"Healthy fish", my foot

[Buckster]

I ordered Trochus snails from live aquaria and I thought that they didn't have the markings or pointed shape. They were more rounded on the top. All died within a week. I acclimated them properly. I ordered more and they were a trochus snail. They all died within a week. Someone could say that something in my tank ate them but since all other snails that were previously in my tank are still present then that won't support that thought!
Since then, I have not bought from Live Aquaria again!

 

[Tired]

I took a picture of him during the most recent transfer. Phone flashlight ain't the most flattering lighting for any fish, but he's overall looking better! He's eating, I think his body condition has improved, and he's obviously pooping. When I put him in the tank, he almost immediately whipped around and tried to eat a tiny bit of dead grass that got in the tank while it was outside in the sun.

(Tank transfer method involves transferring the fish between two ich-free quarantine tanks, so the ich tomonts, the little bunker things that fall off the fish and attach to the substrate, never get a chance to hatch into more ich and re-infest the fish. The idea is that, if the fish is transferred frequently until all the ich has fallen off, the ich removes itself. Part of the cleaning of the tanks is leaving them in the sun for a couple days.)

I think he's feeling better. He seems more enthusiastic about food, and when I shine the flashlight on him (a couple times a day) to check on him, he flicks his fins, perks up, and looks. Another week, and he should be ready to go into my tank! So now I get to name him.

Is it a him? I know clown gobies are bidirectional hermaphrodites, but do they start as male or female? Or do they not develop into either unless another is present? Is that a thing?

 

[ReefEco]

Nice job - way to put in the effort for the little guy. Looks like he's turned the corner!

 

[BirdFish5000]

Beautiful work!

 

[Tired]

I hope so! I'm also hoping he's fairly young; they don't have the longest lifespan, and I'd like to get a few years out of this guy. I don't think he's quite full size, so hopefully he's not six months from permanent retirement, as it were.

At least it's been interesting. I've never cultured BBS before. I've hatched sea monkeys as a kid, but that's about it. I've learned that you need way, way fewer eggs/cysts than you think. Like, the tiniest pinch gets you hundreds.

The packaging for the culture kit suggested that I hatch 5 grams of eggs. I'm pretty sure that's literally a million shrimp, so I'm not sure what they think I'm culturing that I need a million shrimp at once. I'm hatching way less than that, and still getting tons of surplus. The surplus (and the ich-contaminated water) is all going into a 10gal tank. I guess I get to raise thousands of sea monkeys now.
(Probably I'll have to pull and humanely euthanize most of them, to achieve anything like a sustainable stock level in the spare-shrimp tank. I just hate to dump them all down the sink; seems like a cruel way to kill them. The surplus surplus gets clove oil before going down the drain.)

 

[Tired]

So, he's not maintaining weight despite eating a bunch of live BBS a day. I'm told that, in the absence of flukes or intestinal parasites, this is consistent with him having been caught via cyanide.

Congrats on the stellar livestock quality, LiveAquaria.

 

[LiveAquaria Verified Sponsor]

So, he's not maintaining weight despite eating a bunch of live BBS a day. I'm told that, in the absence of flukes or intestinal parasites, this is consistent with him having been caught via cyanide.

Congrats on the stellar livestock quality, LiveAquaria.

@Tired Good afternoon. We are sorry to hear about the condition of the Clown Goby. Please send an email to [email protected] with your order number, a current picture of the specimen, and a link to this Reef2Reef thread so we can review and arrive at a resolution.

 

[Tired]

I'll do that, if I can get a picture of the goby without him hiding from the camera, but I'm not sure there /is/ a resolution to be had. Unless y'all are planning to actually start selling completely healthy fish from Diver's Den, and checking how your suppliers are catching the fish you're buying from them. I'm not interested in store credit, as I'm not buying anything from y'all again and the credit wouldn't cover shipping anyway.

What I want out of this situation is a healthy clown goby, and there's not much anyone can do to help this little guy except what I'm already doing. I can't try and get a replacement, either, because if the current one doesn't die, he and the replacement would probably just fight.

