Acclimation failure

Let's say I get a new fish from the LFS, and then do a poor job acclimating
it to my tank, perhaps too fast or something. What kind of behavior should
I expect?

I recently got a small (ocellaris) clown, and unfortunately was a little rushed
when I got it home. Seemed fine the first 48 hours (eating, good color),
although unfortunately my existing clowns were bothering and nipping at it.
Then, this morning, it was swimming on the bottom of the tank near the sand
(instead of in the open water), the top half looked kind of grey, and it didn't
eat during the morning feeding. By the afternoon, it was dead.

Is there any chance this was an acclimation error on my part? Could it take
that long to manifest the symptoms? Or, if you do a bad job with acclimation,
should you expect noticeable problems within the first 24 hours?

I'm trying to figure out whether I made a mistake, or whether I was simply
unlucky to import a fish that already had problems.

Curious about the experiences of the rest of you...

-- Don
__________________________________________________ _____________________________
Don Geddis http://reef.geddis.org/
Sometimes I think I'd be better off dead. No, wait. Not me, you.
-- Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey

It was probably poisoned long before you got it. Cyanide
Read he http://www.clownfish.org/
Unless of course it was tank bred.

Chris



"Don Geddis" wrote in message
...
Let's say I get a new fish from the LFS, and then do a poor job
acclimating
it to my tank, perhaps too fast or something. What kind of behavior
should
I expect?

I recently got a small (ocellaris) clown, and unfortunately was a little
rushed
when I got it home. Seemed fine the first 48 hours (eating, good color),
although unfortunately my existing clowns were bothering and nipping at
it.
Then, this morning, it was swimming on the bottom of the tank near the
sand
(instead of in the open water), the top half looked kind of grey, and it
didn't
eat during the morning feeding. By the afternoon, it was dead.

Is there any chance this was an acclimation error on my part? Could it
take
that long to manifest the symptoms? Or, if you do a bad job with
acclimation,
should you expect noticeable problems within the first 24 hours?

I'm trying to figure out whether I made a mistake, or whether I was simply
unlucky to import a fish that already had problems.

Curious about the experiences of the rest of you...

-- Don
__________________________________________________ _____________________________
Don Geddis
http://reef.geddis.org/
Sometimes I think I'd be better off dead. No, wait. Not me, you.
-- Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey

Rock That was a good article. 15 years ago when I was in the hobby the tank
raised had just started. Now is looks as though its quite lucrative. My
question is why would a person want a clown that was not tank raised. Do
they act differently, My LSF guy says the color is better and they don't
cost more or not much. So I guess it is because we get them from on line
and don't know or what. Thanks for any info.
"TheRock" wrote in message
news:T4HVf.1331$Q9.736@trndny07...
It was probably poisoned long before you got it. Cyanide
Read he http://www.clownfish.org/
Unless of course it was tank bred.

Chris



"Don Geddis" wrote in message
...
Let's say I get a new fish from the LFS, and then do a poor job
acclimating
it to my tank, perhaps too fast or something. What kind of behavior
should
I expect?

I recently got a small (ocellaris) clown, and unfortunately was a little
rushed
when I got it home. Seemed fine the first 48 hours (eating, good color),
although unfortunately my existing clowns were bothering and nipping at
it.
Then, this morning, it was swimming on the bottom of the tank near the
sand
(instead of in the open water), the top half looked kind of grey, and it
didn't
eat during the morning feeding. By the afternoon, it was dead.

Is there any chance this was an acclimation error on my part? Could it
take
that long to manifest the symptoms? Or, if you do a bad job with
acclimation,
should you expect noticeable problems within the first 24 hours?

I'm trying to figure out whether I made a mistake, or whether I was
simply
unlucky to import a fish that already had problems.

Curious about the experiences of the rest of you...

-- Don
__________________________________________________ _____________________________
Don Geddis http://reef.geddis.org/
Sometimes I think I'd be better off dead. No, wait. Not me, you.
-- Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey

Supposingly what I've been told wild caught clown fish adapt easily to an
anemone where as the tank raised clowns tend to not go towards an anemone as
easily. Personally, I've always had good luck with tank raised clowns going
to an anmeone and I see them (tank raised ones) in anemones in the LFS all
the time too so I always found that hard to believe.

Susan
"William Marsh" wrote in message
...
Rock That was a good article. 15 years ago when I was in the hobby the
tank raised had just started. Now is looks as though its quite lucrative.
My question is why would a person want a clown that was not tank raised.
Do they act differently, My LSF guy says the color is better and they
don't cost more or not much. So I guess it is because we get them from
on line and don't know or what. Thanks for any info.
"TheRock" wrote in message
news:T4HVf.1331$Q9.736@trndny07...
It was probably poisoned long before you got it. Cyanide
Read he http://www.clownfish.org/
Unless of course it was tank bred.

Chris



"Don Geddis" wrote in message
...
Let's say I get a new fish from the LFS, and then do a poor job
acclimating
it to my tank, perhaps too fast or something. What kind of behavior
should
I expect?

I recently got a small (ocellaris) clown, and unfortunately was a little
rushed
when I got it home. Seemed fine the first 48 hours (eating, good
color),
although unfortunately my existing clowns were bothering and nipping at
it.
Then, this morning, it was swimming on the bottom of the tank near the
sand
(instead of in the open water), the top half looked kind of grey, and it
didn't
eat during the morning feeding. By the afternoon, it was dead.

