Had a Randall's goby come in yesterday that was on its death bed. Shipped from Live Aquaria, it arrived with no packing peanuts and an ice pack right up against the small bag. The goby was motionless and not breathing. After about 30 seconds of inspecting the bag I noticed a pectoral fin barely wave. After another five to 10 seconds it gasped for air and then went motionless again. I floated the bag and the goby repeated the gasps for air every 30-45 seconds (no other gill movement what-so-ever). After roughly 15 minutes I opened the bag and used their recommended floating acclimation process. Every four minutes I added a half a cup of water and poured it in from a ways up to agitate the water (the goby was totally unresponsive and just floated upside down). I repeated this process at least 10 times and moved the goby to my sump so I could retrieve the corpse that was inevitable. The goby arrived to my home around 9:45am and by 8pm, the goby was purposefully moving in the sump (this started around 7pm). Breathing was still erratic but it would move a short distance and you could tell it meant to go to that spot. It was able to holds itself upright now. Since the sump lights come on all night for the refugium, I decided to move it to the main tank so it could rest up with the lights out. It immediately found the burrows that the existing tiger pistol had made and dropped down in the tunnels. Fast forward almost 24 hours and I come home to this:
He/she didnt eat this afternoon but is looking much better. I'm actually optimistic that this little guy that was as close to dead as anything could get, will actually pull through.