Yellow Watchman loss

[sharper]

So my Goby was only sick for a couple of days, and I am shocked to see him die this fast. His eyes were cloudy, he was pale - almost white, and his face was a little bit swollen.

 

We are devastated as this is the only fish in our 12 gal nano, and we had him for 2-3 weeks only. Our tank has been fully cycled before getting him, and we have an excellent cleaning crew of snails and 3 hermit crabs. We have a little bit of an algae bloom that is slowly dieing to brown, and the only other live things we have is a small frag of pulsing xenia, 2 green mushroom frags, and some small ricordia green muschrooms that are all over one of the live rocks we bought a long time ago. I'll have to ask my hubby on the water conditions, since he tests the water constantly and makes sure everything is okay. We are new to marine reefs, but we are very good at all of our freshwater tanks.

 

Just in case this may help, I'll let you know everything we've done in the past week with our tank. Our Xenia and green mushrooms are new to our tank. We've had them for about 3-4 days now. We put them in the tank 2 days before we noticed our goby's illness. We attached the mushrooms with krazy glue gel, and we rubber banded our Xenia. The Xenia dropped a couple of polyps in the tank, and our goby thought one of the moving polyps in the sand was food. He went to eat it but quickly spit it back out. We thought nothing of it. I do believe hubby put a drop of iodine in the water for the Xenia.

Last night, we went to feed the goby, to find out he wasn't coming out to get his food. He usually rushes to eat as much as he can, but we couldn't find him. I saw his head poke out a little and his mouth was hanging wide open and it seemed that his bottom lip was swollen. We netted him up and held it against the glass to get a better look. There was a dark mark down the middle of this body. This morning, we found the goby up and swimming around. This is so odd for him. He kept swimming around the tank instead of walking on the rocks and sand. His whole head was pale, and his mouth was swollen. He seemed to get close to the surface of the water, but would swim back down. He also kept swimming against the current of the water. The dark spot on his body seemed to be going away. But it was odd to see him so active. We tried to feed him but he wouldn't eat.

I went to work for 4 hours, and came home to find him dead already! I couldn't believe how fast it happened.

 

Could anyone tell me what this might be? I really would like to prevent it from happening again. Do I need to worry about this with any other future fish? Can it be the Xenia, or do you think that is unrelated?

Thanks so much!

[ezcompany]

hey sharper

welcome to NR

 

sorry to hear about your fish. i'm thinking its unrelated to the xenia.

the iodine could've been the problem. did you see any problems with your inverts? they usually show signs of stress before fish do. the fish was probably infected when you got him. if you want an expert to look into it ask nicolec over at Reefcentral.

 

edit: post your water params

[sharper]

hey sharper

welcome to NR

 

sorry to hear about your fish. i'm thinking its unrelated to the xenia.

the iodine could've been the problem. did you see any problems with your inverts? they usually show signs of stress before fish do. the fish was probably infected when you got him. if you want an expert to look into it ask nicolec over at Reefcentral.

 

edit: post your water params

 

 

Hey, thanks for the response! We only put a drop of iodine in the water, but we think we are probably going to lay off of it for awhile to be for sure.

 

Just to give an update. We took our water up to the LFS to get it tested to compare to our tests. They said that our Salinity was at 1.029, which is odd because our hydrometer at home reads 1.022.

So we can't figure out why that is, other than our hydrometer is broken. I think we will buy a new one tomorrow.

We got some new water and had it half fresh and half salt. We were instructed to change out a gallon a day till it reads normal. Our PH was a little low, but we knew that.

They guy at the LFS said that with a salinity that high could of easily killed off our goby because of the gravity.

I hope our water gets normal again soon.

[ezcompany]

1.029 is dangerously high. use the money for the hydrometer to get a refractometer, you'll be glad you did. i would try to get at least 1.026 in a period of 48 hours.

[andre]

Hey sharper, what kind of hydrometer were you using (Brand)?

[sharper]

Hey sharper, what kind of hydrometer were you using (Brand)?

 

 

We had the Deep Six Hydrometer, and we have bought a new one, the Instant Ocean Hydrometer. We would love to have a refractometer, but it's really not in our budget. The new hydrometer seems to be working more acurate, and we are making sure it stays rinsed out well. Our sl seems to be at 1.026-1.027 now since we are making sure it stays topped off with reverse osmosis fresh water, and our water changes that we are doing 1 gallon everyday of premixed half salt/half fresh water. This is helping bring it down really well.

I think our Xenia that we thought was completely dead is starting to revive itself.

Whew!

[ezcompany]

a refractometer is always in your budget, trust me.

bring the water to the LFS and get it tested there.