Tankmate for Orchid and Damsel

[roblox84]

I'm having a hard time deciding on a tankmate for my orchid dottyback and azure damsel. Do you all have any suggestions? I was thinking of a Flame Hawk but heard they might be too aggressive?

[Snow_Phoenix]

25 minutes ago, roblox84 said:

I'm having a hard time deciding on a tankmate for my orchid dottyback and azure damsel. Do you all have any suggestions? I was thinking of a Flame Hawk but heard they might be too aggressive?

How big is your tank? Enough rockwork with hiding spaces available?

 

You could try a Falco Hawk. Stays smaller at 3", but *will eat shrimp. Another option is a clownfish - but depending on the aggression level with your two current fish, it may/may not work. 

[roblox84]

11 hours ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

How big is your tank? Enough rockwork with hiding spaces available?

 

You could try a Falco Hawk. Stays smaller at 3", but *will eat shrimp. Another option is a clownfish - but depending on the aggression level with your two current fish, it may/may not work. 

Sorry, it's a 20g. I did set up my rockwork to have many hiding places and caves available.

 

I was thinking about a clown but every single one I had was super aggressive and nipped at my fish. Even the current Ocellaris in my pico tank is very aggressive and attacks my hand.

[roblox84]

14 hours ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

How big is your tank? Enough rockwork with hiding spaces available?

 

You could try a Falco Hawk. Stays smaller at 3", but *will eat shrimp. Another option is a clownfish - but depending on the aggression level with your two current fish, it may/may not work. 

Just looked up the hawk, that's a super nice looking fish. You think it would eat snails or just shrimp? I don't plan on buying shrimp.

[jambon]

I think it would work. Another nice hawk fish Is the geometric hawk fish. It's a bit smaller.

 

[Tired]

Shouldn't eat snails, no, though it may taste them. They aren't snail-eaters, they don't have the gear to get anything out of the shell. They're just grabbing predators that catch whatever fits in their mouth.

[roblox84]

On 5/19/2020 at 7:24 PM, jambon said:

I think it would work. Another nice hawk fish Is the geometric hawk fish. It's a bit smaller.

 

What about the longnose hawk? I've read mostly good things about them. 

[DreC80]

On 5/19/2020 at 5:33 PM, roblox84 said:

Just looked up the hawk, that's a super nice looking fish. You think it would eat snails or just shrimp? I don't plan on buying shrimp.

I have a Falco Hawk in my Reefer 425.  Pretty cool fish.  I've not personally witnessed it eating snails...but have read that they'll eat shrimp and even small fish if they can fit them in their mouth.  I have some Roland's Damsels that are significantly smaller than the hawk and it doesn't bother them.

[Tired]

A longnose hawk gets to 5". I would worry about it targeting your other fish, and I think it would be far too much bio-load. I'm not sure if it would need more space to swim, I think they're mostly a perching fish. 

[roblox84]

2 hours ago, DreC80 said:

I have a Falco Hawk in my Reefer 425.  Pretty cool fish.  I've not personally witnessed it eating snails...but have read that they'll eat shrimp and even small fish if they can fit them in their mouth.  I have some Roland's Damsels that are significantly smaller than the hawk and it doesn't bother them.

My damsel seems to be pretty tame, it's the orchid dottyback I'm worried about. It'll chase the damsel away when it crosses his boundary into the left side of the tank.

 

The orchid mostly stays at the bottom with the damsel so as long as a Hawkfish makes his territory up towards the top, I'm hoping all will be good.

[Tired]

Yeah, that's what dottybacks tend to do. They make territories. Your damsel should eventually learn not to go over there. 

[DreC80]

8 hours ago, roblox84 said:

My damsel seems to be pretty tame, it's the orchid dottyback I'm worried about. It'll chase the damsel away when it crosses his boundary into the left side of the tank.

 

The orchid mostly stays at the bottom with the damsel so as long as a Hawkfish makes his territory up towards the top, I'm hoping all will be good.

The Hawkfish will just perch on your rock and corals.  They normally don't swim unless it's feeding time or are moving to another area to hang out.  From my understanding they don't have a swim bladder.

[roblox84]

So I found my orchid dottyback dead in its cave today. The only change in my tank was i added a snail clean up crew, is it possible that might have caused an ammonia spike? The damsel seems fine though. 

 

Now i need to either repurchase another orchid or go with a Royal Gramma in addition to the hawkfish. Is the orchid or Royal Gramma a hardier fish?

[DreC80]

Sorry to hear about the fish.  I doubt snails would have caused an ammonia spike...unless there were a lot and they died/polluted the tank.  An ammonia spike could have occurred from adding too many fish too fast...but that doesn't seem to be the case here.

 

Did you test ammonia?  I would check all your parameters just to make sure nothing is off.  Maybe run some carbon in case there are any toxins in the water.

