Orange Spotted Filefish and Quarantine

so i wanted to update a little here. i'm charting these two closely in my notebook, but thought this was significant enough to mention:

i had noticed yesterday a decrease in their energy and feeding response compared to wednesday after their arrival. the water in the tank was pretty fouled from food and waste, so i transferred them this morning on schedule from the 10 gallon to the 20 long as part of their first tank transfer.

the 20 long was pretreated with prazi and amquel.

they didn't seem quite right when i got home from work. still eating, but not with the vigor that they displayed wednesday and even early thursday.

i took your advice Dom, and just did a 50% water change with just new saltwater that i had on tap, plus added about 3 extra gallons to the total tank volume (i only had it filled about 3/4 of the way to start with).

they responded immediately.

they actually came over to swim around below where i was pumping the new water in while filling. immediate increase in activity, more alert, and after i finished filling i let them sit for about 15 minutes then fed them. feeding response was remarkably increased from prior, on par with the first 24 hours or so.

i am leaving the prazi concentration lower now, and going to do large water changes daily as you suggested. i couldn't believe how sensitive they were to water quality changes and how quickly they responded to improved conditions.

i also took your advice and got some algae tablets. unfortunately my LFS was out of the Omega that you suggested. i'm going to try them on those tomorrow.

thank you very much for all the help!
 
Wow!! That is crazy! I am glad they responded to the water change. I couldn't believe it myself how sensitive and responsive they are to pristine water. I am glad my advice helped you out!!

Like I mentioned...I just finished my 2 round prazipro trearment the other day. I noticed an immediate difference after doing a large water change, turning on my skimmer (which went crazy) and running some carbon.

Here is a big one though...my fish has been going to town on a piece of NORI attached to a seaweed clip. Not sure if it's because it's a new...but I will report back as time passes.

Here is a quick video clip...

http://youtu.be/kkKnYz2uMmg

The video is pretty good...please forgive the micro bubbles floating around the tank. With turning my skimmer back on, I got a ton of micro bubbles pouring into the tank. Somewhat concerned about that actually, but sofar the fish has been fine.

In regards to pellets...I did a 50/50 mix of the Omega One veggie Micro Pellets and the NLS .5 mm pellets that was put into an auto feeder. Th only thing I have noticed with the pellets.....she has yet to eat them after they hit the water. She waits for them to sink, and then pick at them after they hit the tank floor. My concern with this is that while it's working fine for now in my QT bare bottom tank.....what's gonna happen when she hits my DT with sand, competing fish, and a CUC. Oddly enough....she will go after the NLS flake food that floats on the water surface.

Luckily the PE mysis, and frozen food she will chase when it's suspended in the water column. My saving grace may just be the veggie clip with Nori.....esp. since no other fish in my tank are algae grazers.
 
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Very Nice!! I soo wish I had a mated pair.

I know the white worms will stay alive longer in the saltwater then the black worms. Where are you getting your white worms from? Are you gut loading them....and if so what are you using...selcon?
 
firemountain said:
Very Nice!! I soo wish I had a mated pair.

I know the white worms will stay alive longer in the saltwater then the black worms. Where are you getting your white worms from? Are you gut loading them....and if so what are you using...selcon?
Click to expand...

i've been getting all mine from a place called Angels Plus:

http://www.angelsplus.com/

i tried order from a different place called Fish Gobble, but the culture showed up empty. they were good about working with me to send a replacement, but that one was empty as well.

i have not been gut loading them, i actually wasn't quite sure how i would go about that with the worms. i have been soaking all the other food in selcon though, myses, ova, etc...

Dkuhlmann said:
Both of you suffer from VVS. Please watch the video so you can cure this horrible disease. :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt9zSfinwFA
Click to expand...

you know that's funny is that i always complain about this, but when they started eating i totally lapsed and just hit record. :rollface:
 
MondoBongo said:
i've been getting all mine from a place called Angels Plus:

http://www.angelsplus.com/

i tried order from a different place called Fish Gobble, but the culture showed up empty. they were good about working with me to send a replacement, but that one was empty as well.

i have not been gut loading them, i actually wasn't quite sure how i would go about that with the worms. i have been soaking all the other food in selcon though, myses, ova, etc
Click to expand...

I gotta try that place. I was getting live Black worms from my LFS Absolutley Fish in Clifton, but they didn't have the White Worms.

For gut loading the live black worms....I had gotten a small container of freeze dried Callanus from Sicce. I was adding a small amount of the product to the worm container. When I would rinse it daily...it seemed like the Callanus was consumed. Not sure if it really worked and how effective it was, but it made me feel good.
 
firemountain said:
I gotta try that place. I was getting live Black worms from my LFS Absolutley Fish in Clifton, but they didn't have the White Worms.

