HELP!! LiveAquaria shipping disaster, can you help me identify this guy?

muppet

Misanthrope
This was supposed to be red tipped hermit crabs. I know it’s AWFUL practice to put him in my display, but he survived all weekend in a cold box in a FedEx distribution facility after being delayed 3 DAYS and I didn’t have the heart to kill him. I just recovered from a crash of my 100g system and don’t have resources to set up a quarantine right now…

What is he? He’s certainly not gonna be able to stay in my nano.

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Looking closely at the pic I think he might have flukes. So It looks like I’ll be setting up a quarantine regardless. Just didn’t have the heart to kill it after it went through all that.

I still don’t know what it is. Severely stressed yellow tang? I don’t recognize it at all.

I didn’t realize that Petco had taken over LA. Won’t use them again.
 
Agree on the filefish

By the way, I’m no fish disease expert, but not sure if that’s flukes. That type of Filefish does have little “spurs” (not sure the technical term) naturally occurring
 
He ate some Emerald Entree and he’s swimming around looking pretty inquisitive. I’m pretty impressed with this brave little dude.

His tailfin is still clamped and he seems pretty skinny. His coloration is a lot better than when he got here but still pretty pale.
 
Well, he made it the night and even has a little more color than yesterday. I have some nori coming for him today, but he’s eating emerald entree fine. I just want to give him something stationary to gnaw at.

He spent a lot of the evening against the glass but this morning he’s checking out the tank again. Still clamped but I’ve seen him flare a couple times.
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Oh also, I don’t believe Petco still owns them. They were sold off a bit ago to an overseas entity (not sure exactly on that last bit - just rumor I heard)

Since that article was published. I believe that LA was again sold, to a wholesaler /importer and their livestock is not longer acquired thru Quality Marine (changing everything, and not for the better!)
 
Since that article was published. I believe that LA was again sold, to a wholesaler /importer and their livestock is not longer acquired thru Quality Marine (changing everything, and not for the better!)
I agree. I used them up until they did away with the build your own reef cleaner packs (only thing I ever ordered). Since then I’ve heard a ton of horror stories and lack of customer support
 
you can definitley keep him in there, he's an aptasia eating bristle tail filefish (Acreichthys tomentosus). i had one in a 20 gallon and he was wonderful the bristles on him are not flukes, they are cuticles that the males of the species have. i would say about 10 gallon minimum for them as they are not very active. their coloration blends well with many "pest" algae and he looks happy in that system. he looks very young and as he ages, he will develop more spots on his skin. its perfectly normal

EDIT: their tail also stays clamped normally unless they flare like all tetradontiformes (besides triggerfish)
 
He’s coloring up.

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Now I just have to deal with my sudden enormous diatom bloom. I cycled this nano with live rock and substrate from my 100g system that was rife with green hair algae, which I mostly manually removed. Diatoms showed up just a couple days ago. I’m running Purigen, PhosGuard, and Poly-Filter along with a nano-skimmer that’s running pretty wet, pulling about 80cc of tea colored skimmate each day.
 
Well, I knew it was a risk but I didn’t want to flush the poor misdirected fish from LA. 😞

This morning my daughter found Blinky, the female half of our pair of mocha clowns dead. She was an 11 year old fish. Everyone else in the tank, EXCEPT the new filefish, looks very sick.

I think it’s flukes. I’ve ordered same-day medicine but I’m not sure they’ll survive until it gets here.

The pandemic isn’t over for immune-compromised people like me and my kid and so our resources are limited right now. Can’t set up a hospital tank, etc.

Remaining in the tank right now is the other 11 year old mocha clown, a 15 (!!) year old engineer goby (yes, a nano is too small for him, it was a rescue from our crashing 100g), and Alvin the 14 year old yellowtail damsel. They’re all pretty ill.

This sucks. I just didn’t want to flush that poor fish. I was trying to spare my isolated kid more bad news and instead I made it worse.

Oh well, QT your new arrivals don’t make an emotional decision like me. 😕
 
Fish update: everybody actually looks much better? Clyde the male clownfish is still really stressed out but has come out of hiding and is uhh.. not laying on his side anymore, and Heisenberg the engineer goby is a little discolored and unhappy (stress coat?), but Alvin the damsel is swimming around normally.

Phteven the file fish is..

…completely fine, doing his Phteven thing.

I dunno man. I have no idea.

It got VERY cold last night and we have the storm windows up so we can open the windows when it’s 85 out suddenly the past few weeks. It’s possible the draft in my office made the 12.5g tank very cold too fast.

I dunno.
 
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So last night I turned up the tank heater, turned up the upstairs thermostat, and added a huge bag of activated carbon to the sump in the tank.

This morning: no distressed fish.

SO I’m still not sure what happened night before last, but it didn’t happen last night or my precautions worked.

Everybody is looking pretty OK today.
 
You should really try to slow down a little
You have had a lot happen, hypo, prazi, ammonia spikes, temp swings, fish moving between quarantine and display tank

That’s enough to kill the healthiest fish

I know it’s concerning when you notice a fish that’s not well but if you really evaluate and try to have a solid plan for what your dealing with you have a much better chance at saving the fish
 
Lol,

Sorry, I though I was responding to a different thread where some fish had been run through the ringer described above

Hopefully the file didn’t transport any illness into your aquarium
 
I think it’s the temp swings, but I’m not sure how to address them. The temp was relatively stable with the stock aquarium lid on and the 100W Fluval heater, but now with an acrylic screen top, it drops like a rock at night if it’s cold outside because the window in my office is drafty.

I don’t think the file fish was ill after all, he seems fine. I just think it was either a temp drop or an ammonia spike from diatoms (but I’m not even sure if diatoms produce ammonia when they die off.)

Turning up the heat and putting a huge bag of carbon in the sump seems to have protected them last night, assuming the same conditions happened again after lights out (another cold night but not so drafty because not so windy.)

I miss my 100g… :-/
 
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