Fishies we have known

garvin90

garvin90

New member
Lainey and I were just sitting here talking about all the fish I have kept(or attempted to) in my year and a half of personal reefing and I came up with a... surprising amount that have been sent to Davy Jones locker.

These the ones that have met with a untimely end...

2 Tomatoe Clowns
2 Pink Skunk Clowns
2 Saddle Clowns
2 Percula Clowns
1 Rainfordi Goby
1 Yellow Tang
1 Target Mandarin
1 Scooter Dragonet
1 Niger Trigger
1 Hippo Tang
1 Cleaner Goby
1 Saddleback Butterfly
1 Copperband Butterfly
2 Green Chromis
1 Purple Firefish
1 Hispidus Angler
1 Fuzzy Dwarf Lion
1 Fu Manchu Lion
2 Tangorao Gobies
3 Signal Gobies
1 Red Clown Goby
1 Black Clown Goby
1 Fiji Rabbitfish
1 True Scribbled Rabbitfish
2 Potters Angels
2 Coral Beauty Angels
3 Lamarcks Angels
1 Watanabei Angel
4 Kelloggi Seahorses
5 Banggai Cardinals
1 Bluestripe Pipe Fish
2 Sailfin Mollies
3 Bumble Gobies
2 Flounders(sposed to be brackish only, woops!)

It seems slightly appalling... i think. Btw if you were keeping track, thats 57. I gave up 3 fish to PC Pets, 1 Powder Brown, 1 Green Bird Wrasse and 1 Pineapple Trigger. My current (i hope!!!) stockin list is:
1 Vlamingii Tang
1 Copperband Butterfly
1 Yellow Clown Goby
1 Green Clown Goby
2 Sailfin Mollies
1 Lawnmower Blenny
1 Orangespot Prawn Goby
1 Scooter Dragonet
3 Engineer Gobies
2 Tomatoe Clowns
1 Niger Trigger

That brings me to a grand total of 74 fish I am keeping/have kept. Im looking at this as a learning experience since I do still have 2 of my original fish that I started with, the Orange Spot and the Lawnmower.

Thats my story, whats yours?
 
this is one hobby where it sickens me to see the trial and error method.

Thats a butt-load of dead fish man.

Ive been in almost 2 years now, and only lost 5...
2 b/w occ. (one arrived dead)
1 bluegreen chromis
2 yellow blennies
 
wow that is a lot of fish
i have lost about 6 due to a velvet outbreak when i was gone on a bussines trip
and a perc clown last week when he decide to go carpet surfing
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8924290#post8924290 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by millstreetzoo
What size tank? What Are the parameters? Something is obviously wrong.
Click to expand...

Thats stated in my "current tanks".

The hippo and copperband were lost in quarantine. The niger, tang, fiji, rainford, saddles, scooter, 1 coral beauty, target and lamarcks were lost in a tank crash. The firefish, 1 potters, true scribbled, watanbe, and saddleback butterfly were all killed by the powder brown. The Fu Man Chu choked on a shrimp. The lion and angler are unknown causes. The seahorses did great for months then suddenly disapeared 1 by 1. The pipefish was lost in a rockslide. The chromis were done in by chromis. The other potters and other coral I have no idea. I have no success with angels. The tangoroas were lost shortly after the move from quarantine to main display. The clown gobies caught ick and never let the cleaners near them(and were to quick for me to catch). The cleaner goby jumped the night after I rescued it from INSIDE my protein skimmer. The mollies investigate the intake of my then HOB skimmer pump. I think my bigger fishes ate my bumblebees. The true percs were from a store that I have never had fish live for more than a few days. Same with the tomatos and a sailfin tang I forgot to mention. The banggais caught that weird "banggai only" disease and all bucked the kicket within a week. And the signals had a cave collapse, the survivor? My orangespot who shared his hole with them. The skunks decided to hang ten on my area rug. None of these are in preciding order of death, just the compiled stories of many a brave(or to slow for the collection cup) fish who has traversed the waters of my reef. I take no solice in any of these fishes death as a aide to experience or what have you. I should still have have all those fish lost in the tank crash, however it was a low oxygen issue due to over abundant macro and not enough dissolved O2 derived from a lack of a protein skimmer and hardly any surface movement.

