New fish

jpontier212 · Jun 3, 2016

I just came home from the pet store and i bought another royal gramma. He's a little guy. I put him in my QT and he hasn't moved from the corner. I understand that the move from the store to a QT is quite traumatic but how long if it sitting in the corner before i start to worry? I drip acclimated him for an hour and my QT parameters are
Temp 80.1°f
Sal 1.025
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrate 0
PH 8.1
He has a 3" pvc elbow to hide in
The QT set up is a sponge filter, which the filter was in my sump from my 55 gallon for a month. A whisper filter with media. Some live rock, a heater and digital thermometer.

TUSI · Jun 3, 2016

What's his breathing like

andrewey · Jun 3, 2016

+1 to checking his breathing. Also, is he towards the top of the water or near the bottom?

eliramos · Jun 3, 2016

Don't worry just yet
Just stress from the move. Give him a few hours or so he will come around

Tahoe61 · Jun 3, 2016

Give him some place to hide and turn off the lighting if able.

4FordFamily · Jun 3, 2016

Tahoe61 said:
Give him some place to hide and turn off the lighting if able.

X2

FishOfHex · Jun 3, 2016

jpontier212 said:
I just came home from the pet store and i bought another royal gramma. He's a little guy. I put him in my QT and he hasn't moved from the corner. I understand that the move from the store to a QT is quite traumatic but how long if it sitting in the corner before i start to worry? I drip acclimated him for an hour and my QT parameters are
Temp 80.1°f
Sal 1.025
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrate 0
PH 8.1
He has a 3" pvc elbow to hide in
The QT set up is a sponge filter, which the filter was in my sump from my 55 gallon for a month. A whisper filter with media. Some live rock, a heater and digital thermometer.

I always keep any lights off for about 24 hours after adding fish to QT. The journey for most of these fish is very stressful the best thing you can do is leave it alone and wait. I would try feeding him tomorrow morning but dont be upset if he doesn't eat. sometimes it takes a day or two for them to come around. If the fish is sitting in the corner 3 to 5 days from now id be worried.

michellejy · Jun 4, 2016

What was the salinity he came from?

jpontier212 · Jun 4, 2016

michellejy said:
What was the salinity he came from?

Salinity was 1.025. I lucked out. My lfs was on the same my QT was.

michellejy · Jun 4, 2016

jpontier212 said:
Salinity was 1.025. I lucked out. My lfs was on the same my QT was.

When you have matching salinity, you can just temp match and skip dripping totally. It's less stressful for the fish.

jpontier212 · Jun 4, 2016

michellejy said:
When you have matching salinity, you can just temp match and skip dripping totally. It's less stressful for the fish.

I did the drip acclimation anyway just to be on the safe side. But in your opinion, I don't have an ammonia badge in the qt, how often should i test the water and should i do water changes according to the test results or just do a 50 percent weekly? Is there a rule of thumb?

4FordFamily · Jun 4, 2016

jpontier212 said:
I did the drip acclimation anyway just to be on the safe side. But in your opinion, I don't have an ammonia badge in the qt, how often should i test the water and should i do water changes according to the test results or just do a 50 percent weekly? Is there a rule of thumb?

Trust me, just get the ammonia badge. Best 10-20 bucks you will ever spend.

Drip acclimation actually causes another problem while trying to solve another - temperature drops. both the bag water and acclimation water will often cool faster than the new water will warm it. For this reason I agree that matching salinity is best or at least short acclimations.

Alanc425 · Jun 5, 2016

Lights out and cover it with a blanket/sheet. Probably will be shy and refuse to eat for a few days.

+1 on the ammonia badge, best $12 investment for a QT. I used to wait for it to turn blue then 50% water change. Never lost a fish in QT.

The extra filters in your sump should be cycled with no ammonia problems assuming they've been in there at least a month+

michellejy · Jun 5, 2016

I can't remember if your QT is cycled or not. I was doing pretty big water changes every other day when mine wasn't cycled. Now that it is, I change about 15% - 20% once a week.

The main thing is not overfeeding. It was a lot easier to keep ammonia in check when I scaled down on food and let the fish eat from a pipette rather than flooding the tank with food in the hope they would chase it down to eat. (Flooding is an exaggeration obviously, but you know what I mean.)