 

If everything checks out, you should be able to try another fish.  For what it's worth, live aquaria considers the gramma and the dottyback "easy" care level wise...although it says the gramma is peaceful and dottyback is semi-aggresive.  I would try a captive bred dottyback...probably do a bit better holding it's own against the damsel and hawkfish.

[roblox84]

1 hour ago, DreC80 said:

Sorry to hear about the fish.  I doubt snails would have caused an ammonia spike...unless there were a lot and they died/polluted the tank.  An ammonia spike could have occurred from adding too many fish too fast...but that doesn't seem to be the case here.

 

Did you test ammonia?  I would check all your parameters just to make sure nothing is off.  Maybe run some carbon in case there are any toxins in the water.

 

If everything checks out, you should be able to try another fish.  For what it's worth, live aquaria considers the gramma and the dottyback "easy" care level wise...although it says the gramma is peaceful and dottyback is semi-aggresive.  I would try a captive bred dottyback...probably do a bit better holding it's own against the damsel and hawkfish.

Unfortunately I did a water change first, before i noticed the dead fish. When I checked ammonia after the water change there was none detectable.

 

The only weird thing is the damsel who was usually out in the open swimming around is mostly hiding for the past 2 days. He only came out today for a split second when i fed mysis. He shot out of the rocks faster than I've ever seen him swim and darted right back in and i haven't seen the fish since. I don't think he actually even ate any mysis.

[DreC80]

32 minutes ago, roblox84 said:

Unfortunately I did a water change first, before i noticed the dead fish. When I checked ammonia after the water change there was none detectable.

 

The only weird thing is the damsel who was usually out in the open swimming around is mostly hiding for the past 2 days. He only came out today for a split second when i fed mysis. He shot out of the rocks faster than I've ever seen him swim and darted right back in and i haven't seen the fish since. I don't think he actually even ate any mysis.

That is strange.  Something's not right.  I would start checking parameters asap.  

[Tired]

Check parameters, check if your equipment is malfunctioning and shocking the tank, and consider if any sort of contaminant could have gotten in. Sprays or whatnot from a diffuser, cleaning sprays, air fresheners, anything like that.

[roblox84]

5 hours ago, Tired said:

Check parameters, check if your equipment is malfunctioning and shocking the tank, and consider if any sort of contaminant could have gotten in. Sprays or whatnot from a diffuser, cleaning sprays, air fresheners, anything like that.

Tested parameters, ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate <5. Nothing was used around the tank but I did recently glue frag plugs down with dollar store gel superglue. Is it possible that released contaminants? Although one would think the carbon would have cleared anything out.

 

My Damsel seems ok, i think. It's just hanging out in its sleeping spot right now. When the lights come on later I'll try feeding it and hopefully it won't freak out again.

[roblox84]

I woke up today in the afternoon after my last post and sadly my damsel in now dead as well.

 

I had a pretty small rock anenome (quarter size) that died in my tank and melted before the fish, can an anenome like that release any toxins into the water?

[Tired]

Any decaying animal can cause an ammonia spike, but anemones aren't toxic as far as I know. Dollar store superglue should be fine- do you still have the bottle? It could have had something else in there. 

 

I would look into a current issue leaking into the tank. 

[DreC80]

Very easy to test for stray voltage if you have/borrow a volt meter.  Red lead in the water...black in the ground of an outlet...meter on volts AC.

[roblox84]

I tested my tank for stay voltage and this is what I got:

 

All equipment off 5.8v
Only heater on 12v
Only powerhead on 12v
Only return on 35v

With everything on besides the return it hovers around 20, with all equipment including return on it's showing 42.

[Tired]

Yeah, that's no good. Don't add any more fish until you can resolve that. Preferably, take out any other animals in the tank. 

[DreC80]

8 hours ago, roblox84 said:

I tested my tank for stay voltage and this is what I got:

 

All equipment off 5.8v
Only heater on 12v
Only powerhead on 12v
Only return on 35v

With everything on besides the return it hovers around 20, with all equipment including return on it's showing 42.

Sounds like a little troubleshooting is in order.  From what I've read all tanks will have a little bit of stray voltage.  I tested both of my tanks and they both read under 1 volt with everything on.

 

Based on the numbers I would take a look at your return pump.  Try a different one if you have it.  I'm surprised you are getting stray voltage with each equipment item.  Normally it's one thing that causes it.

[roblox84]

19 hours ago, DreC80 said:

Sounds like a little troubleshooting is in order.  From what I've read all tanks will have a little bit of stray voltage.  I tested both of my tanks and they both read under 1 volt with everything on.

 

Based on the numbers I would take a look at your return pump.  Try a different one if you have it.  I'm surprised you are getting stray voltage with each equipment item.  Normally it's one thing that causes it.

I swapped my return for a spare i had and it's still showing the same voltage.

 

I remembered that just before memorial day i was in a rush and stupidly rinsed activated carbon in untreated tap water than added to the tank. Could the fish have gotten chlorine poisoning from the residual tap water in the carbon?