At this point, my game plan is to isolate him in a breeder box, with pantyhose mesh over the holes so the BBS can't escape, and keep him surrounded by food constantly for a few months. Maybe he'll heal up. I'm also planning to get a trimma goby at some point, via somewhere that does /actual/ quarantines, so maybe it'll encourage him to eat by example.

Here's a thread where I've detailed what I've been trying with him: https://trackshipment.shipstation.c...MDg5MzU5OTE=&postal_code=78626-6813&locale=en

I have some Garlic Guard that just came in the mail, so I'm going to try to feed him again. I'll try for pictures while I have him going after the BBS.

 

[Gatorpa]

Years ago I tried ordering fish online, WASTE OF MONEY.

Best to buy local after the fish has been observed for a period of time.

 

[ReefEco]

Hey Tired, what other foods have you tried? Depending on your hatching schedule, BBS are only nutritious in general while they still have their yolk sack, or just after they have hatched, then their profile drops off considerably. You might try some other foods, if you haven't already, to help him put on some weight. I've had both good and bad experiences with LiveAquaria, more good ones with Divers Den than not, but I'm not sure that after a month of keeping the goby alive you can really jump to the conclusion of cyanide collection? So many variables. Looked like you nursed the guy back from the brink and he was feeding - did anything change? Have you treated for internal parasites, or ruled that out? (General Cure, or Prazi?) Sorry you are frustrated - a good sign that you care about your fish.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Dear Valued Customer,

Again, we apologize that your Clown Goby has ick. We did offer suggestions on raising the tank temperature as this will speed up the life cycle of the of the ick and also using a garlic supplement (Garlic Xtream) will help boost the fish's immune system helping to fight off the ick.

The health and well being of the specimens we ship are our main concern. All fish do go through an extensive quarantine period and the fish does undergo a final health inspection prior to shipping. A fish may not show any signs of ick in our holding facility but due to the stress of shipping the ick can progress very rapidly and be seen by the time your receive the shipment or appear very shortly after arrival. For this reason we do recommend quarantining new arrivals, no matter where they come from, for two to four weeks before adding them to your main display tank.

Please feel free to reach out to our Customer Service Department again if you would like to discuss this further.

Carole
Live Aquaria
Customer Service Supervisor

If the “health and well being of the specimens that you ship were your main concern”, you wouldn’t have so many bad reviews, one after another. Save that Orwellian speakwrite for someone else who doesn’t know better. To those of us who care for the animals, we will do all that we can to ensure your business cannot continue to treat them in such despicable manner.

 

[Tired]

I've been feeding newly-hatched BBS, I know they're not much good once they get past 24 hours. The thing is, he's been eating the BBS the entire time. He gained weight while in quarantine, with hundreds of BBS in his face constantly, so he's not completely incapable of it.

When I put him into the display, he started losing weight, fast. I've been giving him BBS daily, with the pumps shut off for hours so he can catch them. He eats dozens of them a day, and he's still far too thin. I know BBS are tiny, but the amount of food I'm giving him would keep a baby mandarin fed. So it should definitely be keeping him, if not fat, at least not /thin/.
Something seems to be keeping him from getting enough nutrition, and it's not lack of food or lack of eating that food. Organ damage from something is definitely on the table, and, as was pointed out in the other thread, clown gobies are awful hard to catch if not stunned.

He didn't have any intestinal parasites while in QT (all healthy poo), and the tank was fallow for 2 months before adding him, so he can't have caught them from the DT. If he had flukes, I'd expect to see dull colors and unhealthy behavior, which he doesn't have. He's all sorts of lively, and is about as brightly colored as five-lined clown gobies ever get.

I've tried frozen adult brine, frozen mysis, frozen tiny chunks of shrimp, dried cyclops, canned (then frozen) cyclops, frozen BBS, and tiny pellets. So far, he's eaten exactly 2 chunks of larger food, once a piece of brine and once a piece of mysis. Exactly one piece, and then he completely ignored all subsequent pieces that day and went about hunting BBS instead. So I don't know what's up with that.

