[thussain93]

my 55 tank has been cycling for about a month, diatoms started to form and i had only one damsel in it. it survived most of the beginning but tonite it looked tired and wouldnt eat, it didnt swim much, i took it out and put it in a seperate bucket, in 2 hours it was dead. i cant say anything but this is trial and error but i would like to know what i did wrong any suggestions

[dhboyd1]

What's your water chemistry? pH, salinity, ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, temperature. You say you put him in a bucket. What size bucket? What water did you use? Did you have a thermometer in the bucket and try to keep the temp the same as the tank. Did you put a powerhead in the bucket? Give us all the details you can and maybe we can help.

[thussain93]

it was a five gallon bucket, all the pH, ammonia,nitrates were fine, but i did use the water from the aquarium, i put a spare heater in it and the thermometer,

[dhboyd1]

Nitrites were also OK I assume. At any point in time did it appear that he was having trouble breathing (either in the tank or the bucket)? It does not correspond to any disease I am familiar with, so I would tend to rule that out. If it wasn't disease and water chemistry are all normal then there could be oxygen deficiency because of lack of surface water flow in the tank or in the bucket. Capture methods may have taken time to have fatal effects (cyanide or vodka) but usually become apparent sooner. Finally it could be that the fish was just old. Just because a fish is small doesn't mean that it is young when you get it. It just may have died because it was time. I don't think necropsy is available for fish and don't think I would want to pay for it anyway so we may never know.

[rlcline76]

I am guessing this fish suffered hardships because it was used to help cycle a tank. This sort of thing happens. Think about it, this damsel endured all sorts of spikes from this new system. I know that some web sources state that it is OK to cycle with a fish, but really, you should not. Imagine being a guinea pig to help cycle a new atmospheric environment. For a few days, you have elevated nitrogen levels. A couple days later, the CO2 is off the charts and yadda yadda yadda. Now imagine what that would do to you after a month.

[e_baer]

yeah, i agree, it is better to get a peice of dead something or other, shrimp, fish, something from a marine environment, and drop it in the tank and let it site there.