Help with a frogfish, my first fish

[Namor]

Hi, I am having problems it seems with my initial fish in my quarantine tank. The tank is a 12 gallon JBJ nanocube with protien skimmer added in. It has a 2 inch bed of livesand, about 10 pounds of live rock, a couple of mushroom coralmorphs (or whatever they are called) that came in on the live rock and survived the curing. My temp is 78 degrees, ph is about 8.1, ammonia, and nitrates are reading 0, the fish seems listless, and rolling to one side, his gills are moving rapidly, my salinity is 1.023

Any suggestions would be appreciated

 

[yote]

How did you acclimate him?
From my understanding,Frogfish dont like quick salinity changes.

 

[hibye]

frogfish seem too fall to the side a lot but then come back up but for the breathing he may have a disease

 

[Namor]

I did a drip acclimate over 1 and 1/2 hours from the bag he came home in. The first night he was in the tank, he was angling a lot, so I fed him a piece of krill with a pair of tongs, he took it right away (my understanding is feeding a decent size meal 1x every 3 days. I know that stress can cause problems for these guys, and the tank is lit by 2 36watt CF 50/50 lamps. Someone mentioned it may be too bright for him, but I couldn't find any hard and fast info on lighting levels for these guys.

 

[ReefKeeper]

i doubt it is the lighting, fish don't really mind that IMO, but your tank is WAY to small for this fish !! i would try to return him to the LFS or give him to someone with a proper enviornment for him. a minimum tank size for this species is 30 gallons and you are not even half of that.

 

[Namor]

This is my quarantine tank, he's only about the size of my thumb currently, so I don't think it's too small for him. He'll be in quarantine for 4 weeks and then he'll move into a 40 gallon reef tank.

 

[Namor]

Well, this guy is still with us, I'm still concerned, but he's not as bad as he was, I have been doing 1 gallon a day water changes (more for psychological benefits for me than any disease treatment regime) in the hopes that superior water quality will help reduce stress. I haven't fed since the initial feeding, but I've seen him angling a little. May try to feed later.

 

[Piggy]

Try soaking his food in garlic. The sooner he'll eat he better. Be sure to test the water for ammonia and other peremeters.

 

[Namor]

garlic? really? like just crush some garlic and mix with water and soak?

 

[Bifferwine]

I don't know if you can crush the garlic, it's usually garlic extract that you see used in fish foods. Kent Marine and SeaChem both make a garlic extract tailored for fish. It boosts their appetite and their immune systems.

 

[yote]

What are you trying to feed your frogfish?
He may be a picky eater.

Theres one at the LFS here that will not touch anything unless it goes after his lure.

 

[Namor]

Yeah, I think you may have something there. I finally got him to eat a ghost shrimp, but it basically had to crawl over his head before he would go after him. That may be a good thing, he may leave my peppermint shrimp alone :) (got that today to try to help out with pest anenomes at the same time I got the ghost shrimp). His breathing seems to have evened out, and he seems better, still doing a lot of rolling though.

On a side note, when I went to the lfs today they were putting an anenome into a tank, basically they just dumped it out of it's shipping bag into the tank, so this anenome (Haitian pink tip) basically turned into a balloon, swelled at it's base, deflated and pulled in it's tentacles, which exuded a slimy, mucuosy coating that drifted off into the tank, and floated around for about fifteen minutes around the bottom of the tank, the guy at the lfs said they all did that and bounced back the next day! That can't be right can it? I mean I believe they bounce back, but that's gotta be stressful! They don't do that if you drip acclimate do they?

And thanks for the garlic tip, I'm on the prowl for that extract.

 

[Namor]

Well, whatever this guys problem was he seems to have bounced back fine, he's eating ghost shrimp with ease (1 every other day), he still won't take other foods from tweezers yet. His breathing seems normal, and he seems more stable. I am going to wait two more weeks yet and then introduce him into my large tank. Currently it only has live rock. A month after he's in I will begin adding my corals, 6 months after that my anenome, and 5 months after that my clams. Life is good

 

[Bifferwine]

What kind of/how much lights do you have?

 

[yote]

Most frogfish will never except food from twezzers and end up starving to death 9 times out of 10.You usually have to load the tank down with feeders just to make sure they eat at all.

You might also want to think about starting with some corals BEFORE the anemone.Most corals are better to learn with because there not as likely to kill the entire tank if they die.

 

[Namor]

Hi Bifferwine, my lights on my quarantine? or my main? My main has (36 in length)

Aquarium Lighting - Light Fixtures - Metal Halide & HQI Light Fixtures - 36 Inch Outer Orbit HQI/T5 Fixture : Aquariumpros.com

Quarantine is using some t5 compacs with 50/50 actinic

? to yote, I don't understand what you are saying, my plan is to add corals in a month after fish, and then an anenome 6 months after the corals (that's assuming everything goes smooth and there are no problems)

 

[yote]

Thats because I mis-read your post.
I was thinking you were adding the anemone first.
But since your not,all is well.:Cheers:

 

[Bifferwine]

Those are good lights. You should be able to keep all kinds of corals and anemones with those.

 

[Namor]

thanks, I try to do my research first, but lighting seems to be a pretty confusing issue.

As for the feeders I hear ya, I just plan on keeping lots of feeder type shrimps, crabs, and maybe even a damsel or two

 

[Namor]

Well this guy is still with us, doing great actually. However, he won't eat anything but live foods. I am not overly concerned with that, but want to provide a good diet, what should I look at feeding him? Most of the resources I've found say to feed different foods from tweezers, but he won't eat those. So far I've fed him ghost shrimp, peppermint shrimp (well, I figured they would get eaten, but wanted them to clear out some pest anenomes), and a damsel (I know, I know, but I thought some variety would be good for him). But what are good feeder fish/inverts? I want to avoid goldfish as much as possible.