Survival/DOA rate for mail order fish?

[Colin_T]

It was a 0.001 difference if I remember right, mine was reading 1.026 that day and I think theirs was 1.025. They weren’t shipped in hypo. SG was the only thing tested before a speedy acclimation because I didn’t want to draw things out with the oxygen & ammonia situation. One thing that bothered me is whether I could have bodged the acclimation, since for inverts it’s different and for local fish the ammonia thing isn’t as severe. So this instance wasn’t a literal drop and plop since the seller included a note recommending going to 50% briefly after bag opening (just in case of some other big change I assume, pH maybe) and then finishing the transition shortly after. It was pretty close to true drop and plop though. No signs of gill irritation or heavy breathing so seems an unlikely thing to blame. Lights were on low, etc…like you said, it doesn’t make sense. Unless there is some cryptic toxin that can affect those two types of fish but not cardinals, damsels, or any inverts.

Would use of cyanide be a more likely match for what I observed if the fish weren’t actually aquacultured? That would be horrendous if it’s the case but they weren’t little tiny babies like some tank breeders sell and it’s also not like designer clowns where you know they came from a tank because of the color. In truth I have no hard proof of aquaculturedness for the past cases either, but had just never suspected otherwise.

That amount of salinity change is nothing and would not affect shrimp, let alone fish. One of the advantages of marine fish over freshwater is every marine tank (or virtually) has the same salinity, pH and GH, so plop and drop is fine as long as the temperature in the bag is the same as the tank.

As far as I know, blennies and basslets don't release toxins into the water and aren't poisonous.

Infections in the brain can cause fish to dash about madly and die. The most common is protozoan infections, followed by bacterial and then viral. Protozoan are much more common in tank raised specimens due to the high number of fish in a small enclosure. However, if the fish had an infection in the brain when you got them, they would have acted weird from day one or two. Having two completely different fish (basslet and a blenny) having the same condition would be unlikely unless they were housed together at the shop. Heart attack is another option but for both fish to do the same thing and die within the same week, that isn't a coincidence.

Wild caught fishes from various places (usually Asia where laws aren't regularly enforced) might be caught with cyanide. Blennies and damsels are commonly caught this way because they hide among the rocks and corals and cyanide stuns them and they come out easier. Unfortunately it also does permanent damage to the fish and corals. The royal gramma is from the Atlantic and I doubt anyone would be using cyanide to get fish around there. Royal grammas are also regularly bred in captivity so cyanide caught royal grammas would be unlikely.

Do you have a mantis shrimp in the tank by any chance?
Maybe a small one got in and whacked the fish on the head when they were hiding among the rocks. Alternatively some sort of coral or anemone stung them.

 

[Donya]

Do you have a mantis shrimp in the tank by any chance?
Maybe a small one got in and whacked the fish on the head when they were hiding among the rocks. Alternatively some sort of coral or anemone stung them.

Almost sad to say there's no chance of any interesting hitchhikers. Back in my younger years I did sometimes turn up cool, even if nasty stuff like that: two little smasher mantis that I kept as pets elsewhere, oenone worms, one of those humongous striped flatworms, etc. Even had a mini pistol shrimp colony in one rock that lasted a couple years. But, none of that is still around and it's probably been well over a decade since I've seen a piece of LR for sale that could have such stuff, what with the very limited biodiversity, basically bacteria-only way new rock is done these days. This particular tank has been running for 5 years in its current place and another 5 years before that all with the same rock, sand, just being moved once in the middle of that span. The spiciest thing in it right now from a fish standpoint is a small bit of Lepastraea if I spelled that right. Used to have BTAs but I moved them to their own tank a few years back, so no nems in the picture. There is a paly colony, which may be "the" Palythoa toxica, but I've had that colony for close to 15 years now without issue with fish. Nevertheless, the paly colony did spring to mind especially when the second fish went. One of the first things I did was look for any evidence of those polyps being nipped at...found nothing of course. But, I'm also pretty sure palytoxin should've nuked ALL the fish and probably even a few of my inverts if it was released, not a fish here and a another there while leaving an ancient cardinalfish ticking along just fine. This is actually the first time in a good many years that I've lost a fish in any tank to anything except old age.

The only negative issue I've had with this tank in the last decade has been plankton-related due to low biodiversity letting one thing or other build up more than it should briefly, since it really wants to turn into an ultra-low nutrient system if I igore it with just one low-metabolism resident fish in the mix (partly why I wanted to boost fish count), and stuff like dinos and other weird microbes love to seize those moments to be a nussance. I lost a LPS coral and some snails due to that once but never had any fish issues and it's also been resolved for a long time now. I've been keeping stuff in check with species-specific cultures and checking status of plankton populations by microscope, so I know there's nothing to be found culprit-wise there either. Also have always run carbon and more recently gone back to having a skimmer too (due to a dinner plate sized cabbage leather), so pretty unlikely to be microbe or coral-released toxins nuking stuff over time.

Unfortunately, I think if it really was the tank killing things, it's unlikely to be truly figured out in a thread. Like if it was fumes or other contaminants from the air somehow, a momentary possibly even unreproducable type event. That kind of thing can produce exactly this type of event. But, I've always been super duper paranoid about letting anything fume-producing in the house...and inverts are usually the canaries. So I don't have any kind of culprit there either. Really feels like grasping at straws at this poin when literally all the other aquarium animals are fine. I definitely do appreciate the help, but I think it's going to be something quite cryptic if it really is a me issue vs the shipping or sourcing.

