help!!!

[Cruella]

my mandarin goby is almost dead. My psycadelic(sorry for spelling) has been picking on him for the last two days. I shut the lights off (hoping they just go to bed until the morning. is it to late to save my madarin? If he is alive in the morning do you think by removing the other goby he would get better.? I am in tears right now!! any advice would do. thank you

 

[jallard]

I would remove the almost dead mandarin goby ASAP....it would seem for whatever reason they are not compatible.....

 

[Cruella]

but I have no where to put him right now.

 

[jallard]

well..........the only thing you could do is buy a used tank from tony, he had some 10g tanks for 5 bucks. Youll need a heater and maybe Power Head wouldn't hurt either.

 

[Sk8r]

Dip out some good salt water into a big jar and put an inexpensive bubbler in for aeration: it's not a great quarantine setup, but it beats leaving him where he's getting chewed up. I've also used my sump for a temporary refuge for a speciman---if your pumps have a shield in place to prevent him getting sucked into the pump. A Rubbermaid food-grade bin that's never been used for anything else can also serve as an emergency tank. A bubble-stone and a very cheap pump can be had at any pet store. Use the identical water he's in: he doesn't need any more shocks to the system.

 

[Cruella]

well wait if I just got rid of my other fish? do you think that he is beyond the point of saving??

 

[Cruella]

I found him dead this morning!! I am very sad today

 

[Sk8r]

Sympathy. They're lovely little creatures and it's so sad. As for keeping the other fish---certain fish 'never' aggress---others only aggress toward fish of certain size, or behaviors that seem to intrude into their territory. Some people are quite successful juggling the relative aggressiveness of various species and achieving a kind of nippish peace in the tank. I'd rather have no nipped fins, myself. Certain species claim only a few rocks as their territory; certain others claim a much wider territory, and if their ambition includes your whole tank, they're bad news. Ask your LFS about territory size on this fellow, and if it does equal your whole tank, he'll continue to be trouble.

 

[michaelg]

creulla, the 2 fish are not compatable if I am understanding this correctly.
Sk8tr,
do a little reading. our tanks are not places to determine natural selection. this has already been done too many times over and with a little questioning/ proper lfs info could have been avoided. These fish are by no means not aggressive towards same genus, let alone species when male/females can be identified. they are territorial hunters for food- they don't sit on a specific rock.....
These fish are also known to starve to death in short order (usually half starved at the lfs where we pick them up). Sorry to be blunt, but this should have been avoided with a little sound advice, and by no means should this be tried again....