[JRGumby]

Now, I've been out fo a while, and I don't have a geat deal of experience, but I've never had anything remotely like this happen The closest was a xenia in my nano that looked like it was going to "melt-down" for a few days en recovered).

...I apologize for spelling as my keyboard seems to be randomly dropping letters.

This is sort of a continuation from Difficulty getting a Hector's Goby to feed, but the toic is different enough I thought it merited a new post.

Basically, the Hector's was eating well, and I decided that after several weeks in the QT tank he needed to be moved to the dsplay.

He was drip acclimated using an IV line I... pilfered from an animal hospital for about an hour. Fill the container (Small collection cup) dump half, refill, dump half, refill, moved to display.

Upon addition he didlargely what he had in the QT, dart for the bottom, hold on, and not move. I anaged to coax him a bit out of the current into therockwork near a calmer area once I killed both pumps to try and educe the stress of getting buffetted by the pumps.

This morning I decide to try and coax him out of he rockwork with some artemia. Pumps go off, no fish. Shrimp added randomly about the tank, no fish. I almost assumed he was just grumpy.... and then saw a tail wedged in the corner. It turned out to be the goby. Needless to say I was shocked, appauled, and pretty bummed (I don't like being resnsible for things dying...).

I did a visual inspection, and he had no obvious tears, damage, or lacerations. Everything including fins and gills were intact. He had no critters on or about him. The only oddity was a small bulge just rostral to his anal fins with what appeared to be fecal matter (dark brown but fairly sold looking) at the anus.

Anyhow, now I'm in a right unpleasant mood and am pretty displeaed withmyself, but the big question is: Why did this happen? Anyone have any ideas a to what went wrong?

The only idea I have is that the temperature gradient was too great for him to acclimate. The display runs in the upper 70s (set to 77, usually 77.5-78.5) and has a chiller. The QT does not, and seeing as it's summer tended to run in the mid 80's. I cannot for the life of me seem to bring it down. (I did swa heaters... as one of them appeared be heating it far above what it was set to, but hat was during ycling).

All other parameters matched almost exactly (as far as I can test for) and are as follows.
Salinty: 31ppt
Ammoni, Nitrite, Nitrate: Unreadable
Phosphate: Unreadable
pH: 8.1 (A bit low I know, I intend to start dosing kalkwasser in afew weeks).
Alkalinity is also a bit low: around 2 meq/l

I am confounded and annoyed with myself, and would very much like to insure a much as possible that this does not get repeated.

Edit: almost forgot. At the moment there are snails, one hermit, and roughly 560 punds of live rock. There are also a couple chaeto-balls, and various algae (macro, corallin, and hair), as well as two small porits colonies that appear to be doing well (all came on LR). Otherwise othing has ben introduced yet.

[leebca]

Sorry to hear of your loss. Optimally, the QT water would be adjusted to as close to the display water, over the time of the quarantine process.

I don't favor the drip acclimation process for marine fishes. It takes too long when done properly and it just increases the stress to the fish. In the process mentioned, it didn't take long enough. The optimal acclimation I have found is one that I wrote out, step-by-step here: It Was Acclimation, I know. . .

The temperature variance is quite large, as pointed out in the post. Unnecessarily large considering the control one has over the QT water. I suspect that, beyond this difference, there was some other difference in the water quality between the QT and marine system, for which the acclimation process did not prepare the fish. That is to say, it was the acclimation process tied to a water quality issue that may not be discovered. This doesn't mean the water quality of the display/marine system was bad, it could be that the water quality of the QT was 'bad' or so different from the marine system that the shortened acclimation time was insufficient to allow the fish to adjust.

Obviously, it could also be that it was the right time for the fish to expire, but this would be quite a coincidence.