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Katy410

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Oct 3, 2013
Messages
180
I have bad news. My blood shrimp, Lawnmower blenny, and frogspawn are all dead. The frogspawn split a few weeks back and was doing pretty well. The thing split in half, and it had a head flying around and going in and out of the crevices, as the other half stayed implanted. My dad read up on it, and apparently this means that it would die. The light was then out for a week die to a vacation, and now it's gone.
The Lawnmower blenny and shrimp died from similar causes ( I think.) The Lawnmower blenny was found dead on the territory of my Dottyback. The shrimp was found, in one peice, but bitten open. Later on I discovered that he was decapitated, and in half. He just finished molting a day ago, too. But he was flipped upside down while he did this. When he was done, he looked off, his antennae were in odd positions, and he looked a bit... Deformed would be the best way to put it. So, I pretty much conclude that he was weak and didn't have defense to defend himself against the dottyback. The dottyback then, as I assume, killed him, as they are known to eat shrimp and were bickering. It also looks like the dottyback killed the blenny. His find were tattered, and they were quarreling beforehand. Your thoughts?
One day soon I plan to make a thread for my tank. Once I get a new fish. Or any livestock for that matter.


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I had a dottydack as well. They are cool little fish and if you read a little bit about them they should get along with other tank mates pretty well. However there are a few fish in every specie that don't follow the rules. My dotty killed everything I put in my tank. Since my lfs put my stocking list together with me they took the dottydack back and replaced everything she killed. Good luck. I would rehome the fish. Its not practical to have a $12 fish killing $30 fish. I'm my opinion a dottydack should be kept in a tank no less than 40 gallons

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I had a dottydack as well. They are cool little fish and if you read a little bit about them they should get along with other tank mates pretty well. However there are a few fish in every specie that don't follow the rules. My dotty killed everything I put in my tank. Since my lfs put my stocking list together with me they took the dottydack back and replaced everything she killed. Good luck. I would rehome the fish. Its not practical to have a $12 fish killing $30 fish. I'm my opinion a dottydack should be kept in a tank no less than 40 gallons

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Yeah, I agree. Some people say that their clownfish are aggressive and kill, but mine have never once went near anything in my tank, except when the dottyback is harassing them. The clownfish usually reside at the back corner of the tank by my thermometer and filter pump on the left, and my pajama cardinal fish usually chill there as well, but no fish seems to mind.
My LFS is extremely overpriced, so I decided that from now on, I will order most of my livestock from Reefs2Go or LiveAquaria. Have you had any experience with them? My shrimp was 40 or 50$, while by dottyback was 20-something dollars. My blenny was around 15$.
My nitrate levels were high, since I just got back from vacation and now did a water change. To keep these levels down I have decided to plant some macro algae for Nitrate-Lowering purposes and to add some life to the back of my tank.
And about the rehoming, today or tomorrow I am calling my LFS and asking if they'll take back the dottyback. I'm probably now getting sexy shrimp, or addons to my cleaning-crew. If the LFS won't take him back my dad's friend used to own aquariums, and if he still does, then we have found him a home. But if neither of them will take him, there's a restaurant by my house, and I know this sounds a bit odd, but I'll offer him to them. They have a large tank, I'm not sure how many gallons, I'd assume 300 at the least, with a tang, damsels, angelfish, triggers, a clown, and long nose bird wrasse... The list continues. I assume that he would be happy there with his other aggressive buds. But of nothing from here works, then I may have to end up flushing him.


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Liveaquaria is a bit overpriced but you really get your money worth as they qt all fish and have a 14 day guarantee on everything. Reefs2go has gone downhill and I would not recommend ordering from them.


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Good chance the lawnmower may have starved. When I was researching them I learned most small tanks just don't produce enough algae to support them for long.


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Good chance the lawnmower may have starved. When I was researching them I learned most small tanks just don't produce enough algae to support them for long.


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Could be, but my tank had tons of algae, especially in the sand, on the glass, the rock, and huge amounts of Green Hair Algae.


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Did he clean it all up?


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If your having that much algae then you have excess nutrients in your system, which probably lead to the death of the shrimp and coral. I'd suggest finding and fixing the cause of your algae issues before doing anything else.
 
Did he clean it all up?


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Not exactly. There's still a lot of it. The dottyback was harassing him a lot, though the blenny was twice as big.


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If your having that much algae then you have excess nutrients in your system, which probably lead to the death of the shrimp and coral. I'd suggest finding and fixing the cause of your algae issues before doing anything else.


That could be the death f the shrimp, since my nitrates were VERY high. My nitrates were low at the time of the coral, though. It's head came off, so I just assumed that it fragged itself, since the other head stayed on. But, from what my dad said, this means that it would die. Anything on that?


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I've never heard of a froggie fragging itself, one of the heads came off the skeleton?
Edit: and it's pretty much impossible to help with low and high, what are/were the full set of params when this happened.
 
I've never heard of a froggie fragging itself, one of the heads came off the skeleton?
Edit: and it's pretty much impossible to help with low and high, what are/were the full set of params when this happened.


