First 3 fish - dead

I'm a complete noob but it is my understanding that shrimp are much more sensitive to bad water parameters than a Chromis. I'm wondering if the LFS wasn't keeping the fish at a lower salinity to prevent the spread of disease.

 

Sorry for the losses. Most lfs keep their tanks SG low at like 1.020 so a 1/2 hr acclimation really isnt all that long for brign it up to a 1.024.

The more I test the more I am certain pH means almost nothing. Yea it should be within a range and everyone will tell you make it stable but it is impossible due to natural processes. The pH drops durign the night with lights off and raises throughout the day with the lights on. It doesnt sound like there is a problem with your tank chemistry wise unless there is some unknown toxin in the tank, but I would thinkt hat the inverts would be the first to go unless they gradually become immune to it as it built up in the system. Do you run carbon? If not throw a bag on for a week or so to make sure.

I also do not think it could be the shrimp, if they killed the fish they were already in a very weakened state either from disease or from being in shock from improper acclimation. If that is the case the shrimp could have attacked and killed the fish before they had a chance to recover and accliamte to their new tank.

With all that said, if you cant guess where my opinion lies, my best guess along the lines of everyone else with the fish prob being weakened before purchase or improper acclimation. Also it is possible they beat the crap out of each other, 3 isnt very many for an aggressive schooler. Most likely it is a mixture of the all three things.

What size tank do you have? Good luck with stocking in the future, if you jsut purchases the chromis as a starter fish remember once in they are hard to get out and take up valuable real estate in your tank as well as make it difficult for new comers.

 

My understanding of chromis is they are often collected less than desirable methods to keep costs down. This leads to some pretty unhealthy specimens in the hobby. My experience with chromis is very poor. For some reason every one I buy dies within a week.

I would love to keep a school of them, but I feel my tank is not destined for it.

 

qq(cry) had a nice long informative response all typed up and then swiched tabs to check something and then hit the X by accident... /sigh so... in a nutshell +1 to acclimation being done incorrectly and the possability of unhealthy fish. I would... purchase another set of 5+ (an odd number) which look healthy and feed well at the LFS. then... look up more on drip acclimation. I have never tested my water as is mentioned below but if you take your time you should be fine... to get you started and by no means the perfect and only way...

Acclimation Instructions

1 Put the fish with all the bag water in a bucket or container of sufficient size for the fish to be reasonably covered with the water.
2 Set the bucket on the floor next to the aquarium you will be placing the fish into when done.
3 Using some plastic air line tubing and an air gang value, set up and run a siphon drip line from the aquarium you will be placing the fish into, to the bucket.
4 Start the siphon and slowly allow the tank water to drip into the bucket, using the gang air valve to adjust the drip rate.
5 When the water dripped into the bucket equals about two to three times the volume of the bag water you started with. If you want you can test the pH, salinity and temperature of the bag water to see if these parameters match that of your tank water at this point to check if acclimation is complete. (adding my own note here, depending on the size of your bucket... you can even remove some of the water and allow it to build up slowly again. This prolongs the acclimation process and brings the water chemistry of the two separate sources closer together.)
6 Gently remove the fish and place it into the same tank the dripped in water came from.
7. (adding my own note here) don't put any of the LFS water or the mixed LFS/DT water from the acclimation process back into your tank. You have no clue what's in it and a lot of LFS use copper which would wipe out any coral/inverts you have.

Again there are more/less things that can be done in this process and i suggest reading a few different sources but that in and of it self is a good place to start...

 

oh and i love chromis... they're affordable and a great schooling fish. even though i've lost some the only time i did was when i jumped the gun after a tank crash. If done right i think you'll be fine with them. I have 3 in my tank right now. Wouldn't mind having more but i wiped out the stock when i bought them, oh well...

 

plus they're not aggressive like damsels are.

 

Not as far as I know. There doesn't seem to be much info on their sexuality. The pair I had that bred in my tank were exactly the same size and even after observing them for weeks I could not tell them apart as they both tend the nest. I believe the difference in size between some species of fish in our aquariums is due to a release of hormones by the dominant fish which stunts the growth of others. This doesn't necessarily mean a difference in gender.

 

I really appreciate all the responses. I did do the drip acclimation like was stated but maybe it just wasn't quite long enough? I may try two clowns and see how they do? Unless anyone else has some suggestions for a first type of fish to introduce.

 

Clowns could be a good first addition,definitely hardier than chromis,just take care in choosing them and make sure they aren't new arrivals where you purchase them.I suspect this might have been the case with the chromis,they could have already been stressed when you got them.

 

My first guess would be they got sick before you bought them. How long were they in your tank? Any chance there was some bad stuff in the bucket you used to acclimate them? Did you test the salinity of the water they came in to compare to your setup? Another thing could be stray voltage from one of your electrical device. Fish are very sensitive to this. They pick up the voltage in their lateral lines and causes disease. You can test for this one of two ways, with a multimeter that measures ac and dc or with bare feet stick your hand in the tank. I recommend the former : )