Im not bitter tho. And it most definitely is a learning experience. Ive learned how to expertly give away money! I think my tank is weird though. I cant grow xenia OR anthelia. I read where if you cant grow one, you should have success with the other. This is untrue with mine. They both hate me however my other corals and anenomes love me, that or the clam i feed them.

And those parameters?

SG 1.024
temp 81
calcium 390aprox.
nitrite 0
nitrate 0
ammonia 0
phosphates 5 or it was 2 weeks ago and thats 5.0 not 0.5. Why?? i have no idea and I have a big fuge too although using straight tap water for the longest time may not have helped it.
 
Re: Fishies we have known

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8924133#post8924133 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by garvin90
Lainey and I were just sitting here talking about all the fish I have kept(or attempted to) in my year and a half of personal reefing and I came up with a... surprising amount that have been sent to Davy Jones locker.

These the ones that have met with a untimely end...

2 Tomatoe Clowns
2 Pink Skunk Clowns
2 Saddle Clowns
2 Percula Clowns
1 Rainfordi Goby
1 Yellow Tang
1 Target Mandarin
1 Scooter Dragonet
1 Niger Trigger
1 Hippo Tang
1 Cleaner Goby
1 Saddleback Butterfly
1 Copperband Butterfly
2 Green Chromis
1 Purple Firefish
1 Hispidus Angler
1 Fuzzy Dwarf Lion
1 Fu Manchu Lion
2 Tangorao Gobies
3 Signal Gobies
1 Red Clown Goby
1 Black Clown Goby
1 Fiji Rabbitfish
1 True Scribbled Rabbitfish
2 Potters Angels
2 Coral Beauty Angels
3 Lamarcks Angels
1 Watanabei Angel
4 Kelloggi Seahorses
5 Banggai Cardinals
1 Bluestripe Pipe Fish
2 Sailfin Mollies
3 Bumble Gobies
2 Flounders(sposed to be brackish only, woops!)

It seems slightly appalling... i think. Btw if you were keeping track, thats 57. I gave up 3 fish to PC Pets, 1 Powder Brown, 1 Green Bird Wrasse and 1 Pineapple Trigger. My current (i hope!!!) stockin list is:
1 Vlamingii Tang
1 Copperband Butterfly
1 Yellow Clown Goby
1 Green Clown Goby
2 Sailfin Mollies
1 Lawnmower Blenny
1 Orangespot Prawn Goby
1 Scooter Dragonet
3 Engineer Gobies
2 Tomatoe Clowns
1 Niger Trigger

That brings me to a grand total of 74 fish I am keeping/have kept. Im looking at this as a learning experience since I do still have 2 of my original fish that I started with, the Orange Spot and the Lawnmower.

Thats my story, whats yours?
Click to expand...

Have you considered needlepoint as a new hobby? That's an obscene amount of fish to lose in 18 months time. In addition to something being very wrong with your husbandry it seems you don't research the needs of what you're purchasing very well.
 
Re: Re: Fishies we have known

Re: Re: Fishies we have known

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8924429#post8924429 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Peter Eichler
it seems you don't research the needs of what you're purchasing very well.
Click to expand...

Thats only true for the target mandarin and it didnt even get the chance to pick the tank clean of food.

If you havent had the chance, read over the reasons for death posting I made, it may shed some light on things.
 
Re: Re: Re: Fishies we have known

Re: Re: Re: Fishies we have known

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8924460#post8924460 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by garvin90
Thats only true for the target mandarin and it didnt even get the chance to pick the tank clean of food.

If you havent had the chance, read over the reasons for death posting I made, it may shed some light on things.
Click to expand...

Well, just to name a few... Scooters have the same requirements of a Mandarin. If it's in your 20 there probably isn't enough live rock to sustain them and if it's in your 75 they're in with too many aggressive fish. Unless you have a 200+ gallon aquarium I'm not aware of you really shouldn't have a Vlamingi tang as well as other fish on your list. Novices to the hobby really shouldn't attempt to keep pipefish and seahorses. Same goes for Butterlies and many would argue Angels as well. Bumble gobies are brackish and can be quite difficult to keep and feed. Rainford's gobies need well established aquariums usually without competition from other sandsifting gobies. Fu manchu and Dwarf lions can be very difficult to keep. I could keep going but I think you get the point.
 
