HELP! new Midas Benny in QT!

[maxpare79]

Hey guys just got a Midas Blenny yesterday, he was at my LFS for 1 month eating fine, etc...

So I brought him home yesterday, did a drip acclimation and check for the LFS water salinity which was the same as mine...

So when it finally went in, it went immediately into hiding, it had its stressed out brown stripes... Today mid afternoon it started coming out and ate well, swimmed around but would go back into hiding when I approached.

But an hour or so later here he is, at the overflow doing bubbles on the surface.

I have good surface agitation with a power head and return pump so I don't know what to do more...

No ammonia, no nitrate and no medication yet, I can touch him a bit until he reacts and almost jumps out of the tank...

Like I said a moment ago he was fine

update: he's still hanging on the overflow, If I move him he just swims back up there.
.

 

[polyppal]

sounds like your doing the right things, id kill the lights for a day or two until you see him exploring. if there's not some good hiding places in the tank get a couple PVC elbows for him to hide in

 

[fishguy242]

Hi ,any other fish in tank, poss aggression?

 

[polyppal]

unless he shows signs of distress or disease, id wait until he's eating well to start copper power/prazi if IWY

 

[maxpare79]

sounds like your doing the right things, id kill the lights for a day or two until you see him exploring. if there's not some good hiding places in the tank get a couple PVC elbows for him to hide in

I have 3 elbows already, that's where he used to hang before hugging the overflow

Hi ,any other fish in tank, poss aggression?

No he's alone

unless he shows signs of distress or disease, id wait until he's eating well to start copper power/prazi if IWY

Well he was eating fine today, so after my post and seeing this, I raised the copper level to 1ppm as a first step

Oh I noticed that my cheap heater was out of wack.... It was set to 77 but water was at 81...I replaced it, but other then that everything else is fine... He's still hugging the overflow as of now but he lost all his brown stress stripes, he's back to yellow, but yeah I don't know...

BTW it took the fish store 4 days to catch him so that I could bring him home... Everytime the store owner would try to catch him he would retreat in a hole in a rock, so maybe he was overstressed at the LFS, I don't know. I asked them to not stress him, so that's why it took so long, but I wasn't there to supervise what they did....

 

[maxpare79]

So I just checked on him, he's still has his brown stripes on, and he hugs the overflow....

I did a test, I turned off the return pump to check if he was just too weak and getting sucked there, but no, when the pump is off he literally swims to keep hugging the overflow and don't want to go anywhere else...He evens get his head out of the water for some reason.

It's not an O2 problem since I have good surface water movement

I can touch him once or twice before he starts to get annoyed but he doesn't flee...

First day was spent in the pvc caves, and he was yellow, 24h later, this...

I will keep the light turned off as suggested and I did put a towel on the qt to block ambient light as well since my PC is right beside my QT and I work on it all day, so just seeing me so close might stress him too...but yeah, never had such a behavior in any of my other fish, I hope he makes it...

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I dont see any problem. If its a QT tank, probably no sand and rock, no where for him to hide or make a home.

It takes a few days for fish to get used to a new tank. They have been violently kidnapped from across the world and shipped all over in little bags and netted over and over again.

I would just leave it alone for a few days, stick a schedule, feed at the same time, lights on/off at the same time, etc... Good luck.

 

[maxpare79]

I dont see any problem. If its a QT tank, probably no sand and rock, no where for him to hide or make a home.

It takes a few days for fish to get used to a new tank. They have been violently kidnapped from across the world and shipped all over in little bags and netted over and over again.

I would just leave it alone for a few days, stick a schedule, feed at the same time, lights on/off at the same time, etc... Good luck.

Yeah bare bottom, with 3 pvc elbows and a plastic plant...what worries me is the first 24h he was in a pvc pipe looking good, eating, etc...but all the sudden it's like he lost it ...

 

[polyppal]

Midas change color dramatically under ANY stress IME, I wouldn’t be too worried esp if he is eating.

sometimes with fish QTs you just have to stay the course (even when the fish doesn’t apprear happy about it) and hope for the best as you carry out treatment…

 

[maxpare79]

Midas change color dramatically under ANY stress IME, I wouldn’t be too worried esp if he is eating.

sometimes with fish QTs you just have to stay the course (even when the fish doesn’t apprear happy about it) and hope for the best as you carry out treatment…

He was eating yesterday but today no, he just hugs the overflow and don't want to move...If I shut down the pump he even swim to stay there

 

[maxpare79]

Well to everyone who helped here, just an update...after a day where he was stock on the overflow and gasping for air out of the water, I decided to put him in a different QT....

Turns out as soon as he went in the new tank he was fine...

That has me scratching my head...the only parameter that are different is...no copper.

In the previous QT tank I started dosing copper and according to my Hannah test kit it was between 1 and 2ppm

Could a fish hate copper that much???

Now he is just in a tank with absolutely no medication, he is back to his yellow color and swimming around.

I just hope the 24h hours or so he spent in the other tank didn't do him any harm...