Just got a Dragonet and I think its dying already

The lady at the lfs took 15 minutes to catch the little guy and probably stressed him the hell out. It also took 40 minutes to get him home to begin acclimation. he went straight to the bottom of the acclimation tank and just sits there not swimming at all. his eyes are moving and so are his gills and he is not breathing heavily but im still worried. When i researched the fish it said they do like the bottoms of tanks but he was way more active in the store. We haven't even had him for 2 hours yet. Does anyone on here have success with this fish is this normal activity or am i acclimating a doomed fish he does not look happy at all... he has been acclimating for for almost 40 minutes now and has not moved

tested levels today. ph 8.0 salt 1.022 nitrite 0 ppm nitrate 0 ppm

 

Salt seems low. Still need more info tho. Tank size how long has it ran ect.

 

Probably a little stressed from being caught. As far as the ride home I don't think that's much of a journey considering how long it took and far it traveled for it to get to your LFS from where they get their livestock from. I typically acclimate for 30 minutes and then add to my DT I would think 40 min would be plenty long but everyone has different methods. Good luck hope it pulls through....

 

Just got him in the tank he is totally ok swimming around acting like a fish haha i guess he was just scared or somthing

 

Glad to hear he is doing better

 

Were you staring at him? That freaks fish out too. I'm sure you know that you need a lot of pods in your tank for a Mandarin to survive. Hope he does well for you!