some suggestions please

[pairenoid]

background:first marine tank, cycled 1 month, 20 lbs cured lr in 20 gallon long, equipment from petsmart/amazon, t8 lighting with petsmart hood(1 bulb, need suggestions to replace it with a good t5)

I added 10 crabs/snails with 1 randals goby and tiger pistol shrimp last week, goby died in 2 days, it was a baby and im guessing it was due to poor acclimation

yesteday I bought a osc clownfish, maybe 2 inches its pretty small but i wanted a bigger one so it will survive easier, im not sure how its doing to be honest. I acclimated it for 45 minutes using the water replacement method every 10 minutes, not the drip method. When I nett'd him in, he kept pecking my rocks and bouncing off the walls scaring me

after a while he calmed down, but i noticed his mouth was white and wouldnt close, i cant for the life of me remember if he was like that before i bought him, but i think he either is sick or cut his mouth on the rocks, but he pecked the rock hard enough for crumbs to fly off a few times (he has completely stopped pecking so maybe he DID cut it )

so he wont eat the pellets i feed, im going to buy some brine shrimp on the way home from work.

now for the reason for the topic, i want some stocking suggestions

the only thing i know for sure right now is i want a partner for my shrimp, so probably some type of goby, maybe the yellow watchman. Where I am not sure is if i should get another clownfish or a blenny or both

if i can get away with both i would love that, but if i can only get one is where im in a dilemma, also im completely open to suggestions. I noticed some coral growing on my rock which made me want to buy a better light, but prior to this i did not care for coral. The coral i have looks like a zooanthid, it is flower like and retreats into the rock, but is pretty transparent and at a bad angle to receive light.

 

[Daniel Fishy]

Sound like a feather duster.are you sure you cycled?

 

[herp_mommy]

before you stock again, What are your water parameters? Are you testing?

 

[pairenoid]

i know im cycled and i got the lfs to confirm, they said if anything my salinity was lower than theirs so take extra care in acclimation which i did

my params are 0/0/some nitrate , 8.4 ph, 1.021 salinity

i tested before and after the fish died and there was no change at all in the params

 

[Beengirl]

You might wanna work in slowly getting the spec gravity up to 1.023-1.024. In a 20g, I would say 4 small fish max. And that's if you're good about doing regular weekly water changes. If you're not, then 3. If you just added the clown, then wait a week it two before adding another fish. Only do 1 fish at a time, a week or two apart to let your BB catch up. The yellow watchman goby is cute. I have one, like his blue dots and that he always looks pissed off! Lol.

 

[pairenoid]

thanks
i think my clownfish actually cut his mouth vs having a disease, it has weird texture, as if something is inside his mouth or something :<. He swims proper but wont eat so i will give him some time to adjust before i think about quarantining him and i dont even have a qt tank, maybe give him a fw dip

how can i raise salinity, can i just dump the sand into the tank slowly ?

i also like the yellow gobys, i think they will be next on my list,

 

[Beengirl]

Once fish are in the tank, you can't just drop salt in there. You'll need to mix the saltwater in a bucket, add a heater and let it sit for 24 hours to dissolve and add little water at a time to increase spec gravity. After you add some, let it mix and then recheck the sp gravity. Then add little more if needed. You should do this over a few days, though. Not all at once.

 

[pairenoid]

oh ok, i actually have added salt like half a cup once straight to it but no fish were inside at the time

right now i bought frozen dried shrimp broke it up and fed my clownfish. He actually went for the food but didnt put it in his mouth, i saw him chew ONCE and peck at super tiny food

i think he wants to eat but his mouth hurts, at least i know he WANTS to eat, it was relieving to see him excited for the food

edit:i took a good look at the mouth cuz he finally gave me a face to face stare for a few moments lol. I can see his ACTUAL lips are fine, but on the bottom one it looks like he has a cotton white thing stuck or glued to his lip. It actually moves a lot and floats like its gona come off but it doesnt. I think i can conclude that he bit some piece of rock thinking it was food and got that white stuff stuck to his lips, because there is a lot of similar white stuff in there. I hope it decays and falls off his lips or something

 

[Beengirl]

Just keep an eye on it and make sure it doesn't get worse or get infected. As long as it doesn't get red and infected looking, PWCs with clean water should allow it to heal.

 

[pairenoid]

update for any one who cares
fish still looked weird today, then after dinner his cotton thing in his mouth disappeared! i was so happy. His mouth is still partially open, but he eats now, although he eats the tiniest specs visible, its better than nothing

my lighting schedule is from 6pm to 11 pm and today when i turned it on at 6 he looked really white or faded, i thought he was sick but just seconds later he turned red again :/

im going to upgrade my light to t5 and change my light schedule from 8am to 10 pm

 

[Beengirl]

Great! Glad to hear he's eating something. A lot of fish will change colors a little bit at night, my clown is b/w, so it doesn't, but a lot of fish do.