blue throat trigger breeding with sargassum

Reefnjunkie · Jul 18, 2012

Has anyone heard of such a thing?

I have a male blue throat which I have had for at least 6 months, and a sargassum (not sure if its female) for about 4 months. The blue throat is close to 8" and the sargassum about 4.5"
They have never fought but about 2 weeks ago the BT starts acting odd, not his 16 hours aday back and forth through out the tank, he seemed to be stalking a certain area, well now about 5 days ago he has been in this cave and I have not seen him come out. He is alive and will look at me if I get to where I can peek in the cave but I have not seen him come out, not even to eat.

My hunch is he is dying for some unknown reason while all my other 30+ fish are as fat as can be and healthy. The BT could probably not eat for weeks and survive, lets just say he ate like a PIG and is as fat as one.

The wife read where the male will gaurd eggs so that is/was the question, could my sargassum laid eggs and he is guarding them or is he just gettting ready to pass.

M params are rock solid so its not params-gauarnteed.

Any ideas

TIA

Reef Breeders · Jul 18, 2012

Strange. Sometimes fish can find their spot and stick by it. The not eating part would be my only concern.

Reefnjunkie · Jul 18, 2012

anemonekeeper said:
Strange. Sometimes fish can find their spot and stick by it. The not eating part would be my only concern.

My reason for thinking it may just be dying. Its weird, any fish I have had that has died showed signs of going down hiill and within 48 hours was gone. Today is day 5. It just hangs out in this cave which is not small, its almost the size of a volleyball.

And its not like anyone was bullying him, its 'his' tank and fish get out of his way, its been acting strange for the last 2 weeks and then like I said 5 days ago he just stays hidden and not eaten.

Someone told me that the two triggers could breed but I did not iput a lot of faith in their fish breeding knowledge so I posted here. Myself I've never heard of such a thing but I have no idea.

Reef Breeders · Jul 18, 2012

How have they interacted with each other? and swimming around each other in circles, up and down, etc.?

chort55 · Jul 18, 2012

Possible, although they are not known to mate in captivity... yet,atleast when I researched it a while back for myself. I had a male BT and a sargassum that were certainly paired up, and did a "dance" type mating ritual around sundown for quite a while, before the sargassum mysteriously died (no signs of a "murder") after a couple years (she was locked in in a different area then their normal cave), and the male gaurded their normal area for a couple weeks after this time, never noticed anything odd but didnt think anything of it either.... but he would also come out and eat.

See if maybe you can shine a flash light into the area and see anything, although I wouldn't go poking around inside the tank to check!

chort55 · Jul 18, 2012

They are from the same genetic family and it would be possible for them to breed, what size tank do you have?

Also, if either fish does die, do not replace it without replacing the other as well because they will not take another lover... they will only mate with 1 fish their entire life if I recall correctly.

Reefnjunkie · Jul 18, 2012

I would not suspect they are mated, for the most part they seemed to do their own thing, the BT would swim from one end ot the tank to the other ALL DAY Long, it was funny, there were time of deviation but not much.

My tank is 400 gallons, its 72x48x27 and there is plenty of swimming space.

The Sargassum spends 80% of the time doing circles around one of my vortechs, as I glance up from typing its doing circles-I dont even know if its a female and have not found a way to even tell sexes on them ( if its even possible)

I never noticed anything I would consider a mating type ritual, nothing

The breeding thing again came from my wife wjo read that the cave 'hiding' was characteristic of a male gaurding eggs- this may be specific to the wild too. I've had cardinals breed just out of the blue and I realize its apples to another food group but maybe I have water thats an aphrodesiac( or however its spelled)
LOL

Very starnge for it to all of a sudden hide when not threatened and where it used to literally eat from my hand wont come out to eat.

chort55 · Jul 18, 2012

Absolutely horrible video and I apologize for that right now upfront, but you can somewhat see the dance my fish used to do regularly late at night just before lights out.....

<embed width="600" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullscreen="true" allowNetworking="all" wmode="transparent" src="http://static.photobucket.com/player.swf" flashvars="file=http%3A%2F%2Fvid914.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fac341%2Fchort55%2F100_1990.mp4">

direct link incase that doesnt work.... 100_1990.mp4 video by chort55 - Photobucket

I had these two for about 2.5 yrs together w/o any issue.

impur · Jul 18, 2012

Dang that sucks Brad I hope he pulls thru.

chort55 · Jul 18, 2012

Also, there is no known way to tell m/f on the sargasums that I could find when I was trying to figure it out for myself.... but from the sounds of it, if your sarg is a male the BT would have removed it already being that it is much larger and definitely male as they don't tend to like other males in their turf from the same family..... but being that your tank is 400g it could give a little more cushion room to allow it, but I'm not sure.