 

[Donya]

Saltwater seems like a different hobby to me. Maybe it's because I've never gone there, but my experiences with freshwater fish don't always overlap with what saltwater keepers do and have done.

Saltwater systems may seem alien to you...but that's how I view planted tanks with all the CO2 and soil stuff lol. I think modern entry-level saltwater (which is fish with rocks and easy inverts) has really become a lot more like the fw side of the hobby over time. It's certainly the case that reef and other weird biotope sw tanks get fiddly, but the same surely goes for some fw biotopes. Saltwater fish-wise I've never really strayed out of that entry-level zone; all the complicated stuff I keep are inverts.

 

[emeraldking]

The only fish I had through mail were the ones coming from abroad. But never ordered fish online at stores.

 

[Colin_T]

I don't know why they died. I doubt it's a chemical floating around the air and landing on the water. If that was the issue then other things would have died too, not just the two new fish. It sounds like a safe environment with no hidden nasties so that can be ruled out. I doubt it's your tank because the inverts are fine and if there's a water quality issue, they die first.

I'm assuming the water quality is ok but have you tested the pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate?
If yes, what are the results in numbers?
I doubt it's water quality related because the inverts are ok but just ruling water quality out.

I am guessing it was just the fish but why they seemed to settle in and then die a week later is beyond me. Normally when the fish settle in and eat straight away, they don't up and die after a week.

 

[Donya]

I'm assuming the water quality is ok but have you tested the pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate?
If yes, what are the results in numbers?
I doubt it's water quality related because the inverts are ok but just ruling water quality out.

Nutrients are always really low since I have abundant macro acting as an export for that tank.
Ammonia & nitrite 0 at the time and still are 0 today
Nitrate was a tiny trace, which is normal; I have to do the low range method with the salifert kit to even see any color and always get readings <1ppm.
Phosphate is 0.
pH is somewhere in 8.3-8.4
dKH is around 8.

 

[Colin_T]

Did you do a water change when you had the new fish?
We had some issues with some freshwater fishes (mostly tetras) if we did water changes when they just came in. Normally we did them a day or two before new fish arrived so they didn't get stressed out by the water change. This should be less of an issue with saltwater assuming the water is made up well in advance of it being used. But the stress of draining water out and refilling the tank might be a contributing factor if you did a water change shortly after you got them.

Looks like this case is for the X-Files. Maybe dodgy fish from the supplier, unlikely considering the fish involved. Maybe something happened during shipping. I doubt it's your tanks due to the inverts being happy little vegemites and the old cardinalfish being ok.

 

[GaryE]

This may be unconnected and will look like a tangent, but bear with me. A friend was over yesterday and was curious about my getting killie eggs by mail. As we talked, I thought about how this year's purchases were money down the drain - one species hatched out of eight.
Why?
The sellers are honest aquarists. The packing was ideal. Even the transit times from Europe were close to what they'd been. But the eggs were killed en route. It's a mysterious world between here and there, and things happen in shipping. I don't think it matters if you pay for more expensive shipping - there's still the human factor of people used to handling inert commodities, and the non human factor of cold and hot cargo spaces, jostling, bouncing, containers on tarmacs, etc. Sometimes, you just have bad luck.
I don't bet on sports or waste my time in casinos - not me. I buy fish and eggs to experience the randomness of the universe.
For many decades, importers and pet shops took the hit for shipping, and we bought the survivors. Now we experience what they did, only we have to directly eat the costs and see the sad results. I know one wholesaler who left the business because he was too depressed by the dead fish shipments and felt he wasn't going to be involved anymore.
The online, things shipped culture is essential to the hobby now, but it's got an edge.

 

[gwand]

As was at my local fish store yesterday talking with the very knowledgeable manager when their monthly fish order arrived. The New York wholesaler deliverers the fishes themselves. The manager went through each bag of fish(over 100) and rejected any bag with a dead fish. Oh how I wish I could do that.

 

[Donya]

Did you do a water change when you had the new fish?

Did one 2 days prior to receiving the fish and didn't anything else until after losing the royal gramma. I did a very smal WC after that since I kind of stirred some stuff up removing him. Very tiny change though; akin to what I'd re-add after doign acclimation from a new bag of critters. Don't think it can have shocked anything. Was planning a usual one the day the blenny died but hadn't gotten to it yet.

Looks like this case is for the X-Files. Maybe dodgy fish from the supplier, unlikely considering the fish involved. Maybe something happened during shipping. I doubt it's your tanks due to the inverts being happy little vegemites and the old cardinalfish being ok.

Sure feels like it's time to blame some little green men at this point. Well, it will remain a mystery for now...even if I were to ignore my gut reaction to how things turned out, that 2nd fish shipment I did was realistically my last opportunity to get anything by post with weather and all that considered. I felt comfortable getting some hermits this week that I've been after for a long time, but it's a very different situation from fish in terms of temperature tolerance. Even so, that's probably my last marine anythings for the year unless I decide to take a day trip on the road.

Speaking of unfortunate things happening during shipping...the courier apparently felt it necessary to both deliver my box of crabs on the wrong side of the road and totally impale the box on a sharp stick. Everything was miraculously fine, but it kind of drives home what stupid things can happen with the shipping.

I know one wholesaler who left the business because he was too depressed by the dead fish shipments and felt he wasn't going to be involved anymore.

Oof. This says a lot.