Someone recently bought flagfish. I want to buy some soon

[KittenFishMom]

I am hoping to buy some flagfish when my 55 tank is built. I remember reading about someone who had bad luck with the for batch they bought and was hoping the second batch would be OK. I am trying to find that thread to see hoe the second batch of flagfish arrived, and to find out how the seller was found. aquabit completely confuses me.

Thanks for any info on where to buy flagfish and where to avoid buying them.

[Fish Folk]

On 11/12/2022 at 1:24 AM, KittenFishMom said:

I am hoping to buy some flagfish when my 55 tank is built. I remember reading about someone who had bad luck with the for batch they bought and was hoping the second batch would be OK. I am trying to find that thread to see hoe the second batch of flagfish arrived, and to find out how the seller was found. aquabit completely confuses me.

Thanks for any info on where to buy flagfish and where to avoid buying them.

I got a lovely pair here. Beware: males get bossy when breeding. They are Pupfish. Females are more chill. You can sex them, once mature this way: females have a black spot on the back of their dorsal fin.

[Pepere]

I bought both batches on ebay.  First batch shipped from a seller on the east coast of Florida.
 

The first group of three arrived and the male died a horrible death over 48 hours which I am pretty sure was due to ammonia burns.  Bag water tested at well over 8 ppm ammonia, but I never thought to do a 50% dilution of bag water to see how much over 8 ppm it was. Fish were shipped the same day as order was placed leading me to think the fish were not fasted prior to shipping.  Fish were acclimated following sellers directions of adding a measured amount of tank water every so many minutes for a specified time. I forget the actual specifics.  I did not agree that this was a good plan for shipped fish, but figured that if I wanted to file a claim for any deceased fish, it is best to follow sellers recommendations. A second one died 2 days later leaving me with one survivor. Seller declined to offer an adjustment as he only guarantees live arrival.  So much for following directions…..First seller buys and ships fish and did not breed them.

 

Second batch was from a seller in Indianapolis. This seller breeds what they sell. This time I opted to be 5 reasoning that if one or two died it would leave me closer to my goal. 6 arrived in the bag. I also wrote to seller asking them if they could separate and fast fish 48 hours prior to shipping and they responded this was there normal practice. This time I was more prepared for testing water. Water tested dark green on ammonia test.  50% dilution was at about 4 ppm ammonia, leading me to believe actual level in bag was 8 ppm.  There were no acclimation directions.  I opted to float bag for 15 minutes for temperature, and to pour fish and water into a net and transfer fish to tank.

Once fish were transferred I conducted more testing on the bag water.  I forget what the ph was specifically but I do recall it was acidic.  I also was stunned to find the GH was a whopping 33 degrees of hardness and the KH was 17 degrees.  I hurried to add some aquarium salt to help with the change of parameters.  My tank water is 4 degrees gh and 3 of KH.  I was less than impressed that seller made no mention of water hardness being very much in excess of the reccomended range reported for American Flag Fish.  When I wrote to seller they brushed it off saying they do perfectly fine in their water.  Now this might well be true, but it would have been nice to know so I could have boosted the qurantine tank to levels they were accustomed to and lowered it over the course of quarantine…

The fish were incredibly skittish for several weeks.  I cant help but think the change in hardness played a big part of that.

 

in the end, all 6 fish survived. Today is their last day with second treatment with Paracleanse and tank will see a water change and addition of a box filter with activated carbon. Followed bya few more water changes over the course of the week.

for what it is worth, thisis the only shipment of fish I have gotten that every fish shipped survived.  
 

My fist shipment of Fish from Aqua Huna saw 5 out of 6 Pygmy Cories die within 2 (2 arrived deceased) days of arrival and 6 out of 20 green neon tetras die within a few more days.  Aqua Huna extended guarantee and covered all losses.

second shipment of fish were from ebay. 6 were bought, 9 were shipped.  2 arrived deceased, all remaining survived.

first order of flag fish saw all three arrive alive and 2 pass in days.

 

this order saw all 6 survive shipping and quarantine.

[KittenFishMom]

@Pepere  Can you PM the place you got the flagfish that were fasted and survived?