Royal Gramma Fatality

[tanked4u]

Hello,

Background
I have had a 32 gallon Biocube running for the last 4-5 years. The tank is stocked with 2 clowns, a yellow watchman goby and a royal gramma. With one notable exception, the water parameters are generally stable due to my consistent, weekly 5 gallon water changes. My corals are for the most part doing growing well.

Situation
Unfortunately, my royal gramma is in the process of permanently checking out of my tank. The other fish in the tank seem fine, so I suspect it is something unique to this particular animal. I did a little research on the forum, and I saw that RG's prefer colder water. I know my water slowly hit 83 degrees this summer and then slowly came back down to 78 degrees in the fall. I thought the gradual increase and decrease would make it okay, but I am now reconsidering. Over the course of the past 3-4 months, I noticed her appetite had diminished. I suspect she has been in this stress induced death spiral for a while. The two clowns that are the boss of the tank probably did not help either.

I just tried to euthanize the RG by pulling her out the tank with a net, but she swam down one of my pistol shrimp's holes and out of sight. My clean up crew consists of a bunch of small snails and a tiger pistol shrimp.

Questions
- How sound is my theory that the water temp triggered the health issues with the RG? I would like to make some corrections before trying to keep another RG. I think a couple of small fans could keep the water temp down.

- Will my full-size tiger pistol shrimp consume enough of the Royal Gramma to prevent a wide spread tank crash or should I try to dig her out from under the rocks? Digging her out would make quite a mess.

Thank you for the advice and assistance.

 

[Tim McLellan]

Don't know that I have answers to your specific questions, but FWIW my RG stays hidden all the time in the rocks, occasionally shows itself during feeding. Very frustrating because it is such a beautiful fish. Ugh, just have to let them do what makes them comfortable.

 

[tanked4u]

Thanks for the reply. I am a huge fan of the royal grammas. This is actually my second one. The first one was really bold and aggressive with the other fish. She was out swimming around all the time.

The current one, which is ill, was much more passive. I have had her for about 2 years. She was always more reclusive, but she would still swim around the tank until the last few months.

 

[jcdeng]

if your rg is not eating it would take maybe 2 weeks for it to die, but I don't understand your need to pull her out and kill her? I mean, if you are worried about its dead body ruining your water parameters then just do more water changes when you don't see her for a few days. its just 10 gallons for a good 30%.

FWIW my rg hides in the rock work all the time and I only get to see it during feeding time. But my tank sits at 74F, what my house ambient temperature is.

 

[tanked4u]

Thanks for the reply.

The RG is definitely not just doing the normal hiding behavior. She was swimming erratically out in the open and twitching along with not eating for the past few weeks.

I would say probably in August, the RG started to eat and then immediately spit out the food. I thought it was something with the food, so I bought a new package of LRS and some different dried flake and pellet foods. I also added Selcon to the food, but the spitting out behavior continued. She stopped eating completely probably 2-3 weeks ago. I did not observe any other physical signs of illness such as white spots or heavy breathing. This is what led me to the water temp/clown fish theory.

Yes, I am worried about a tank crash, but I agree with your opinion. Worse case, I will just double up on some water changes. I just get nervous with the small water volume. Someday I will have a bigger tank.