Pretty much, as in the green part of the frogspawn came off of the tan "stem", if that makes any sense. Stupid me didn't check the levels at the time as I thought that this was normal, and it lived for about 2 weeks and would continue living if I had not left the lights off for a week. I only have the basic API kit. I'm getting the reef kit, or the other levels, later today. Ammonia and Nitrite were at 0 (I checked a little while after) PH was around 8.4 if I can recall, and the nitrate was a little high. It was slightly orange, according to the API kit, and I can't remember what the exact level is.
Today I'm also picking up a refractometer (possibly).


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Whoops, did you mean when the shrimp/fish died? They were extremely high, around 150 if I can recall. In other words, the API test kit had the Nitrates red. I feel like I am making no sense, so sorry. The other livestock wasn't affected by the high levels of nitrates though.
 
Sounds like it's all from elevated nitrate levels, a few large wc's should stabilize things. I have no clue what would cause a euphie to loose it's polyps like that, that's a new one for me but I'd guess nitrates were involved.
 
Sounds like it's all from elevated nitrate levels, a few large wc's should stabilize things. I have no clue what would cause a euphie to loose it's polyps like that, that's a new one for me but I'd guess nitrates were involved.


Hm, that may be it, but nothing else seems affected by the nitrate change.


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Nitrates will slowly kill off your corals if they get high. It wont all happen at once. I would def get moving on getting those nitrates lower and then go from there.
I've screwed up and let my nitrates get high and have lost coral due to it, so trust me, high nitrates are a big killer of coral if left at higher levels.

I see you have another post about keeping sps in your biocube, your priority right now should be to control what you have going on now and then maybe upgrade the lights and go with sps. If you think your lps was sensitive just wait until you get into sps corals, they are even more susceptible to higher than normal nitrates. Typically they require zero to maybe 5 nitrates at most, no phosphates and pretty much pristine water.
 
Nitrates will slowly kill off your corals if they get high. It wont all happen at once. I would def get moving on getting those nitrates lower and then go from there.
I've screwed up and let my nitrates get high and have lost coral due to it, so trust me, high nitrates are a big killer of coral if left at higher levels.

I see you have another post about keeping sps in your biocube, your priority right now should be to control what you have going on now and then maybe upgrade the lights and go with sps. If you think your lps was sensitive just wait until you get into sps corals, they are even more susceptible to higher than normal nitrates. Typically they require zero to maybe 5 nitrates at most, no phosphates and pretty much pristine water.


Thanks Carey. I'm currently working on lowering the nitrates, I may add some red macro algae (I forget the correct name for it, sorry) and maybe a Kent Nitrate Sponge, as well as daily water changes until it lowers?


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Water changes are the best and quickest way to get rid of nitrates. The nitrate sponge does not work in my experience using it. :-(

Macro algae can help but you will need a whole heck of alot of it and it takes alot of time.
If it were me, I would do daily water changes for a few days, that will get them down to a good level and then you can go from there. Just watch your feeding and keep up with the water changes and you will not find yourself in this spot again.
Once you get the hang of keeping the low nitrates then I would think about adding coral again. :)

Good luck! It can be done, just gotta do a little extra work.
 
Water changes are the best and quickest way to get rid of nitrates. The nitrate sponge does not work in my experience using it. :-(

Macro algae can help but you will need a whole heck of alot of it and it takes alot of time.
If it were me, I would do daily water changes for a few days, that will get them down to a good level and then you can go from there. Just watch your feeding and keep up with the water changes and you will not find yourself in this spot again.
Once you get the hang of keeping the low nitrates then I would think about adding coral again. :)

Good luck! It can be done, just gotta do a little extra work.


Sounds good. You're so informational! Thanks so much!
I just checked my nitrate levels. Yesterday they were past 160 PPM (waaayyyyy too high, I know) and today are on- between 40 and 80. Still too high, but I'm getting there. Today, instead of a water change, i killed the Aiptasoa in my tank with Aiptasia X instead of doing a water change. Tomorrow I'm doing a 25-50% change, and smaller ones, but still atleast 10%, until my levels go down. But by next weekend I'll add some more livestock.


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Liveaquaria is a bit overpriced but you really get your money worth as they qt all fish and have a 14 day guarantee on everything. Reefs2go has gone downhill and I would not recommend ordering from them.


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+1. IME R2G has terrible customer service and several corals I ordered from them died.
 
I have a royal dotty back and an occelaris clownfish I my 8 gallon reef tank!! The clownfish was intoduced weeks before the dotty back was. Once the dotty back was introduced he would hide a lot so no trouble was cause, the dotty back is now fully acclimated to his new home for about 2 weeks now and gets along fine with my clownfish but now and again he will dart at the clownfish and pick at him but the clownfish doesn't seem to be bothered by it!! I would dare to put any shrimp in the tank though!! I bought 2 peppermint shrimp before him and they both died, a shrimp here in Australia are crazy expensive, $40 each was ok but still for a shrimp and I'm not risking it as the last shrimp disappeared when the dotty back was Introduced!!
 
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