atony4688
Reefing newb
Hello, so i purchased my fist fish on saturday, a clown about 2" long, as soon as i acclimated him to the tank he swam and hid in one of the caves of my liverock. about an hour later he was exploring and looked as healthy as can be. I only got the one because the LFS on ly had the one and his color was so good, i did not want to pass it up. they said they would call me when they got more in. yesterday i got the call , so i went to the store, and picked up another clown. (I have heard that there should be 2, and I have heard there should be three, but 2 makes sense.) i did the same process of acclimating the fish as I did for the first one, but when i released him in the tank he was acting weird. he stayed in the top 3 inches of the tank, he was angled nose up at like a 30 degree angle and he appeared to be breathing very heavily. moving his fins quickly and i could tell he was struggling. i gave him some time like 2 hours and my other clown would come over and swim around him a little and bump him probably trying to get him to swim around. after about another hour he had disappeared and i had to look for him, but he had died when i found him. i pulled him out of the tank so he would not impact the water levels. I am worried about why he died, not only because its 20 bucks down the crapper, but i want to learn from this. it seems odd that one could live well in my tank and the other one struggled. I tested my water, i didn't know what to test, so i tested everything my kit does: PH is 7.8 which is a little low I think, Ammonia is .75, Nitrite is .50, and Nitrate is around 10 or 12. as best as i can tell matching colors to the tubes. correct me if i am wrong but aren't these water level OK? The info i have been able to find is that if the LFS really got them the same day I bought him, then maybe he could not handle acclimating to 2 tanks in one day and he died because of the stress? What are your thoughts? The first fish is still doing well but i'm a little concerned before i try introducing another.