Is there any chance this was an acclimation error on my part? Could it
take
that long to manifest the symptoms? Or, if you do a bad job with
acclimation,
should you expect noticeable problems within the first 24 hours?

I'm trying to figure out whether I made a mistake, or whether I was
simply
unlucky to import a fish that already had problems.

Curious about the experiences of the rest of you...

-- Don
__________________________________________________ _____________________________
Don Geddis http://reef.geddis.org/
Sometimes I think I'd be better off dead. No, wait. Not me, you.
-- Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey

"William Marsh" wrote on Mon, 27 Mar 2006:
My question is why would a person want a clown that was not tank raised. Do
they act differently

Possibly wild ones host in anemones more reliably, but that's hard to tell.

My LSF guy says the color is better

Agreed. Like any other domesticated pet, you can do artificial selection
on breeding pairs with a captive-bred species.

and they don't cost more or not much.

This part seems to be the difference. Around here, a wild clownfish costs
$10-$12 or so. Captive-bred orange ocellaris is about $25/fish. The black
captive-bred ocellaris clown that I got last week from my LFS was $45 for a
single fish. (I'm not aware of any wild-caught black ocellaris clowns.)

-- Don
__________________________________________________ _____________________________
Don Geddis http://reef.geddis.org/
I gotta have more cowbell! -- "Bruce Dickinson" (Christopher Walken), SNL

Your existing clowns killed it.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets



Don Geddis wrote on 3/26/2006 6:44 PM:
Let's say I get a new fish from the LFS, and then do a poor job acclimating
it to my tank, perhaps too fast or something. What kind of behavior should
I expect?

I recently got a small (ocellaris) clown, and unfortunately was a little rushed
when I got it home. Seemed fine the first 48 hours (eating, good color),
although unfortunately my existing clowns were bothering and nipping at it.
Then, this morning, it was swimming on the bottom of the tank near the sand
(instead of in the open water), the top half looked kind of grey, and it didn't
eat during the morning feeding. By the afternoon, it was dead.

Is there any chance this was an acclimation error on my part? Could it take
that long to manifest the symptoms? Or, if you do a bad job with acclimation,
should you expect noticeable problems within the first 24 hours?

I'm trying to figure out whether I made a mistake, or whether I was simply
unlucky to import a fish that already had problems.

Curious about the experiences of the rest of you...

-- Don
__________________________________________________ _____________________________
Don Geddis http://reef.geddis.org/
Sometimes I think I'd be better off dead. No, wait. Not me, you.
-- Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey

Are your original clowns all ocellaris?
How many original clowns did you have and what were their length - min and
max?
What size was the new fish?

I think Wayne may be right

Grimreaper

"GrimReaper" wrote on Mon, 27 Mar 2006:
Are your original clowns all ocellaris?

Yes.

I had a pair of small (1 1/2 inch) orange tank-raised ocellaris clowns,
introduced to my tank only a week or so before. Surely juvenile/males.

I decided I wanted a couple more, so I went back to the same LFS, and from
the same original wholesale collection I got a third orange clown, and a single
black clown (both ocellaris). In the LFS, the black one(s) were housed
separately from the orange ones.

The orange clown fit right in, and formed a small school of three with the
previous pair. The black clown was constantly attacked and ostracized to a
corner of the tank (and not always by the same orange one).

How many original clowns did you have and what were their length - min and
max? What size was the new fish?

All were roughly the same size, about 1.5" long.

I was worried about some black/orange difference, so I went back to the same
LFS _again_, and got another black ocellaris, slightly larger this time (2").
I thought: (1) at least with a pair of them, they might spread out the attacks;
(2) the new one was larger, so might be able to stand up for itself better.

Observation: the original small black clown died a day later; the 2nd larger
black clown integrated immediately into the clown family, and now the four of
them swim around together.

So, one theory is that the first black clown was sick from the beginning, the
other three noticed, and that's why they shunned it.

I think Wayne may be right

But why would juvenile tank-raised ocellaris clowns attack one of their own?
They're one of the most friendly fish around, and form large family groups.

Although perhaps Wayne is right that the immediate cause of death was stress
from physical attacks of the other clowns. I just don't know why they'd do
that.

-- Don
__________________________________________________ _____________________________
Don Geddis http://reef.geddis.org/
Lazlo's Chinese Relativity Axiom: No matter how great your triumphs or how
tragic your defeats---approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.

It was not one of the siblings. The other one being
bigger, had a real advantage. And often being real tiny
can have it's advantages, as they are not looked at, as
competition.

It is often a complicated set of factors that will
deturmine how fish will behave with each other.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets



Don Geddis wrote on 3/27/2006 5:28 PM:


But why would juvenile tank-raised ocellaris clowns attack one of their own?
They're one of the most friendly fish around, and form large family groups.

I've also read that once a clown changes sex
and you drop another one in there,
you're taking a chance that they can be the same sex.

2 females or 2 males will view eachother as rivals.


"Wayne Sallee" wrote in message
...
It was not one of the siblings. The other one being bigger, had a real
advantage. And often being real tiny can have it's advantages, as they are
not looked at, as competition.

It is often a complicated set of factors that will deturmine how fish will
behave with each other.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets



Don Geddis wrote on 3/27/2006 5:28 PM:


But why would juvenile tank-raised ocellaris clowns attack one of their
own?
They're one of the most friendly fish around, and form large family
groups.