Clownfish suddenly spasmed and died??

[Kennyyip]

Hi all, I've recently purchased a tomato clown and transferred it over to my tank via the float and add water method. It was fine for the first day and swam around happily. During the second day, I noticed it wouldn't eat and it was breathing rather fast. Furthermore, it was also staying in one place and wouldn't move. Added an airstone in the water yesterday because i thought maybe the o² saturation levels were low. Not too long ago today, I just saw it spasm, twitch, and died right in front of my eyes. Ammonia, pH, nitrites, copper, nitrates are all 0. Temps at 78. Salinity is a bit low at 1.020. Any idea what happened?

 

[Tatumj96]

How long has this tank been running? If it's new, has it cycled? Can you verify pH? You said it was zero. And are you sure nitrate is zero?

 

[Big G]

How high was the salinity when you got the clown? Was it shipped or did you pick it up?

 

[Kennyyip]

How long has this tank been running? If it's new, has it cycled? Can you verify pH? You said it was zero. And are you sure nitrate is zero?

Its actually been running for years. Its just haven't had fish for one or two months now after the last of them died after it got sucked up into the filter. Lol sorry, pH was measured at around 8.2 not 0. Yes nitrates should be zero as there were no fish for a couple of months. This was verified via my own testing kit as well as my lfs.

 

[Kennyyip]

How high was the salinity when you got the clown? Was it shipped or did you pick it up?

I'm not too sure actually. I picked it up from petco as I was looking to reintroduce new fish into my tank and was only looking for cheaper starting fish to see if everything is fine. I did acclimate it for almost an hour with the float method while slowly adding water from my own tank

 

[Big G]

The hour acclimation is fine for the temperature aspect, but could be a problem with the salinity difference.
Osmotic Shock often takes 2-3 days to overwhelm the fish. Usually adjust salinity 0.001 per day to ease the fish into it's new salinity level.

 

[Kennyyip]

The hour acclimation is fine for the temperature aspect, but could be a problem with the salinity difference.
Osmotic Shock often takes 2-3 days to overwhelm the fish. Usually adjust salinity 0.001 per day to ease the fish into it's new salinity level.

Yes, that might be the issue here. Also bought a saltwater snail, but it fell off its rock and i placed it back. It hasnt moved since and i think its dead. Might be due to salinity levels too as inverts dont usually do well with lower salinity. The only other issue is that I also bought a saltwater molly along with it. That night after acclimating it to our tank, I cant help but notice that it has small white specks on its body- possibly ick so I transferred it to qt with a little copper solution just in case. The mollies doing fine. Its eating and active, but sometimes it just floats there with its fins clamped- another good sign of ick. Maybe the molly spread the disease to the clown which killed it? Not too sure though as I just spotted the white specks so the tomonts probably didn't burst out of the cysts and form the free swimming infectious Theronts yet.

 

[Tamberav]

What killed all your fish before?

Did Petco have inverts in the tank with it? Like starfish, urchins, shrimp? If so then the salinity shouldn't have been crazy low.

 

[Kennyyip]

Well, first time was definitely due to hurricane sandy which knocked out power and caused all the fish to die due to low temperature. The other times I'm not actually too sure, the yellow tang was doing fine and then wouldn't eat.It had a really flat stomach. Idk why thr butterfly tang also died. Might of died due to stress as i had a decently sized domino damsel in there lol. Couple others died after getting sucked into the filter. Hasnt really been a good experience for me tbh. Oh and i think the petco tanks had a couple of inverts in there, which makes me think the salinity there was actually higher.