For gut loading the live black worms....I had gotten a small container of freeze dried Callanus from Sicce. I was adding a small amount of the product to the worm container. When I would rinse it daily...it seemed like the Callanus was consumed. Not sure if it really worked and how effective it was, but it made me feel good.
Click to expand...

i might give that a shot. i read that unsalted saltine crackers or dog good make good food for the white worms. it's hard to tell if they're actually eating it or not, but they always seem huddled up under the crackers, so i guess they are.

my biggest challenge with the cultures is keeping them clean. the soil needs to be moist, but not wet, and i've been having issues with things molding.

the last cultures i had went to pot and got way too wet, the worms melted, and it stunk to high heaven. so still a work in progress as far as culturing.

i might give a try soaking some crackers in selcon then letting them dry out a little bit.

i may have created a bit of a monster with these though, because they clearly prefer them to any other food i've given them so far.
 
MondoBongo said:
i might give that a shot. i read that unsalted saltine crackers or dog good make good food for the white worms. it's hard to tell if they're actually eating it or not, but they always seem huddled up under the crackers, so i guess they are.

my biggest challenge with the cultures is keeping them clean. the soil needs to be moist, but not wet, and i've been having issues with things molding.

the last cultures i had went to pot and got way too wet, the worms melted, and it stunk to high heaven. so still a work in progress as far as culturing.

i might give a try soaking some crackers in selcon then letting them dry out a little bit.

i may have created a bit of a monster with these though, because they clearly prefer them to any other food i've given them so far.
Click to expand...

I originally tried a few drops of Selcon in my worm container, but I wound a lot of the worms dying by th following morning. Just a theory.....but I think that the oil layer was creating a barrier on top of the water, thus preventing any gas exchange. I found that the freeze dried Callanus and some flake food worked better, and I wasn't losing any worms over night.

I know what you are saying with creating a monster. I am trying hard to prevent that by always offiering a variety. It sounds crazy...but i always feed the pellets and flake food in the morning as a first meal.

I know fresh/live food is best, but I am concerned that when I go away over night or a long weekend, that my auto feeder will take up the slack. Until I can build my refrigerated auto feeder (future project), the fish need to be able to eat the dry pellet and flake food. I run 2 separate auto feeder....one with flake only and the other one with a pellet mix.
 
firemountain said:
I originally tried a few drops of Selcon in my worm container, but I wound a lot of the worms dying by th following morning. Just a theory.....but I think that the oil layer was creating a barrier on top of the water, thus preventing any gas exchange. I found that the freeze dried Callanus and some flake food worked better, and I wasn't losing any worms over night.

I know what you are saying with creating a monster. I am trying hard to prevent that by always offiering a variety. It sounds crazy...but i always feed the pellets and flake food in the morning as a first meal.

I know fresh/live food is best, but I am concerned that when I go away over night or a long weekend, that my auto feeder will take up the slack. Until I can build my refrigerated auto feeder (future project), the fish need to be able to eat the dry pellet and flake food. I run 2 separate auto feeder....one with flake only and the other one with a pellet mix.
Click to expand...

it doesn't sound crazy at all now that i'm working with them. they definitely don't show as much interest in other foods if i have given them white worms recently. i fed white worms this morning before i left for work because i knew they would eat them all quickly. then when i got home, about 10 hours later the first thing i tossed in was myses, they chowed down pretty good. then about 90 minutes later i did a little frozen daphnia, they sampled that some, then some NLS pellets, those weren't sinking correctly but they were picking at them at the surface, which was good.

i've been trying to offer them food every 2 - 4 hours when i'm home, except from about 11pm to 8am when everyone is asleep. they usually at least nip at whatever i toss in, although i think with how dim the lights are in the QT area they're having a tougher time seeing the smaller things.

i've also been burning about 30 - 40 gallons of water a day. through water changes and getting the next transfer tank ready ahead of time. probably over kill, but there is without a doubt a strong correlation between their activity level and appetite, and how good the water quality is.

i've still been running amquel, but discontinued the prazi a few days ago. i'm thinking about trying another round of prazi for 48 hours, but at a lower concentration.

i'll probably be looking in to an auto feeder for these guys at some point myself. for the frozen food i rigged up a pretty ugly contraption using some 1" clear tubing that put a 90 degree bend in, and put large holes in. it hangs in the tank and you can slide frozen cubes in to it, and they fall in the tank and slowly melt and float on the holes.

makes feeding easier for my tank sitter, because i just preportion frozen out and tell them to place it in the tube a few times a day.

i'm likely going to use the Paul B style dragonet feeder for them as well, to dispense baby brine all day when they get in to the main tank.
 
