[72cutlass]

Going with corals only and this one clown. My stripped blenny was found dead this morning was eating just fine last night. Totally clueless as to why. Salinity is 1.022 and nitrates are 10-20ppm. All my zoas are open, all snails and crabs are golden. Just dont get it.

My clown is still kickin just fine. This makes me 1 for 3 on fish. All three have been supposedly very hardy fish. The first fish i added was a baby snowflake eel as i was originally going fowlr and just have it (until it outgrew it) and a dwarf lion. The eel just never seemed to eat right and i found him dead half devoured one morning. Bought the clown to replace him and decided bite the bullet and go reef.

Blenny made it 2 weeks. The clown is at either 3 weeks or a month. The eel made it about 3 weeks.

 

[ldsreef]

not sure but the nitrates may be a little high but keep a good check on them.

 

[72cutlass]

those #s were from two days ago, i just checked everything right after i posted this.

ammonia 0
nitrates 0-5 (just enough orange to keep it from being a pure yellow 0)
nitrites 0
ph 8.3
SG 1.021

As far as nitrates being lower after 2 days goes Ive got caulerpa growing on one side of the tank and i cant remember if i did a small water change before or after that test the other day.

Im at a loss totally right now. Cant figure it out.

 

[ahill195]

Some Blennies are dragonets. They needs lots of rock work and TONS of Pods.

What was yours eating? They generally wont eat prepared foods, although there are the rare exceptions. I had a blenny once that would nip at a brine concoction but it wasn't really enough to keep him nourished.

Unless you know the dragonet will take prepared foods I would not put one in less than a 75 gallon that's been established for awhile. You also have to be wary what you put in the tank. They are slow methodical eaters so if you put a whole bunch of fish that also eat pods in there he will probably starve.

 

[ahill195]

Ok I just saw you had a new 29 gallon. I think your blenny starved. Also if you put a six line and a dragonet in a 75 the dragonet would probably starve there too.

I found this on nano reefs just now.

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=89255

 

[72cutlass]

Im clueless to what it was but can rule out starvation. This guy was eating everything that fell into the tank. Bits of mysis and plankton, crushed up pellets, pecking at the rock all day. Little guy had a gut on him.

I know the issues with mandarins and scooters but those are entirely different family of fish.

 

[ahill195]

I know the issues with mandarins and scooters but those are entirely different family of fish.

So sorry! For some reason I had scooter stuck in my head. Was it a striped fanged blenny? I can't find a "striped blenny" in my book-O- fish.

If yours ate that much it definitely wasn't a dragonet. Sometimes people call draginets blennies, I'll shut up now :lol:

 

[72cutlass]

So sorry! For some reason I had scooter stuck in my head. Was it a striped fanged blenny? I can't find a "striped blenny" in my book-O- fish.

If yours ate that much it definitely wasn't a dragonet. Sometimes people call draginets blennies, I'll shut up now :lol:

its all good, any help is appreciated. Yes it was a stripped fanged blenny. (Meiacanthus grammistes) Any info on those in your book, maybe there is a piece to this puzzle in there.

 

[ahill195]

its all good, any help is appreciated. Yes it was a stripped fanged blenny. (Meiacanthus grammistes) Any info on those in your book, maybe there is a piece to this puzzle in there.

Is your clown a maroon? Its the only species that might pick on a blenny. Your fang blenny is venomous. Here is what the fish book says.

"Varied diet, including finely chopped crustacean flesh, mysid shrimp, vitamin enriched brine shrimp as well as frozen preparations for herbivores. Will usually do poorly unless kept in a tank with live rock, where it can continually hunt and feed on its natural prey, small crustaceans. Feed 3 times a day."

I am going to say he died of malnutrition. Its like a shark eating nothing but chaeto. He may be fat but he wont make it. Marine fishes are very sensitive.

Here is my advice. Let your tank mature for a few months before you add anymore fish. I am going to buy some garf grunge in a few weeks. If you want i'll let you piggy back on my order. This will let you introduce a whole bunch of flora and fuana in your tank.

I have made every mistake at least once and sometimes twice because I'm kinda slow. Quick story to make you feel better. I had a beatiful zoa tank once. I mean pinks, neon oranges, blues you name it. I grew the whole tank out from frags. They were growing on my walls, it was crazy. I introduced some sort of nudribranch to my tank, on accident of course. My zoas melted before my eyes over the next 3 weeks. I tried everything, it was poitnless.

 

[72cutlass]

Nope clown is just a little occelaris. They were like best friends. 0 aggression and the blenny slept in a corner just about the clown. I'm gonna go with you on the malnutrition that seems to be the only possibility really. Making things worse i had to tear apart the whole stack on the right side to get his body out and ive spent 2hours and still haven't got it back the way id like it. Gonna go pick up a 6pack and break out the xbox with the roomate.

well.. **** nevermind i lost my military dependency on my birthday this week, there goes picking up beer on a sunday. Dang today sucks haha.

I did leave the tank fishless for 4-5weeks after the eel died. I took that time to save money for lights and more powerheads so i could do a reef instead of the originally planned fowlr with just an eel and dwarf lion. I thin im going to do the same this time around again.

Let me check out what the garf grunge is and ill get back to you on that.

