firefish death

[redirt]

on tuesday night i purchased a fire fish for my 10gal nano. wensday the fish would not eat, and hid all day. this morning when i woke up, the fish was at the surface, as if gasping for air, still would not eat. fish has now passed.
any Ideas?



Ph 7.8
nitrite 0
nitrate 20
ammonia .25

 

[Squawkbert]

Tank age?

If "new", I'd suggest cycling w/ something hardier than that (biospira or damsel or chromis) before buying other fish...

 

[dorkfish]

It most likely died of ammonia poisoning. You should know this before starting any tank, but ammonia will burn at the fishes gills until the ammonia is taken care of or the fish suffocates.

 

[Sonicblast12]

Also, sometimes you just get a bad egg. Sometimes fish are diseased and just can't handle the stress of being moved to a new environment.

 

[Max]

If you have live rock you don't need bio-spira. It sounds like your tank isn't cycled don't use fish in a cycle . Tell us a bit more about your set up size, do you have live rock water turn over and age of tank.
hth
max