Acclimating clown fishes

[trido]

Round two.
A couple weeks ago I bought an oscellaris clown which i dripped for about an hour. It lived for 48 hours. It never left the surface to seek shelter. The second day I came home from work and it had some sort of infection on its tail and died that night. The infection doesnt seem contagious because my goby is happy as ever.

Yesterday I picked up a gold banded maroon clown. Acclimated for two hours. Pet shop salinity was same as mine. I immediately turned off the lights to reduce stress.(4:00 PM) As i went to bed he was down in the rocks.(9:00 PM) When I woke up this morning he was at the top of the tank fighting the current. He is showing interest in eating.

I am wondering if this is normal clown acclimation behavior or is my cleaner shrimp driving my new fish insane trying to clean them,
I really dont want to lose another clown.

All water parameters are good:
Sal. 35
Grav. 1.025
Temp 77.5
Amm 0
NO2 0
NO3 0
PH 8.4
Alk (normal)
Calcium 430
PO4 0

 

[ChrisRD]

IME it's not unusual for a newly introduced clown to hang-out in the open initially. Once they settle in they usually find a particular spot (or host) that they prefer and hang-out there, but will venture out to eat or play in the current at times. IMO, nothing to worry about so far.

 

[trido]

K..... thanks
Thought maybe my goby and shrimp had a conspiracy against new tank mates. :lol:

 

[Josh Weber]

do you have a sterilizer? if not i would recomend one, it would allow you to keep any fish without disease. (expecially clowns) also did you have your light off and aclimate it correctly. sometimes you can do things perfect and still get a death. but your goby didn't get it b/c he prob wasn't stressed. so his slime coat was still on him, thus not inabling the parisites to latch on to him. keep trying, you'll get one that will do just fine.
josh

 

[Omni2226]

Hey heres an idea I have seen mentioned several times on wetweb...

Take a clear plastic container like a tuperware bowl with a lid, pop lots of "air" holes in it then place the fish inside the bowl and let the whole thing sit on the bottom of the tank for a few minutes/hours to allow the critters to get used to each others smell/looks.

Just a thought.