 

[72cutlass]

Yea, im all down for the garf grunge. You can put me down for 5-10lbs I'll need a few days heads up on when you order. Being here in atl im going to have to go thru a third person to get the money to yah or if your ordering and i havent been home in few weeks ill run down there that weekend.

 

[ahill195]

Yea, im all down for the garf grunge. You can put me down for 5-10lbs I'll need a few days heads up on when you order. Being here in atl im going to have to go thru a third person to get the money to yah or if your ordering and i havent been home in few weeks ill run down there that weekend.

Ok I am still a few weeks out form ordering it. We just moved into town 2 weeks ago and we are already having to move. The house we got is a total mess. They overnight everything on the shipping, ill order 5lbs and we can just split everything down the middle. If anyone else wants to tag along we can save some $$ by splitting the shipping.

We can also do reef janitors too on the order. If we get enough they will cut us a good deal I literally cycled my tank in 2 weeks using the grunge.

 

[SJHendricks]

So much happens in a fishes shipping prior to making it to your tank. You have no idea what's been done to them.

With that said, suppliers usually try to do thier best. A happy customer is a returning customer. But, fish get stressed. Doesn't sound like it was your fault. Eels are extremely hardy and very hard to kill. It must have been "dying" before you ever got it.

From working in retail, myself, I can tell you this. Have the store hold the fish. Pay for it in full. If it dies in their tanks they rarely will keep your money, and if they do, they usually will give you store credit in return. Have them keep the fish for at least two weeks and demand to see the fish eat BEFORE you take it home. This is hard on people's patience, I know, we are all excited to get things in our tanks as fast as possible. I will tell you that you will drastically decrease your losses if you do this.

I estimate 1 in every 4 or 5 fish that came into our pet store was on it's way to dying. Like I said, shipping is tough stress on a fish. Let the store nurse it back to health, and fight the urge to be the saver of the fish. Store's may not give the individual care that an owner may, but store's are generally very experienced.

You are confused because your tank specs are fine. Quit looking at them any more. Very very few fish are so sensitive that a little nitrates will kill them. Many fish only tanks run into the 100's on nitrates with no issues.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Mrs Puff]

I don't know of any stores around here(includeing Jax) that will hold a fish for that long. who are they?. I know i paid in full for a fish one time,he held it till my tank cycled, and it died in his store, I got screwed in the end,, I'm just curious...........

 

[72cutlass]

Im just gonna stick to stupidly tough fish. Yellow tail damsel, another clown and something else down the road.

This weekend i think im gonna go pick up another easy coral of some sort. I saw a long tentacle plate up at one of the LFS last week that was wild looking. Flourescent green plate, under the 14k MH not actinics. I think ill be forced to pass on it though. I have a pretty good sand bed but id bet in time that thing would be able to sting half my tank.

Mrs Puff, if it died in their care and they didnt reimburse you i would definitely bring my business elsewhere. I dont know how many stores are in jax but i know here i have 6 or 7 within 20 minutes that are exclusively saltwater places. I buy my water from one place as i had it tested and its extremely low tds and its the nearest store. Thats the place both of my dead fish have purchased from though. My zoas and my clown have both came from another store and i think i will be sticking to them exclusively for my livestock at this point.

 

[Mrs Puff]

wow, sound's like u got some good varity to choose from. sorry about your blenny , they r the neatest little creatures, i have 5 in my reef (scooter), I wish i could catch 1, i would give it to ya at the next meeting.lol. ...........kim

 

[SJHendricks]

I don't know of any stores around here(includeing Jax) that will hold a fish for that long. who are they?. I know i paid in full for a fish one time,he held it till my tank cycled, and it died in his store, I got screwed in the end,, I'm just curious...........

That is poor business, and not the norm in my experience. There are plenty of mail order places that will hold fish before they even put them up for sale. Getting fish from these places will help ensure you don't have a fish that is on the way to death before you buy them. Foster's and Smith is one of these places. I had pretty good luck with them.

Before you sock a ton of money into the more advanced and sensitive species though, remember that you will only be stressing these fish out with the mail order. You will still lose some. Even a healthy fish when packed can have a bad shipping experience and end up dying. The good news is that physical damage, which is what your fish will most likely die of if it does will GENERALLY kill the fish within a day or two of transfer. A good mail order company will replace the fish in this amount of time on your next order. You eat the shipping, of course, but it's better than nothing.

If you cannot find a local retailer that will work with you, I would take my business to mail order or local fish owner to fish owner sales. On a mail order, once the fish is in your tank, if you notice a fish is not behaving normally (in any way shape or form... I don't care if it's just a gut instinct) let the mail order company know about it. This will almost always result in a replacement of the fish or coral if you loose them in the first week or so. I got my money back (minus shipping) this way on a coral that lasted for over a month before it finally kicked the bucket. But I made sure I told them within a day of the shipping that the coral had overturned in the shipping bag, was lying on its fleshy side when I unpacked it, and it didn't open up all the way within the first 24 hours.

Sorry for the long post, but if I can help you save some money and livestock, I figured it was worth the typing.

 

[72cutlass]

Like SJ said, liveaquaria offers 14days on all live stock and a full month on captive grown corals.

Definitely look locally first though. Shipping is expensive.