Rick555
New Member
Hi All,
So I am fairly new to the hobby. I have a 29 Gallon Bio Cube with about 30 pounds of live rock and a bunch of live sand. The system has been up and going for about 4 months now and have a few fish. i purchased a Ruby Red Dragonet about 3 weeks ago. It started off great and was going around and eating just fine. Wanted to make sure it could eat frozen and possibly pellets so I tried what another user posted to do. Get a breeder net box and use it to help isolate it to feed it live shrimp then ween it on to frozen then you could possible do pellets afterwards.
So it did great eating live brine shrimp then I started mixing in Frozen and it took it within a few days. I stopped the live and it was doing great with the frozen, I think. I would see it eat abit each time I put the food in with the turkey baster. It was even coming up to the baster for the food.
Well today the net was getting pretty dirty so I scooped the little guy out of it in a small mason jar that I put out on a table for a bit while I cleaned out the netting. I had read another post today about another method of getting the dragonet to eat pellets, which was to put a bunch in a shot glass. So I thought I would use the mason jar to try this. i put a bunch of pellets in it which I had let sit in a few drops of garlic extract. After the net was clean I put the fish back in the breeder net but just left it in the jar with the jar on the side so it could just swim out when it wanted. I also put some of the frozen shrimp in to try and get it to eat and accidently grab a pellet along with it.
Well, after a few hours it had not moved and i was ready to let it out of the breeder net since it seemed to be good on frozen shrimp and I had stocked up on copepods as well. I figured I can leave the little shot glass of pellets in a area as the article suggested and hopefully he would find it. Well, the fish would not come out of the of the breeder net so I tried fishing it out with my hand and finally got it out.
I let it loose and if just floated to the bottom bottom up. I was really worried it was dead but then I flipped it over and watched it and it was breathing but just sitting there not moving. I realized that it may just be scared to be out with the rest of the fish, while it was in the glass jar in the breeder net with all the food all the fish were trying to get the food. I figured it was really scared thinking the fish were trying to eat it and that is why it was just sitting still.
Well after a few hours of observing it has moved a bit and was still breathing then it started twitching and flipped up in the water and the current pushed up to the wall. it looked like was still breathing so I put it back in the breeder net to isolate it. It is now just sitting there not moving. went on its back again the went back on its stomach. Not really moving at all and I don't think its breathing any move.
Does anyone know what could have gone wrong. Did isolating it in the jar do something bad? Maybe I pushed it somehow that hurt it when I was getting it out of the breeder net? Could the garlic have done something to it? Was it simply scared to death? Or could it not have been eating as well as i thought and just starved to death today?
Thanks for any input!!!
So I am fairly new to the hobby. I have a 29 Gallon Bio Cube with about 30 pounds of live rock and a bunch of live sand. The system has been up and going for about 4 months now and have a few fish. i purchased a Ruby Red Dragonet about 3 weeks ago. It started off great and was going around and eating just fine. Wanted to make sure it could eat frozen and possibly pellets so I tried what another user posted to do. Get a breeder net box and use it to help isolate it to feed it live shrimp then ween it on to frozen then you could possible do pellets afterwards.
So it did great eating live brine shrimp then I started mixing in Frozen and it took it within a few days. I stopped the live and it was doing great with the frozen, I think. I would see it eat abit each time I put the food in with the turkey baster. It was even coming up to the baster for the food.
Well today the net was getting pretty dirty so I scooped the little guy out of it in a small mason jar that I put out on a table for a bit while I cleaned out the netting. I had read another post today about another method of getting the dragonet to eat pellets, which was to put a bunch in a shot glass. So I thought I would use the mason jar to try this. i put a bunch of pellets in it which I had let sit in a few drops of garlic extract. After the net was clean I put the fish back in the breeder net but just left it in the jar with the jar on the side so it could just swim out when it wanted. I also put some of the frozen shrimp in to try and get it to eat and accidently grab a pellet along with it.
Well, after a few hours it had not moved and i was ready to let it out of the breeder net since it seemed to be good on frozen shrimp and I had stocked up on copepods as well. I figured I can leave the little shot glass of pellets in a area as the article suggested and hopefully he would find it. Well, the fish would not come out of the of the breeder net so I tried fishing it out with my hand and finally got it out.
I let it loose and if just floated to the bottom bottom up. I was really worried it was dead but then I flipped it over and watched it and it was breathing but just sitting there not moving. I realized that it may just be scared to be out with the rest of the fish, while it was in the glass jar in the breeder net with all the food all the fish were trying to get the food. I figured it was really scared thinking the fish were trying to eat it and that is why it was just sitting still.
Well after a few hours of observing it has moved a bit and was still breathing then it started twitching and flipped up in the water and the current pushed up to the wall. it looked like was still breathing so I put it back in the breeder net to isolate it. It is now just sitting there not moving. went on its back again the went back on its stomach. Not really moving at all and I don't think its breathing any move.
Does anyone know what could have gone wrong. Did isolating it in the jar do something bad? Maybe I pushed it somehow that hurt it when I was getting it out of the breeder net? Could the garlic have done something to it? Was it simply scared to death? Or could it not have been eating as well as i thought and just starved to death today?
Thanks for any input!!!
