is this too much stress on the fish

[baldomero]

hey guys i bought 3 fish the other day and 2 died and i cant explain why. may be if i break this down u guys can help me. my friend the fish guy goes out all morning until about 2oclock to catch all the fish he can,then he brings them to his house and puts them in his holding tank. i go to his house around 5 or 6 pick out the fish i want and he bags them up and i take em home. they get acclimated by the drip method for atleast an hour and are added to my tank,now i started thinking those fish have been exposed to 3 different types of water in one day,the ocean,the holding tank, and my display.what do u guys think should i pick out the freshly caught fish and give em a few days to acclimate to the fish guys holding tank(wich is much closer to my water parameters )and give em a few days to settle down then add to my tank,or should they survive the changes in parameters.

[baldomero]

bump

[username in use]

Its tough to say. What are his collection methods? does he use natural sea water in his tank, and do you? I would say that a healthy fish should be able to make the transition to your tank within the day no problem. I would go further though, and say that you should leave them in his tank for a few days, so that you can see that you are in fact getting healthy ones. They may have been doomed any way. What kind of fish are we talking about here? I also think that for a healthy fish the drip acclimation is more traumatizing than a faster acclimation in the bag floating, just adding a little tannk water every few minutes for about 15-20 minutes and then releasing.

[baldomero]

good point and no we both use synthetic sea water . and he catches them using a net