Fish aren't Swimming! Help

Well people , ryan had contacted me on yahoo and we sorted it out as best we could with what he had at his disposal at this time of night.

We elected to pull the 2 pieces of live rock' in a bucket of salt water since he was unable to catch any of the fish .
( he didint have a net or any thing to catch them )
And we got a small water change going , sumthing like 5 gallons i think , thats all he had since he has to buy his water at this time ( no ro/di unit of his own at this time )

I'm amazed at how the story went on this one really' it's like he walked in , the guy seen him as nothing but a pocket book, here ya go>>> blaaaa bllaaaaa this and here !.

The guy actullay told Ryan he didint need to test any parameters. LOL WOW !!!!

So we seem to have settled on a "best fix" at 2 am in the morning, his wife was having a coniption fit and he was all wadded up not wanting to lose any fish.


I think the guy has Heart though , he's bound and determined to learn and conqour this reefing hobby. ( and a very nice and polite person to boot i must say )

Told him he needs to read, read, read, AND READ SOME MORE !.

I think the LFS guy ( found out that it was the actual owner of the store ) that sold all this to him as well .
Go's to show you how desprate store owners are now to make a sale right now in this tough econemy. ( to the tune of 2,000$ clams ).
and didint even throw ANY test kits/etc. in with this purchase, ( as the owner said there was no need to test ).


Sorry Ryan and the rest I'm pissed a little to see some one do that to a new person and such.

 

WR I'm worked up about this too. i don't know if it's because I work at a lfs or i'm in the hobby and hate to see someone treated like this or both. This is awful. Reefing is by FAR the most rewarding hobby i've ever been involved in and I hate to see it get abused like this.

 

Man I would never ever ever go into that lfs again, exept to cuss that SOB out and demand every red cent of my money back and some for all the time and late night work trying to save everything.

It is hard when you are starting out, I'll stick up for you there Ryan, you get soo much information from sooooooooo many people, and its hard to know who is full of crap and who knows what they are talking about. Before I found this place I was kinda lost.

Karma for your losses and determination. And hope this dont make you wanna throw in the towel!!

 

it can take up to 2 months for a tank to cycle well enough to begin putting livestock in ..as suggested above take the fish to a friend or a differant lfs to hold untill you have things under control..the best advice is go slow and be patient as this hobby is all about that

 

I'd forgotton to mention, that Ryan will be picking up some test kits today and will be posting his reading's .
He'd asked what were his fishes chances of survival so on and so forth .
My reply was simple > 50/50 with out seeing the condition of these fish/inverts etc. that you might wanna say a prayer to the fish god's and hope for the best.
Ryan had not ever kept fresh water fresh beofore , this is is VERY FIRST tank/reef ,etc.
He'd not even been told of how to replenish evaporated tank water .
( we proceeded to do salt water fish tanks class 101 )

He's got brass i'll tell ya..lol

Hopefully he will post some good news for us today and told him to stay the hell away from that guy
(butt-plug) that did that to him.

 

OK, let's not throw all store owners into the same category. I own a small shop and would never do something like this. I really want help people long term. Thats why I suggest he don't go back to that store, there are plenty descent shops in every area. It LFS like that , who set hobbyist up for failure and give the ideal " I hear it's really hard to keep salt water fish". I think Ryan came to the right place and will hopefully slow down his pace and begin a successful tank.

 

Welcome to 3Reef>>>> hope all works out.... Not all lfs's are bad... My friend owned one and now has one out of his basement... Even before I became friend with him, he would not sell me certain fish or certain things I didn't need or wasn't ready for... Sad thing is, its hard to find honest people like my friend anymore....

 

Update On Fish Not Swimming

Thanks for everyone's help and warranted anger...
It's actually fueled me enough to approach my lfs about stocking my tank without ever doing a water quality test. I'll let you know how that goes.

Update now... I bought the test kit...
everything was perfect... except for nitrates... in fact... it was nearly off the charts... between 80 and 120ppm...

I did a 50 percent emergency water change... NO MOVEMENT on nitrates whatsoever!!!!

All my fish died except for 2 clown fish and yellow tang...

However... all three appear to have ick.

I have no idea what to do... how to save them...

Help! Ryan

 

ok ryan this is what I would do and this is just me. There are no coral in the tank so hyposalinity is safe and 99 percent effective and is ok to the fish. You want to start doing SMALL water changes with fresh water. Until you get your salinity down to about 1.017. Ich can't live in this but your fish can. This is the salinity of my fowlr tank and my fish are very happy. These small changes will help lower your nitrates also. I'm sorry your first venture into the saltwater world had to go this way. I hope you don't lose your passion as it seems like you have a heart for this hobby.

 

it's good to see that there are people like your friend out there. My boss is the same way. He looks for the long term customer and to get that you have to treat them right and help them achieve a successful system. I get amped when someone comes in the store starting their first tank. Sometimes I help them set it up for free just to make sure they are doing things right.