7g RFA growout tank. New clown pair Frostbite x black storm.

[LazyFish]

I converted my florida biotope into a rfa growout tank. I curently have 15 baby nems growing in the tank & 2 larger ones. I wanted a bit of variety so I also have 2 gorgs & threw in a baby trach (pizza the hutt) as well as some macros & a a bit of this & that. I decided to just go with another pair of mixed clowns in this tank my lfs got in some nice ones & even had a good sale.

Here is the original thread regarding the short lived biotope.

& here is my new pair of clowns Nuala & Abe I like his little white lip lol.

 

[SeaFurn]

How long have you had the 15 baby RFA's?  Would love to hear about your husbandry.  I've got over 30 in my 14g tank right now and any tips would be appreciated!

 

[LazyFish]

I' have to go back & look at my other threads to see when the oldest ones were born I honestly cant remember the largest ones are about 1/2 an inch now. I was keeping them all in a dish in the tank & cleaning the dish weekly but snails would get in there & they were disappearing one by one. They have been breeding in my 20g I just pick them out when I see them & move them. They tended to wander off get shaded out my the adults or just go missing in the 20g. This tank has larger sub straight for them to attach to I got them to attach to rubble & then placed them on the sand bed. I found they wander off less if you can get them to attach to something first. I think the hardest part is trying to get them to stay in a place where you can keep an eye on them in a larger set up. They get direct feeding of reef roids & tigger pods twice weekly now before I was just feeding the roids when they were smaller. They also pick up bits of food that I feed the fish there growth rate has gone up after introducing more meaty foods like the tigger pods & the brine shrimp that they can now grab from out the water when I feed the tank. Before when they were in a dish I think they were missing out on a lot of food that was floating around in the tank that they just couldn't grab. I even have a two headed nem baby that I have managed to keep track of but it looks like the two heads are starting to fuse into one funny oval looking nem with a zipper/seam down the middle. Cant say I realy do alot for them just make sure they cant wander off & get them selves somewhere they will die & make sure they have food & light. Keeping track of them is the hard part. Here's some of the baby nems. Can you see the little mutant too bad he's not a nice color. 

[SeaFurn]

I hear you on the keeping track of them part!  They make me crazy!  Some stay put but I'm always having to search for a bunch of them at feeding time. And many seem to just disappear. I'm sure I had over 40 at some point.

Yours are a lot bigger than mine.  Mine range from mere white or brightly colored dots to the largest at about half the size of a dime. The ones that can grab meaty food now are definitely growing faster than the others - albeit still slow.  

Your two headed baby must have been really interesting!

 

Thanks for the info!

[LazyFish]

Something is going on with the female clown. She is very picky with food and has gotten much worse about it she spits it out and hardly eats anything now. I've fed her everything but with the same result. She sleeps at night, and has been sleeping,  against the over flow. Now during the day she mostly lays in the macros and hardly moves.  She is not very active at all. She comes out when she sees some one but that's about it. She swims very very slowly. Idk what's up with her the storm is fine very very active and a pig. No gasping no signs of parasites or infection.  I'm scratching my head here. She is not emaciated or anything but has obviously lost weight. I had her several weeks before I introduced the other clown. She was never a big eater but never showed signs of disease and was always sleeping on or under the overflow anyway. The listlessness and the hardly eating has me really worried for her. 

[LazyFish]

I notice she is not using her back half too well today. It moves but the movements seem a little exaggerated and she seems to have some problem with fine controle. She seemed even more lethargic now than this morning. I'm wondering about some kind of injury or internal issue like a growth or something affecting her spine due to reduced controle of her back end at this point. Pain could cause lethargy and not eating. I can't see anything externally wrong but just in case I did a fresh water dip and a dip with ich-x. Nothing came out of the fish like flukes or anything she did well and did not stress much. After returning her to the tank she seems a little more active but still showing problems with her back end. I made a smelly soup out of just about all my foods and a mountain of garlic. Surprisingly she showed immediate interest as soon as it hit the water she even ate a few pieces. Garlic has antiparasitic properties as well as antiinflamitory that could help if this is an injury related thing. I'm going to keep feeding frequently and hope she comes around. 

[SeaFurn]

I hope she does too. 

Sorry she's not doing well. 

[LazyFish]

Thanks she is a very pretty fish and the male is alredy following her like a loyal puppy. I'd hate to loose her. I know garlic isn't a cure all but it has some properties that are supposed to make the fish a little less hospitable host for parasitic organisms. There is some debate on that from what I have seen it seems to be true.  I know In mammals for some microbes it tends to make things less hospitable for them and it has a mild anti inflammatory effect. I don't know if that applies to fish but it can't hurt to try. Maybe it will give the fishes immune system a better chance to kick whatever it is. At least she ate something I'm going to keep a close eye on her. 

[Clownnem05]

If she is eating you could soak food in a parasite medication an or and immune boosting treatment like garlic as you mentioned and feed it to her. This helped when my female was acting similar to what you describe.

[LazyFish]

Unfortunately don't have any parasite meds on hand that it can be soaked in just some pellets that she won't touch and she is only eating one or two bits of brine shrimp and whatever else I put in the soup at a time and spits 5he rest even with the garlic. At least she ate something it's an improvement at least. I'm also worried about coral that could ingest parasite meds on there food because they catch alot of stuff and eat it. Is there a liquid one that is safe for the corals and nems?  

[LazyFish]

She is eating much better today and seems more active. Fingers crossed. 

[Clownnem05]

22 hours ago, LazyFish said:

Unfortunately don't have any parasite meds on hand that it can be soaked in just some pellets that she won't touch and she is only eating one or two bits of brine shrimp and whatever else I put in the soup at a time and spits 5he rest even with the garlic. At least she ate something it's an improvement at least. I'm also worried about coral that could ingest parasite meds on there food because they catch alot of stuff and eat it. Is there a liquid one that is safe for the corals and nems?  

I use the Microbe lift parasite treatment

 

it is all natural so it won't hurt your corals

 

I soaked the food in water heavily concentrated with the microbe lift product for five minutes and fed it to my fish

[LazyFish]

It was OK with the corals I'll have to check it out. 

[Clownnem05]

I love their products, in my FW tank it cured ich in 3 days with no fish loss

[LazyFish]

I'm reading some pretty mixed reviews about it with its use as a salt water aquarium additive kind of TX for parasites.  I wonder if soaking the food in it would be more benificial. I have to. Look into it more.