Is My Water OK? I killed 3 fish during acclamation.

+1

 

Sounds to me like you are trying to do the right thing otherwise you would not be here in the first place. I think you QTing the fish is an excellent idea, but I also think you need to have a completely cycled DT before purchasing the fish and add only one or 2 at a time to allow the bio-logical filter to adjust between introductions.
Putting buying anymore fish on hold until you get to the bottom of this is an excellent idea, as you already posted.
Also thank you for including all the detail you did in your original post.

 

SushiGirl,

I do have live rock, this picture is old. Please all, slow down and stop making assumptions. I have everything you talked about except the skimmer which is coming for the DT only.

I setup my QT without the skimmer. No live rock in there. I took my custom media from the DT and put it into my QT filter. The DT has not cycled, but it has Nitrate (20).

 

Stating that in the beginning would have been very helpful. No one can help you if we don't have all the info.

 

Trapstar, you have the option to no longer open the thread.
There is no need to tell someone new to go somewhere else.

 

Let's all calm down and be productive with our posts.

 

Thank you MissionSix for cleaning up this thread.

Let's all try and remember that we are here to help each other.

Going from memory, the OP was concerned that the RO/DI water was the issue because of low pH. This is a normal occurrence because some of the natural buffers that were in the tapwater have been removed at the same time the bad things were removed. However, once the salt is mixed in, the pH buffers will be restored (and even more added).

I personally use Prime when drip acclimating. I'm not worried about Ammonia from my RO/DI unit, I'm worried about the fish going to the bathroom in a small container that doesn't have any bacteria built up in it to process that Ammonia.

I wouldn't worry about a Home Depot bucket not being food grade. I've acclimated in them many, many times over the years. With that said, it's important that no chemicals have ever been put in that bucket (like maybe to mop or something). If you know it's a clean bucket that has only been used for fish, then that's not the issue.

Let's get this back on track.

 

.....

 

One thing I see is that each of the fish you had can be finicky and very fragile in regards to the acclimation process.

You said that the entire acclimation process took 3-4 hours so I'm just wondering if in your attempt to do the "correct" things that the temp may have dropped just enough to slow them down before entry into the tank.

In any case sorry to hear about this, just review your steps breath deep and try again. Last week I put 5 Blue/Green Chromis into my 150 gallon display tank and within 25 minutes I lost everyone but one! I spoke with the place I bought them from and was given credit, but I also reviewed my steps to make sure I did everything correct and talked with a local person that I respect in the reef hobby.

If you do a web search on "fish mortality rates" I think you'll see that the number is up at about 90% from sea to tank due to all the stresses they encounter in transit, regardless of having a stay at a LFS. So the buyer at the end of the process feels the loss the most and is shaken by something that may very well have happened to another aquarist.

Hang in there!

 

I see you took this advice from someone else elsewhere LOL.