself, but for a fish that lives on algae they were living in BARE tank bottoms. Perhaps there is a better fish retailer in this area because I feel as if I may be wasting money to continue at this store. Every time I buy things in twos, one thing DIES and its just so strange.

  • #2
    1. Don't buy fish if you aren't 100% sure about it. Just like us, fish are exposed to infections all the time, especially in stores/wholesale. When they are stressed, they will start to show the symptoms. If the fish in the store don't look good, don't buy them. There are many saltwater dealers around houston, driving the extra distance to a reputable dealer is well worth it.

    2. Check your filtration. What size tank and what kind of filtration do you use? If you have maxxed out your filtration, you could potentially overload the filtration by adding multiple fish at one time.

    3. A 3 hour acclimation seems a bit long, but I only deal with freshwater fish. The longer they are in an acclimation situation, they get more and more stressed. Do the acclimation and get them in their new home before they are stressed to death. For my fish, I acclimate between 1 and 2 hours (2 absolute tops).
    75 planted (Being Renovated)
    Endlers
    gobies
    lots of nanos

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    • #3
      Saltwater is very tough when it comes to keeping things alive at the begining. Usually when you buy five damsels, I expect two to die because they are very aggresive. The main thing is to make sure there is a lot of flow inside the tank, have good filtration, make sure your equipment is working properly, do your water changes monthly or weekly, etc. Do some research when you purchase anything and ask can you feed them just to make sure they are eating. As for the sw being so low in salinity, most suppliers keep fish in lower salinity because they are less prone to diseases. Just be patient when it comes to saltwater. It takes time. I have lost a lot of stock on mistakes I just overlook. Just go down that check list-ph, ammonia, nitrate, salinity, temperature. If you are unsure, just take the water to another store to get it tested or better yet, get a test kit so you can test it for yourself. If you have questions about anything, ask away. However, always take each suggestion with a grain a salt. Sometimes it works for people sometimes it doesn't. Hope that helps a little. Just hang in there, and you will be fine.

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      • #4
        Many of the same principles for freshwater apply to saltwater. However, water parameters are more exacting when it comes to most marine inhabitants. Hermit crabs are very hardy and may not be a good indication as to the health of your tank/water quality. Often marine enviroments need higher flow rates and cooler temps. I purchased an excellent book a long time back, The New Marine Aquarium by Micheal S. Paletta ($20.00). You may want to look at it. Many of the marine fish you purchased may have come from the wild. No matter, how good the store is, these fish are stressed, and keeping up with their feeding requirements is difficult. If you feel the fish are not in good condition don't buy them, just as in freshwater.

        Just remember LFS is sometimes just a holding place for fish, until it gets to your home. If you want to buy something with special feeding requirements, you may want to set up to pick the fish up soon after it's been in the store.

        In most saltwater tanks, amonia doesn't have to spike much to have a toxic effect. Check for pH swings. Some stores may keep a lower specific gravity, to keep disease level down. Many marine pathogens have difficulty in surviving at lower SPG.

        If your tank is mainly empty of life. You can try an experiment. Measure your amonia and nitrates (make sure your reagent is good) at the start. Then throw in a frozen 1/2 cube of mysis shrimp or brine shrimp (1/2 for every 10 gallons- a nice system I came up with). Measure in 12 hrs. and see if there is a spike. Then measure every 24 hrs. to see if the spike goes away and how long. In a well cycled tank with good oxygenation and flow, you'll see a small spike and everything drop to zero with in 24 hrs. The spike is typically controlled even through subsequent measurements. If you see a large spike the tank is not ready. If you see a continued spike , the tank isn't ready. If you see a double early spike, the tank is begining to get there but not quite ready. If you see a small spike , and none or only a minute one over 5 days or so ,then it's time to try some fish.

        Or a cheap way is to put a few mollies in the tank and see if they live (not so nice on the mollies).
        Emerald Green Rainbowfish
        Yellow Rabbit Snails

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