kevinsimons
Reefing newb
OK, I guess I'm now officially a member of the reef community - had a rough week that started with giving up a long-tentacled plate coral to the great reef in the sky, and then coming home from work 3 days later only to see one of my two engineer gobys (the hardiest reef fish of them all) clearly stressed - and dying.
All his color was washed out, his skin looked patchy, and he was breathing VERY heavily. Within 30 minutes he was gone. It LOOKED like he had swallowed something too big and had a digestive blockage. Nothing else made much sense at that time... especially since I've seem them both stuff things down their throat that really were too big.
Later in the week I noticed (with pride) how fat and happy the mandarin goby was - really - FAT (after all, I've probably spent $140 on Tiger pods)... he's active, hunts for food, and was doing well.
Now, this AM - the mandarin has that same patchy appearance on his sides that the enginner goby had - is respiring heavily and also looks like he'll be joining the long-tentacled plate coral any time now...
There have been no new introductions, water parameters are excellent, and the only changes made have been 2 doses of Kent Coral-Vite (starting about 12 days ago) and 2 doses of Marine S.A.T (after a one month break). I've had a small cyano outbreak but the S.A.T. has brought that under control.
This AM I DID notice the coral banded shrimp was out - something that's unusual, as he's very reclusive - so I'm wondering if his true personality (aggressive, so I hear) has finally shown up. I don't see obvious wounds - but neither the mandarin nor the engineer goby are fish that are prone to disease.
One other clue to consider: the flame angel is swimming around as if he's on a roller-coaster - kind of a "up-and-down" trajectory. This isn't all that unusual - he's done this pretty much all along - but it's always looked kind of unusual compared to what I consider to be normal fish swimming behavior.
Any ideas as to what's going on - and what to do - are much appreciated.
All his color was washed out, his skin looked patchy, and he was breathing VERY heavily. Within 30 minutes he was gone. It LOOKED like he had swallowed something too big and had a digestive blockage. Nothing else made much sense at that time... especially since I've seem them both stuff things down their throat that really were too big.
Later in the week I noticed (with pride) how fat and happy the mandarin goby was - really - FAT (after all, I've probably spent $140 on Tiger pods)... he's active, hunts for food, and was doing well.
Now, this AM - the mandarin has that same patchy appearance on his sides that the enginner goby had - is respiring heavily and also looks like he'll be joining the long-tentacled plate coral any time now...
There have been no new introductions, water parameters are excellent, and the only changes made have been 2 doses of Kent Coral-Vite (starting about 12 days ago) and 2 doses of Marine S.A.T (after a one month break). I've had a small cyano outbreak but the S.A.T. has brought that under control.
This AM I DID notice the coral banded shrimp was out - something that's unusual, as he's very reclusive - so I'm wondering if his true personality (aggressive, so I hear) has finally shown up. I don't see obvious wounds - but neither the mandarin nor the engineer goby are fish that are prone to disease.
One other clue to consider: the flame angel is swimming around as if he's on a roller-coaster - kind of a "up-and-down" trajectory. This isn't all that unusual - he's done this pretty much all along - but it's always looked kind of unusual compared to what I consider to be normal fish swimming behavior.
Any ideas as to what's going on - and what to do - are much appreciated.
