Maybe not enough oxygenation of the water?
In the QT tank, I have a HOB + a powerhead aimed slightly high. There was ample water movement.
Also seems like to fed a lot.
They were given maybe 1/8th of a mysis shrimp cube total. Same food/brand they ate at the LFS.
First, did you check the ammonia again after day 2 to see where it was before putting in the fish?
Yes, it was 0. Because I'm inexperienced with the Red Sea kit, I also looked at the seachem ammonia alert, and tried a tetra dip stick to make 100% sure.
My guess is your initial population (from the 2 capfuls) collapsed.
That might be true, however after the first fish died, my nitrates were slightly higher than before I added the fish.
In other words, you placed them under more stress without even observing them for a few days to see if they needed any treatment.
My initial plan was to get them to eat for 3 days straight, then prazi 2x, then copper for 4 weeks. I was advised to start copper below therapeutic during drip acclimation at the LFS. They are a reputable LFS and had thriving fish and a nice DT so I went with their advice. Cuprion was at 0.1ppm in the QT before I started the drip.
The next fish will eat for 3 days before I do anything. I'm actually not in a rush at all and really enjoy the process moving slowly and giving me time to contemplate what I'm doing and giving me enough buffer to correct things.
For the future, do you have the space to keep a QT operating all the time?
10G yes. The main DT is currently cycling but slower than the QT did. The idea was to have the fish out of QT in 6 weeks when the DT had cycled for a while with ammonia dosing. That way the DT doesn't finish cycling and have its bacteria die while the fish cycle in QT
I'd bet it was ammonia because of how quick it was
This is the bit that I don't fully comprehend. 2 clowns in 10G, one died in 24 hours. I never saw any ammonia either before adding the fish, during or after they died. I did a full analysis after the 1st one, and the 2nd one died as a "post-mortem" to understand what went wrong and why I wasted two lives. From reading around, it seems very unlikely that the fish could've produced enough ammonia to hurt them with the given timing (TTM quoted earlier, emergency tank procedures with daily water changes)
Whoa, why would the LFS that sold you those fish recommend copper?
They recommend treating all fish with copper for 4 weeks, then prazipro (while maintaining therapeutic copper levels) 2 to 4 times, depending if the fish exhibits any signs of disease. They also sold me "Rid-Itch Plus" as a general antiseptic to treat the fish immediately before putting it in the DT as a way to protect them.
Dr Tim’s doesn’t work in a glass tank with nothing else in it,
I had a HOB filter with a sponge in it. I'll add ceramic biomedia next time.
Does the copper mess with the test kits?
Not sure. The 2nd emergency tank didn't have any copper in it. From reading around, it seems like if anything test kits give false positives when there's copper in it.
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I'm still not convinced it was ammonia since I couldn't detect it at any time, the bacteria from the QT did do some work (tiny bump in nitrate) and 10G for two clown fish shouldn't result in death <24 hours I think?