I'm soaking some frozen foods in Garlic Guard right now. Let's see if that helps. But even if it does finally get him eating prepared foods reliably, I'm worried he's not going to get enough nutrition from that. Hence the plan with the breeder box and the constant shrimp supply.

 

[ReefEco]

Hey Tired, sounds like you are trying and doing all the right things - might just be tough for such a small fish to be getting enough food. BBS are so tiny, a couple hundred+ a day might be needed - not sure. Another two foods that pack a punch are Golden Pearls (various sizes available, and they stay neutrally buoyant, so can stay in the water column if turning off the return) as well as TDO chromoboost pellets, which similarly have small sizes designed for raising fry all the way up to adults. Keep fighting the good fight - that fish is lucky to have such a dedicated papa.

 

[Tired]

No luck with the Garlic Guard, except that my nose is burning. He didn't even try one piece this time.


He'll be doing this for a couple hours, at least. I'm not sure if he'll keep hunting after the light turns off at 9pm.

I'm getting the stuff for the breeder box together tomorrow. My main priority right now is fattening him up. I can work on getting him to eat something else once he's a decent weight again. Clown gobies are not supposed to have visible cheekbones.

 

[ReefEco]

A breeder box is a great place to introduce some pellet/pearls if you can, which packs many more calories than the BBS. Never too early to try...

 

[Tired]

The other problem is that I'm trying to avoid having to do huge water changes, because he gets scared and hides from me for a couple days after each water change, and scraps of uneaten food lying around doesn't help with that.

Here's a thread where I've detailed what I've been trying with him: https://trackshipment.shipstation.c...MDg5MzU5OTE=&postal_code=78626-6813&locale=en

That's probably a better place for discussing how to try to get him to eat. I'll update this thread if anything changes, apart from him being in a box eating snacks. And I'll look up those pearls.

 

[LiveAquaria Verified Sponsor]

I'll do that, if I can get a picture of the goby without him hiding from the camera, but I'm not sure there /is/ a resolution to be had. Unless y'all are planning to actually start selling completely healthy fish from Diver's Den, and checking how your suppliers are catching the fish you're buying from them. I'm not interested in store credit, as I'm not buying anything from y'all again and the credit wouldn't cover shipping anyway.

What I want out of this situation is a healthy clown goby, and there's not much anyone can do to help this little guy except what I'm already doing. I can't try and get a replacement, either, because if the current one doesn't die, he and the replacement would probably just fight.

At this point, my game plan is to isolate him in a breeder box, with pantyhose mesh over the holes so the BBS can't escape, and keep him surrounded by food constantly for a few months. Maybe he'll heal up. I'm also planning to get a trimma goby at some point, via somewhere that does /actual/ quarantines, so maybe it'll encourage him to eat by example.

Here's a thread where I've detailed what I've been trying with him: https://trackshipment.shipstation.com/?branding_id=00032804-0000-0000-8922-010000000000&carrier_code=ups&tracking_number=1ZY591W70195362838&order_number=CTIwMDg5MzU5OTE=&postal_code=78626-6813&locale=en

I have some Garlic Guard that just came in the mail, so I'm going to try to feed him again. I'll try for pictures while I have him going after the BBS.

@Tired Thank you for sending us an email. We have contacted our Coral Farm and Aquatic Life Facility for their suggestions, and we will reply to your email once we have their response.

 

[Tired]

Alright, hopefully they have some tips.

 

[Tamberav]

Live white worms would probably be a game changer for this guy. They survive in salt water wriggling for a long time and wayyyy more food on those guys then BBS.

 

[Tired]

Ooh, those would be a good food. I might not be able to get them for a bit, though, I don't think anywhere local has them and it's way too hot to buy cultures of anything online.

I'm not too worried about feeding him in the short-term. I'm putting him in a breeder box anyway (building it tonight, as soon as it's cool enough to go outside to melt the holes in the plastic), and I know the amount of BBS he's about to have access to will do the trick. I'll try and get some whiteworms to add to the box as well, and maybe the size of them will convince him to try bigger foods.