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lawnmower blenny sick!!!


baldwinb

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My lawnmower blenny was the first fish in my 12g tank. He has been a real trooper through my experience building. I went out of town four a few days leaving my girlfriend in charge of feeding. When i got back last night everything seemed to be in order including my blenny who was swimming around like he does always. There was nothing odd about him. This morning on the other hand i found him wedged under a rock breathing very heavily. i lifted the rock just to see if he was stuck well he did not swimm at all. When i nudged him, he moved al ittle bit and now sits on his side breathing very heavily unable to move. What is wrong!!!!! please help, i really like this guy

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did you test water? Id start there.. look fer food particles in yer HOB filter pad. Also how long ya had him? perhaps he is constapated. are there any new additions to the tank? can you see any signs of physical ailment?

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well given yer lack of supplied "other" information that could help us to decipher what may possibly be wrong..... Im sticking with my first guess...... X)

Survey Sayss ???

good luck.

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  • 2 weeks later...

He croaked...the poor guy. I know what it was though. My girlfriend told me she could not believe he lived through my mistakes(he was my first saltwater fish) and was surprised he was still alive. The B@#$% jinxed him!!!!!

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How do you aerate your tank? Sounds to me like he suffocated. Was a usual air supply (skimmer, power head) shut off for the night?

 

The reason I ask is that I had a number of problems with my tank when it was young. And though I had a power head that agitated the surface the problem appears to have been lack of 02 (which is common in warm salt water because 02 saturation levels are very low so 02 can be depleated in a closed system really fast). Once I added an air stone (archaic, I know), all the problems went away. I since added a skimmer, but have left the air stone running in the back corner just for piece of mind (besides it doesn't really hurt anything back there). Here are a couple of easy low 02 indicators.

 

Surface film build up. People talk about getting surface skimmers for this, the problem is simply low 02.

 

Cronic low pH problems. If you keep adding buffer and your pH returns to 7.something. You have a lack of oxygen which increases H+ production and reduces OH- formation thereby increasing the pH (=power of hydrogen) in your system. Stop adding buffers and just add air. The pH will creep up until is stabalizes at around 8.2 (if that is what your buffer targets).

 

An LFS near me had a problem with high pH in their tanks. Why? TOO much water movement was supersaturating the system with O2 and raising the pH to 8.4 and beyond.

 

Don't underestimate the power of O2 just because you can't see it.

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well my power had gone out for about five hours two different times one day thanks to Hurricane Lili. But he was fine for several datys afterwards. Maybe it just took awhile for the lack of O2 to take effect

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