While doing the TTM I was literally doing the same thing with feeding, siphoning out food, and water changes. These guys can get skinny very quickly....so the multiple feedings a day is imperative. Don't worry.....once you get them into a quarantine tank....you will be able to relax a bit. This fish has totally put my husbandry skills to the test
 
This by far is the most fascinating fish I have ever come across. The elegance on how this fish swims is just captivating. I have still been noticing that she has been pecking at the Nori sheets. At least I know that will be one thing I don't have to worry about in my DT, since I don't have any herbivores.
 
so my xmas gift is having two apparently still healthy filefish.

although they are definitely turning up their noses at things that aren't white worms now, so that has me a little concerned.

they're nearing the end of tank transfer, so now i am trying to decide if they go in to my grow out system for a couple more weeks, or if i move them directly in to the main system.

i finally got my display fuge hooked up, so that is likely where they will go first. it is a 35 gallon cube that shares the sump with my main display. the more i watched them eat in QT, the more concerned i became about them trying to compete against my yellow tang, copperband butterfly, and clowns in the big tank. the cube will be home to various macros, rainford's goby, and scooter dragonet. so a much more peaceful place, and i can move over frags from the main tank if need be.
 
an update:

the OSFF got their last transfer today. the next transfer will be on wednesday, likely to the grow out system.

some observations:

my pair are fairly curious, and not too disturbed by me. they like to investigate anything i put in the tank, and have sampled a wide variety of foods. they show an extremely strong preference for white worms, but will tend to sample and/or graze on other food at a slower pace than they would the white worms.

they are sensitive to water quality in the same way that a your fingers would be sensitive to a hand grenade. since i am doing TTM with them, obviously the tanks are uncycled. i'm curious to see how they are in a fully cycled, mature, stable grow out system. the water quality isn't the best, as in not as good as my main tank, but it should be a considerably more friendly place to reside for an additional two weeks or so before i am ready to commit them to the main system.

what i've been doing to manage water quality in the TTM tanks are massive water changes. about 90% water changes every day. they lose vigor and feeding response very quickly, even with AmQuel in the water, so i've been changing water once a day, with a particular emphasis on siphoning out all uneaten food and anything else i can find. since my TTM tanks are a 20 long and a 10 gallon regular, i have been going through a truly astonishing amount of water. i've got a 90GPD RODI unit, and a total of 145 gallons of mixing/storage capacity (in 3 different containers, a 55 and 35 for salt, and a 55 for RODI), and it has been an incredible undertaking, even with that infrastructure.

between water changes and transfers, i have used approximately 300 gallons of saltwater.

this really seems to make a significant impact on them, so water well spent.

the female seems more adaptable and more gregarious than the male. she is usually first to sample new foods, or notice that food is in the tank, but he does bully her a little bit at times, even though he's only about 2/3rds her size.

they seem to be very visually motivated with feeding, and size specific. i'm going to be paying more attention to this as they move in to a fully lit system, since the TTM tanks only get ambient light in the room. they have appeared to have a harder time picking out smaller prey like the baby brine shrimp and the nutramar ova. we'll see if that is related to inadequate light levels, or more of a food preference in the coming days.

they will often eyeball something intently before they make a dart towards it for a sample. they seem to have a preference for picking off the floor of the tank while hanging vertically in the water, but with sometimes feed laterally, and less often will pick from the surface.
 
Mine are in an established QT tank for now. They tend to stay in the mid to top of the tank and chase after anything small in the water column. Mullet roe seems to be a huge hit for these guys. First couple of days I didn't observe any eating behavior, but then they really started going after the Mullet roe. Then they would go after and eat flake food the size of the Mullet eggs.

As quickly as these guys started feeding it really appears they are used to feeding in the water column horizontally. I haven't seen any picking at substrates from these two and the only time they tend to be vertical is when the lights are out, and they still tend to be a the top of the tank.
 
mine pick much less at the substrate now that they're in a "furnished" tank.

in the bare bottom of the TTM tanks they would graze on the food that had fallen to the bottom, now they seem uninterested.

they're also pretty much over anything that's not live white worms. they will occasionally sample other foods which they previously ate happily, but will hold out for me to drop white worms in. sometimes they don't even wait for them to hit the water. lately they've taken to putting their snouts out of the water to pluck them right from the tweezers i use to drop them in.

i'm slowly decreasing the amount of white worms i feed, and increasing other types of food. they've reverted from when i first got them from sampling everything to now being very picky. which is not good if i have a culture crash, or a few days of bad weather keeps me from getting another delivery.
 
Ugh. Not a good day. Came home from work to find a turbo snail had climbed in to my overflow box and stopped the siphon. Heater is in the sump, so tank temp crashed to about 67F. Ato went wild and tanked the salinity. Then the skimmer overflowed as a result.

So far the filefish and other inhabitants of grow out seem OK. A little sluggish, but eating and moving around. I'm starting the slow process of warming them back up and trying to get the salinity back under control.

I ran overflow boxes for several years on my last tank. Never had an issue. Just goes to show you that Murphy's law is as true as ever.
 
they're doing well. still in grow out, still only eating white worms, but i'm working hard to reintroduce them to other foods.

they will likely be going in to the main system either this weekend, or next. they're very active, inquisitive, and really awesome to watch.

i tossed in a few small pieces of acro, and they showed no interest. not sure if that will hold or not.

i actually had a second tank event similar to the first the next day, so it was a couple stressful days for me, but they made it through apparently no worse for wear. turns out the sump i had on that system had developed a slow leak, which was causing the ato to go nuts and drop the salinity, and was dropping the water level enough to leave the heater out of the water, which caused it shut down. it was a mess.
 
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