Newb First Post (Alas, a sad one)

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GhoSStrider

New Member
Hey All,

First time poster. A friend of mine had a 12 Gal. Nano that he got tired of and sent my way. He hadn't been taking care of it and had been doing no-no's like using tap water to fill it and such. After getting it, I started endeavoring to clean it up, doing weekly 10% water changes, etc.

After a while of that, I went over to my cousin's house (he has a 125 Gal corner tank and a 265 Gal tank) to test my water. Everything was dialed in where it should be so I was finally ready to add some new stuff.

I got a couple of corals and a pistol shrimp / Shrimp Goby combo a couple of days ago. The only problem that I noticed is that once I got them in the tank, they didn't hang out like they did at the store. Other than that, everything seemed fine.

This morning, I noticed the Goby breathing fast and when I went home (I live next to work) to check on him, he had sadly gone on to fishy heaven.

So a couple of quick questions (as my knowledgable cousin is out of town).

1) The pistol shrimp (along with all of my corals, and the hermies/snails that came with the tank) are all doing well. Is the pistol shrimp going to be OK without a Goby? I'm eventually going to get another one, but I'm thinking about getting something cheap like a blue chromi first just to see if it survives before buying another goby.

2) Any ideas what the quick breathing meant? Is there something else I can check in the water? I checked pH, ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, phosphates and specific gravity. Is there some other test that I should do to see if the water is off?

Thanks in advance. This looks to be a great forum and I look forward to spending time here, though I hope my experiences improve a little bit.

Chris
Denver, CO
 
TimSchmidt

TimSchmidt

New Member
:welcome to Nanotank.com!

Sorry to hear about your loss, but fast breathing can be caused by a couple things. Normally inverts are more sensitive than fish so I can't really help you with what exactly happened. Was the fish *dusty* looking? If so could have been velvet disease.

Your pistol shrimp will be fine without the goby. I would reconsider getting that blue chromi as sometimes it can be pretty tough to catch small fish even in our nanos without having to wreck havoc on our rock work.

Those tests you are running are a good range of things to test. The only other things I check are alkalinity, calcium, and magnesium (only because I am trying to reach a certain level for my clams and such - these are NOT needed per say).

Are the corals open and fine? If so I am leaning to something specific with that fish and not the tank. Just a guess though.
 
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GhoSStrider

New Member
Thanks for the welcome, Tim.

All the corals are doing very, very well. The Frogspawn that was in the tank but looking sickly when I got it has rebounded amazingly. It looks great! The 'Shrooms all look good. The Pulsing Xenia has adapted nicely. The Toadstool looks even better than it did at the store!

The Pistol Shrimp has been busy since I got it. I only catch glimpses of him, but he's moving a LOT of sand in his cave, so I know he's alive and doing very well.

It's interesting you mentioned the dustyness. The body, and especially his eyes, didn't shine like they had the first day. They both looked duller and dusty kind of sounds like a good adjective to describe it.

Thanks for the advice on the Chromi. I'm going back to the store tonight. I'm bringing a sample of water for them to test just to be sure that I did all my tests right (with the help of my cousin, I'm sure I did, but a double check never hurts). If everything comes up good, I may just look into another Goby. I really liked him, and my tank already seems empty without him.
 
B

Boo

New Member
Sorry about your goby :cryb:

First things that come to mind are acclimation and water temp or a combo of both. If the little guy got to stressed out it can make them vulnerable to various parasites.

Also is there a film on the top of the water, sort of an oily slick look? Lack of Dissolved Oxygen if there isn't enough water movement can stress the fish while some corals like the "dirty" water, Zoa's for example they pull nutrients from it.

Also the warmer the water the less oxygen it will have, add low water movement and there is little oxygenation. That alone will not kill a fish but it can make them very vulnerable parasites which in turn can kill the fish

Corals as a general rule like slightly warmer temps then fish. A happy medium is around 78F

How coarse or fine is your substrate? To coarse can sometimes damage them as they siphon the sand.

Perhaps you may find some help at this link:

http://saltaquarium.about.com/cs/compld ... rouble.htm


I run the same tests as you in addition alkalinity, calcium and magnesium these tests are mostly for corals and clams, as Tim mentions.

One test you may want to think about is iodine, Pulsing Xenia like certain levels of iodine. But with no skimmer and regular water changes this should not be a big issue. Iodine gets skimmer off easily.
 
G

GhoSStrider

New Member
Thanks all for the thoughts.

I found out that it wasn't my tank. I went back down to the store where I bought it from to have them test the water, just in case I screwed something up. All the tests came up good there, too. The store manager was going to give me another goby. When we went back to pick one out, we noticed that several of the gobies were not doing well and there was one dead one and one very close to dead. He thinks he has a problem with that tank, and my fish probably had the same problem.

I am relieved about this, and will get another goby when he gets some new stock on Wednesday and has it in a different tank.

Meanwhile, everything else in the tank is doing very, very well.

Thanks again for all the thoughts and kind words!
 
R

reing7299

New Member
I would check with your LFS guy and see if he will hold the fish after he gets them (like a quarantine time) just to make sure they are healthy and you aren't putting potential disease in your tank.

just my opinion...
 
N

nemo-nano

New Member
Chris,

sorry to hear about your Goby, its never good for your
confidence when starting something new.

but on the other hand, it sounds like you have actually
got off to a good start and just bought a fish that was already
in poor health.

so well done, and I hope that my first tank (also a newbie)
gets off to as good a start as yours, once I get it up and
running (hopefully next week).

Andy
 
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