Bad LFS or is my tank a death trap?

kcbrad i have read your threads of you losing new fish. fish loss is just a fact. who knows if its shipping stress, a sick fish or acclimation. but i dont know of anyone who can honestly say they haven't lost a new fish. it's sad but it happens

 

she meant loss a fish by acclimation failure. Her losses usually have to do with disease.
If you get a fish from an LFS, the best thing to do is acclimate the fish to the water chemistry.
However, if you get a fish online, it is best to just add the fish immediately after temperature acclimation. If i have this right, PH lowers when a fish is in the bag for a long time, and so does the harmful ammonia. When you add water from your fish tank, ammonia levels can spike tremendously harming the fish a lot more than what a salinity swing may do.

 

+1 on the shipped online vs. LFS acclimation. I get mine all from the LFS so I usually add cupfuls of my water or drip depending on the fish/invert. I have been lucky to also never have any loss' due to acclimation.

 

i am surprised that you don't run into any issues with the salinity change. Especially since a lot of vendors keep their fish at extremely low salinity levels. maybe it doesn't make as big of a difference as i have been led to believe. better not let liveaquaria hear about the float only method.

 

i dont agree with what you say about just temperature acclimating them, i do this with corals but never fish , if that was true that would be what the online places would tell you. they wouldn't say to acclimate for a few hours as liveaquaria recommends. as do all the other online stores i have dealt with.
i do agree that ammonia levels rise in shipping and ph drops... ph dropping is all the more reason to slowly acclimate . but i dont believe ammonia rises more as your adding your water from your tank

 

+1 i agree

Kcbrad im sorry if i came off as attacking you. that was not my intention. but i knew you lost fish with in the first 2 weeks. ph shock is a faster death than salinity shock from what i have heard

 

I know ReefCleaners posts this acclimation guide for inverts/snails which explains the level swings a bit. It pertains to floating for temp and then adding them directly to the tank:

You may find this to be different than the acclimation procedure you are used to carrying out. The reason we now ask our customers to use this procedure is because our snails and crabs live intertidally, and can handle swings in ph/salinity without a problem. However, what they can't handle is toxic levels of ammonia. During the shipping process, ammonia levels in the shipping bags build, while the ph level goes down. As the ph goes down the toxicity of ammonia also goes down. However, when your tank water with normal ph is introduced to the shipping bags, and the ph rises, so does the toxicity of the ammonia, and you will be poisoning the livestock. Please don't do this. Any other method of acclimation voids the Alive Arrival Guarante

 

Yes I meant a fish due to acclimation. I've lost fish, duh. However, any that have died have been in my tanks months, so it's not due to acclimation.

 

I have read with shipped fish it is better to add them quickly or ammonia rises to dangerous levels. As well as ph problems. See what Mo Joe put above.

 

I've never lost a fish in two weeks. The only ones that died that quickly were flasher wrasses that were delayed a whole 24 hours in Indianapolis and came 75% dead.

Please don't tell me "Facts" about my own tank.