Help, labout wrasse
 

I received a labout wrasse from live aquaria today, drip.acclimated for two hours, freshwater dipped two hours with temp and pH adjusted RO water, placed him in display, and he's staying near top, just kinda gliding near surface. Seems unable to lower himself beneath the surface. Please help

You kept him in freshwater for 2 hours? You're kidding right? FW dips are for 5 minutes. Another thing is that acclimation should only be a 15 minute temp acclimation in the bag and the released into the QT which has the salinity already set to the shipping bag. If you FW dipped the fish for 2 hours he's a goner.


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You should never drip acclimate mail ordered fish. The fish is extremely stressed from the capturing and the shipping process, then you put it is a fresh water for two hours. I am surprised that he is not already dead.

You just have to wait and pray for the fish to make it.

Please read more about the acclimation process, before your order any more livestock.

+1...

On top of the ammonia after opening the bag.

I was typing from my phone before, I see some errors slipped thru. I am now on computer.

My tank salinity is 1.025, the salinity of the bagged water was 1.020. PRIOR to opening the bag, I made 1.020 water , two inches deep in a ten gallon tank, temp adjusted to bag as well. Upon opening of bag, they were put into ten gallon tank, same salinity and temp.

I dripped for two hours, from my main tank, until it reached 1.025, temp was within one degree.

I dipped for two MINUTES, not two hours, my phone must have auto corrected.

I did this same procedure with a dejardini sailfin tang today, as well as a fire fish, who went in tank just fine, who also came with the labout from LA.

The labout is effortlessly coasting on top of water, no attempt to go down deeper.

Upon opening, they immediately went into new water that had been mixing over 24 hours. No ammonia here.

Oh no? Why do all lfs, and I mean all, drip acclimate wholesaled fish which guess what, come from quality marine (liveaquaria) Guess there wrong too. You should really not offer advice.

Do not tell me not to order anymore, I have been at this since the 90s, acclimated hundreds, just never had one with this issue.

Again, you need to read more about the acclimation process for mail-ordered fish. Your ignorance and arrogance are shown. Good luck, because you need it.

My LFS don't, I don't. A lot of reefers up here don't.

Not sure where that advice comes from... myself, my friends and most LFSs that I'm aware of all drip acclimate...without problems

I've been in the hobby since 2003 and dripped acclimated all my fish for various amount of time. First thing I do is check the salinity of the water in the bag. A lot of the times the salinity from my LFS are at 1.015 or lower, most of my tanks are at 1.025. This requires me to drip as long as it takes to match, and sometimes that means over 6 hours slow drip depending on the type of fish. Have yet to lose a fish doing this.

A lot of bad advice i've been reading on RC lately......

Just my 2 cents :)

For your reference: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1959576

Plenty more resources and details can be found, if you are interested.

How is your labout now? Perhaps it was just stressed and that is the reason.

Most people do not buy fish that have been in a bag for 48 hours........ :)

Not saying I disagree with the reason why the fish died, obviously because of ammonia. I've ordered from liveaquaria many times and fish always arrived to me next day less than 24 hours.

This

Ignorance and arrogance.....would you like me to upload the instructions that LA sends with their shipment? It states right on there, pour contents in bucket, drip to raise salinity, and in they go. I did one better than that, I swapped out the water they came with, for new water with same paramaters that were in the bag.

But while were at it, why don't you outline the process for mail-ordered fish? Lets see what secrets you are hiding from the rest of us...

That. There.

How else do you raise salinity, 5 thousandths other than just floating and dropping? Ammonia a concern? Good because I swapped out the bagged water with new, matching water. No ammonia.

I know you are going to tell me to make QT the same salinity, well I did, the bucket I used for 2 hours for the acclimation process. That is the closest I will ever come to quarantining anything.

I concur. if its a big difference, I will wait hours for it to come up to 1.025. Water temp falling in bucket? No problem, 25 watt heater...oxygen? air stone.

I was told various times to stay off this sight, from owners of wholesales, reputable LFS, as well as a avian vet who tinkers in the reef hobby. Oh, and most if not all, the "big name" frag growers who everyone pays handsomely. A couple, no names mentioned, have said to steer clear of here for its advice. Any clown can list advice.

I agree, these fish are sent out at 5 pacific time, and arrive at my house 7 am pacific time, just over 12 hours.

And why did it die? AMmonia? When the bag was open at 1030 am, the fish immediately went into a 10 gallon tank, already heated and adjusted for salinity that was in the bag.

hey bud, the labout has passed. I acclimated him, step by step, the same as I did the other fish that arrived today (all live aquaria, all same shipment box). They are all in my tank, 4 out of the 5 have ate aggressively tonight. The exception would be the labout, which passed.

Notice how I asked for help, all I got was preaching and jargon, with the exception of you. Not one bit of what it could be, what the symptoms could match up to, rather I got, well you need to brush up on acclimating. (meanwhile live acquaria instruction sheet says to drip their "mail order fish", pour contents in bucket, and drip. They even consider this there "advanced" method.

Now I am not saying what they are stating is gold or the holy way, however, I don't need someone telling me I don't know what I am doing. CLearly, after I posted, others jived in and said the same thing, that they drip blah blah.

But again, not that anyone other than you and albano seemed to care before, but the fish didn't make it. From what I have read, they suffer the swim bladder issues, and when the salinity came up, that is when it surfaced.

For what it's worth, I've drip acclimated for years. I'm in the UK and shipping tends to be a bit quicker but even so there's no way your acclimation process caused the death. What we don't know is how long the fish was at LA... it could be that it was there for only 24 hours before being shipped out again so was much more stressed already than the other fish. The bottom line is that we just don't know so everyone is guessing. With so many variables in the process it's impossible to tell what the cause of death was without a post mortem and let's be honest, that's never going to happen! I like to think that we all try to do our best for our animals... no one gets joy from seeing a new purchase die. As mentioned I drip acclimatise which works well. A friend of mine just floats the bag in the DT and sticks two small holes in either side of it... osmosis does the rest. I bet there's not a single expert out out there who would recommend that method but he's never lost a fish as a result of it... and he's got 4 tanks which include some very valuable fish such as seahorses, bamboo cat sharks and tri colour tangs.

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Sorry do hear about your wrasse

Sorry to hear, unfortunately these things can happen thru no fault of the buyer, which is why they have a guarantee.
Everyone on the internet is an 'expert' (including myself), but you can also receive bad info in person at any LFS ... Don't give up on this site, or any other, because of the critics... there is plenty of good advice to be had, just need to proceed with caution as you figure out what works best for you.