Little Disappointed

[ddaddy2420]

Had a blue spotted goby die on me about a week after I had him - had kept him in my QT tank for about a week and he was eating and doing fine. I then transferred him to my DT and he died overnight. I put him in a bucket of QT water and dripped DT water in bucket for a couple of hours and then put him in there. I use the same water change water in my DT as my QT. My QT water tests are good (ammonia 0, nitrites 0, nitrates 0, ph 8.13, temp 78, salinity 1.023). No clue what happened because i have a lyretail anthias and a coral beauty angel living in the DT with no issues.

Water is:
ph 8.0
temp 76-79
Salinity 1.025
Nitrates 20ppm
phosphates <.25 just got a hannah checker so will have more accurate results here
Alkalinity 8-9
nitrites 0
ammonia 0
Calcium 460
Magnesium 1420
I do a daily 4-5 gallon water change and I also dose vodka twice a day. I split up the dose into 2 parts. I am at 1.8 mls per day currently. Still waiting for my nitrates to drop.

Don't have much in the tank: sand sifting star, pencil urchin, coral banded shrimp, couple soft corals, nothing major. So i packed him up along with some of my tank water...thought this was standard procedure for a fish that dies quickly like this. Most stores have some sort of warranty or return policy. Blueplanet informed me they have no warranty on saltwater fish. Which was a bummer cause it is the only store close to me so I have been spending a good bit of money in there. Oh well, i thought all fish stores had some sort of policy?? I am not majorly pissed or anything, after all it was only $30.

 

[heathlindner25]

I think most salt water critters are sold as is, there's too many variables involved. Sorry to hear buddy didn't make it... it happens to the best of us, not saying I'm the best at anything....lol

 

[ddaddy2420]

Oh ok not sure why I thought most stores had some sort of policy, definitely true though, way too many things could go wrong for them to have some open ended return policy.

 

[rdnelson]

Sorry to hear about your fish. :-( As Heath said, few store give a warranty and if they do it is usually only 24 hours.

 

[ddaddy2420]

Yup lesson learned - main thing is I still don't know what happened to my fish. Maybe I will leave in QT longer?

 

[porpoiseaquatics]

I suspect it's the nitrates. You took a fish from 0 in the QT to 20ppm in the DT and while you acclimated that's really only good for a temp difference or a salinity difference. It doesn't do much for ammonia, nitrites or nitrates. Get your nitrates below 5ppm before adding anything else.

 

[rjrgroup]

Ummm, Calcium and Magnesium are a bit high which leads me to believe you tests kits are not correct. IMO

 

[frantz]

Some of the chain stores have 14 day warranties, but that's because they buy so many fish and they often are sick from overcrowding. I've never dealt with blue planet, but my hunch is, like most small shops, if you build a relationship with them then they don't have to have a written policy in order to help keep you as a happy customer. Sorry you lost a fish though.

 

[softhammer]

Why the daily water changes? Seems you are working way way harder than you need to. Leave it to cycle itself!

 

[patrick]

Live Aquaria has a 14 day arrive alive adn STAY alive policy......but you'll generally pay quite a bit more.......I think........because of such a policy. That is about the only such policy on saltwater fish I know of.....other than a few smaller places that might offer a 7 day policy. But that is not the norm.

 

[nickg]

IMO you had the fish live for a week in the QT. You then moved it into you DT and it died overnight. Looks like a water problem to me. If I were the LFS I would not have warrantied it either. Acclimation and water parameters are uncontrollable from the store....

 

[ddaddy2420]

Yea I guess I didn't think of it like that, it did live a week. I really hadn't thought it was a water issue because my Anthias and Coral beauty Angel are doing fine. My nitrates are dropping, figured out with Acro's help I was majorly over feeding.

I was doing 1-2 gallon water changes and I bumped that up in an attempt to get nitrates down.

 

[frantz]

Cutting back on feeding and switching to more frozen foods will help (IDK what you're feeding now). Once you get in the habit of thawing out some food it really isn't a hassle. I started so I could target feed coral, but saw how much more the fish liked it. I still used dried food too and also have a thriving pod/shrimp population in my tank so that makes em work for some food!

 

[ddaddy2420]

I feed mostly frozen food (reef plankton, cyclops, cyclopeez, rotifers, mysis shrimp) and mix it with DT's phytoplankton and some tank water. Every now and then i drop a few pellets and flakes in that mix. I alternate most of the frozen stuff with mysis. Started feeding mysis regularly for my Anthias, finally figured out what she liked.