1 Scooter Blenny (Condylactis ate him)
1 Regal Angel that was feeding very well ($%#%#$ OXYGEN DEPRIVING CYANO REMOVER!! AAAHHH!)
1 Copperband Butterfly (I have no idea why)
2 Banggai Cardinals (Both went the same way, most likely Cyanided)
2 Lawnmower Blennies (Kole tang killed em')


That's about it for the whole 3 and something years I've been in the "hobby"
 
57 is a very sad number, and I have to agree with Peter Eichler's comments. That said, I've had a number of losses too:

3 Potter's angels - one to a bacterial infection that I couldn't cure, the other two just stopped eating, started hiding and died within a week.

1 flagfin angel - this one was heartbreaking. He was in captivity four months before I got him, eating but not thriving. I managed to get him eating all sorts of things, his HLLE reversed, then one day after eight months in my tank he just died mysteriously.

2 ocellaris clowns - babies that just didn't make it through quarantine

2 saddleback clowns - died of brook before I knew what it was. By the time I had diagnosed the problem it was too late.

1 yellow clown goby - after more than a year he went carpet surfing

1 Lubbock's wrasse - again, after about a year, lost him to carpet surfing

2 sixspot sand-sifting gobies - otherwise fat & happy, they were killed by the saddleback clowns before I could remove either from the display

1 sixline wrasse - just... disappeared one day

2 shrimp gobies - one was eaten by my Brazillian gramma, the other went surfing.

That's 15, just too many IMO for only two years in the hobby. All of the surfers went through the eggcrate, so I'm not sure how I could have prevented their deaths, but others were avoidable and just due to inexperience dealing with disease or compatibility.
 
Yikes, although in all of my aquariums since the early 80's I am sure that I have lost far more. On the good side I have a clownfish that is almost 14 years old:)
 
That's got to be $2,000 in fish, at least, then add in the shipping.

I'm going to bet you've spent $3,000 on dead fish in the last 18 months.


I wish I had that kind of money.
 
This intrigues me a bit. I lost a few in the beginning due to lack of research. Let me think on this a bit. I've lost these fish in my almost 4 years of reefing:

Due to lack of experience and research:
1 green chromis
2 true percs
1 lemonpeel angel
1 flame angel
2 damsels

Since I actually figured out what I was doing, I've still lost a couple due to some other reasons:

1 sailfin tang: Choked on a huge chunk of seaweed. I pulled it out of his mouth when he floated to the surface.

1 6 line wrasse: A professional skydiver that didn't survive his second attempt.

2 yellow clown gobies: Both stopped eating and disappeared.


That makes 11 in 4 years. Each of which has made me feel pretty terrible. I may be forgetting a few, but after the initial stupidity, I've done pretty well.
 
Seriously you can excuse away anything but that is downright out of control. I haven't lost that many in over 7 years. In fact I've lost less then 10 in seven years.

Actually let me think

1 PB Tang - Ich in qt - 2004
1 bangaii - carpet surfed - 2003
2 clarkii's - tank crash - 2005
1 lawnmower blenny - would never eat - 2001
1 solar wrasse - carpet surfing despite eggcrate - 2003

Now that's in 6 (not including qt tanks) different tanks ranging from 20G to 450G. From several different LFS and online vendors.


"The firefish, 1 potters, true scribbled, watanbe, and saddleback butterfly were all killed by the powder brown" Probably preventable if you had added the PB last. If not once he killed one I sure would have done something about it.

"The hippo and copperband were lost in quarantine" - Why

2 rockslides and a few more fish - totally preventable

Carpet Surfing - largely preventable

It goes on and on. At least half of these could have easily been prevented! Very sad indeed!
 
This thread should get moved/copied to the "New to the Hobby" section so that other beginners can learn from this. You just can't keep replacing fish one after the other. Steps have to be taken to determine first why they died and then whether the tank's conditions are favorable to try to add anything else.

My LFS taught me early on that when you're experiencing repeated loses of fish, etc. that it's best to let the tank "stabilize" for a few months before trying to add anything new. And when you finally do add something, it should happen VERY slowly (One fish per month).

I'm not trying to be too critical but as others have already pointed out, that is a lot of wasted fish and money that could probably have been avoided with the proper guidance.

Alan
 
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