Amazingly tough for a delicate fish -- Red tailed tamarin wrasse

[BonesCJ]

I know these guys have a rep for being delicate and tough to keep but while visiting a out of town pet store they had a 2 inch specimen in great health for a measly $40!!! :-D. It was fat and swimming great and had lived in a fish display tank for almost a month, that is with no supply of pods or other live foods. So I went ahead and bought the fish and here is how the story goes

5:30pm Sat -- Purchase Fish

5:45 - 8:30 -- Sit in bag in folks laundry room

8:30 -- Realize its time to leave for the 1.5 hour trip home, look in bag, realized fish looks stressed, rip open bag and put in battery powered air pump

8:30-10:00pm -- trip from phx, az to tucson, az

10:00 - 10:15 sit bag in tank for temp acclimate

10:15 -- cut open 1/4 hole in corner of bag to let some water out

10:15.30 -- fish slip out of hole!

10:15.45 -- fish go down garbage disposal

10:16 -- madly stick hand down garbage disposal in search of fish

10:16.15 -- snag fish

10:16.30 -- throw fish in tank

10:17 - 12:00 -- sit and watch fish

3:00pm sunday -- run home to check on fish after church to find it happily swimming around the tank picking at bugs and looking happy as can be

and as of today it is still doing well and eating lots of pods and working on getting down the frozen I give it.

 

[FiShTaCo]

That's cool, good luck with the lil guy!

 

[snorvich]

Perhaps you should modify your process?

 

[jmaneyapanda]

I would be way embarassed to tell that story if it happened to me. Nothing to be proud of.

 

[BonesCJ]

I prefer to think of it as a "I learn from my mistakes" type of thread. The thing that amazed me the most is that a 2 inch fish that is at least as tall as my middle finger is thick can fit through a 1/4 hole that had to be only a 1/3 of his width.

 

[WLachnit]

Keep us posted on how she does. I just decided to pass on getting one due to their long term survivability record.

 

[jmaneyapanda]

Sorry for sounding so abrupt. I guess what I dont understand is why you would leave a fish in a bag unnecessarily for almost 5 hours. IMO, you got lucky, and there is nothing to learn from. But, hey, thats hjust my opinion. Good luck.

 

[zemuron114]

if they bagged it with pure O2, it would have been fine for days.

a 2" redtail is very very thin and slimey. It can easily fit through that hole! I have good luck with redtails. Its the males that are fragile...

 

[LisaD]

I appreciate when people post honestly about their experiences, especially when they, and we, can learn something from them. I would say most of us have slipped up now and again. Thank you for sharing, and good luck with the fish!

 

[BonesCJ]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13910314#post13910314 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jmaneyapanda
Sorry for sounding so abrupt. I guess what I dont understand is why you would leave a fish in a bag unnecessarily for almost 5 hours. IMO, you got lucky, and there is nothing to learn from. But, hey, thats hjust my opinion. Good luck.

no no its all good

actually when I had them bag the fish I specifically asked them to use lots of water (almost a half gallon) and lots of O2, which they did. I had also brought my battery powered air pump with me just in case I needed it, this is not the first time I've gone on a shopping trip with a long drive home and I was probably just being paranoid.

 

[WLachnit]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13912408#post13912408 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by zemuron114
if they bagged it with pure O2, it would have been fine for days.

a 2" redtail is very very thin and slimey. It can easily fit through that hole! I have good luck with redtails. Its the males that are fragile...

zemuron114,
I'm encouraged by your experience with red-tailed Tamarins. Anything you can share here about your success?

Do you QT? feeding regimen? type of tank? etc.

 

[jubjub]

lol life is tenacious, to be honest my clown actually got sucked into my mag9.5 and survived....

 

[BonesCJ]

Just an update, the wrasse has made a complete recovery and is now devouring frozen food like its going out of style and always has a fat belly, cannot wait till she grows to full size, the books say she can get up to 8 inches long.

 

[WLachnit]

That's great.

 

[zemuron114]

wlachnit - My experience should be taken loosely as i just hold the fish for short periods of time. However, i always get redtails to eat hikari mysis while i hold them (usually in a bare bottom tank, or in 16 oz cups with holes) I kept one in my personal tank for a couple months then sold it. It was a 29 gallon with 1" of sand. It isn't really hard for me since they are freshly caught. Its when there is shipping and a few chains to go through that they become stressed. Also a main factor is their mouths. If the mouth is damaged, very rarely do they make a recovery.

hope that helps... a little

 

[WLachnit]

Thx for info. I have also read on WWM that they perish after 6-12 months or so, due to nutrition I believe.

 

[BonesCJ]

We will have to see, I feed mine a varied diet of Marine Quisine, Mysis and Spirullina brine shrimp plus lots of pods in the system, my fuge is very productive.

 

[zemuron114]

Bradleyj (i think is the RC name) has had one for years. Has grown quite a bit to!

 

[WLachnit]

Good to hear. I plan on giving it a shot if I can find one that has survived the shipping trauma and is eating.


BonesCJ, keep us posted

 

[Kung]

What timing. I left my two year old daughter at my house with my mom and dad the other day. I came home, and dad told me that he and Grace had been looking at my reef books (not unusual, she loves the books and the tank) and decided a need a red-tailed tamarin wrasse. I had never really paid attention to them before. I do want a wrasse, so I had been researching . . . and ta da!

Thought I'd share.