Oxymonacanthus longirostris pair enters a mixed reef environment

These fish just blow me away. I've followed both of your threads and it's just too impressive how these guys are doing. It makes me want to try my hand at a pair of these guys eventually.

For a pair only tank, what would you, with all the experience you have, recommend to be ideal size?
 
Hey there, fender4string. Renee has her's in a 29 gallon biocube I believe. Mine Are in a 75 with a bunch of other fish. For a species tank, I'd say a 40 breeder would be good. Mine definitely use all 4 feet of my 75. They are very active swimmers.
 
Well, my female passed away Sunday. I just couldn't get her to eat anything. She wouldn't even go for the acros, she just locked herself in place all day in one of the acro frags :(

It's upsetting when you get one to do so well and the other just doesn't make it. I put the male into my 65 and he seems to be enjoying all the acros in the tank. When he was in the 12g he started to go for the acans tentacles and war coral.
 
Well, my female passed away Sunday. I just couldn't get her to eat anything. She wouldn't even go for the acros, she just locked herself in place all day in one of the acro frags :(

It's upsetting when you get one to do so well and the other just doesn't make it. I put the male into my 65 and he seems to be enjoying all the acros in the tank. When he was in the 12g he started to go for the acans tentacles and war coral.

I'm sorry to hear that Daniel. I'm sure you did everything you could. I think some fish just have a stronger will to live and that makes them more likely to try new foods.
 
I hope everyone's OSFF's are doing well.

Unfortunately there have been some problems in my DT. Somehow a parasite went undeteced in QT somewhere along the way with my other additions and it didn't rear its head until this past weekend when I had my LAST fish in the QT. So I simply don't have the room nor the desire to move everyone to various QT tanks and let the DT sit fallow for two full months.

I've begun a cupramine treatment in the DT. None of my fish rely on microfauna to survive and the tank is young enough that I don't believe the die off will be too outrageous, though I do wish I was able to use Prime as a safety net. Needless to say I will treat with Cu and Prazi regardless for future tanks.

I am posting here to record the progress with the OSFF pair specifically in case someone decides that they would like to treat their pair. Mine are FAT. They have been eating so well lately and I have gotten the female to start pecking at dry foods. Their main staple is still Rogger's reef food and I will continue to provide this.

The female has developed a real taste for Nutramar Ova again and she will eat this aggressively from the water column and absolutely loves it when I smear it on the rocks for her to graze on.

I raised the Cu concentration to .35ppm over 48 hours and they have not skipped a beat. Both are eating fine and behaving normally although their coloration does get REALLY vivid after treatments (increasing concentration?)

I will be holding the Cu at this concentration for at least three weeks until I have seen absolutely no signs of ICH on the fish.

The pair is still the prize / show pair in the tank and I absolutely will not have a community tank without a pair. They are really something else to watch and I cannot wait to go dive one day and see them in the wild.

This process is one of the more stressful things I've ever had to do in the hobby but I am doing my best to find the positives in the experience. The obvious one is that my tank will be absolutely free of disease afterwards since I won't be adding anymore fish (I've given up on the tamarin wrasses and especially can't house one after a Cu treatment).

I hope my subsequent updates are outrageously lackluster!
 
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Thanks for checking in moonpod. I couldn't get the monitor to show but id love to see some images of your tank and files.
 
Sorry to hear about your difficulties. Hope all goes well.

Thanks Eric...things are looking up.

Oh man, that sounds challenging. I hope the treatment goes well. Please continue to report on your progress. Cheers.

It's been rough. My nerves are pretty shot at this point. No losses so far :spin1:

Tuesday night I did a water change and the salt had mixed funky and calcified pretty bad. By the time I had noticed the extent of the situation I had already changed out 20g and probably botched the pH+Alk of the tank.

I know for a fact it was a majorly stressful even for the fish and I freaked out. I completely panicked. I knew that I had to basically just sit down and hope for the best at that point because I didn't want to play around with anything more than I already had and risk stressing the fish more.

So I poured a few stout glasses of whiskey and went to bed extremely nervous and anxious and drunk.

Yesterday was one of the worst days I've had in the hobby. I woke up to every fish in the aquarium showing ICH. Like humane society images bad. The fish looked helpless and sick. I was really uncomfortable but I went ahead and dosed slowly over an hour to bring the Cu to 0.5ppm. The male filefish had ICH all over his fins and face. I thought I'd lose him for sure.

I dosed a full dose of Brightwell Aquatics Vitamin-C and hoped for the best. I fed Nutramar Ova and Salmon but the male did not eat much. The female has been eating fine.

Needless to say I watched my fish fight off death yesterday and I did not enjoy it.

This morning I had to get to work early and just checked the tank recently. No visible ICH on anyone, anywhere, whew.

Curse words...the good kind.

The male filefish is still not eating like I would like but he has plenty of weight to get him through this 0.5ppm Cu level at least for a few more days. I'll lower it to 0.35ppm for the remainder of the treatment because he was eating reasonably well at that concentration.

All my other fish are eating fine and behaving naturally.

As long as I can be diligent for another 3 weeks I will make it out of this in fantastic shape with all my fish healthy and a completely ICH free DT.

Let's just hope Mr. OSFF gets hungry.
 
I stopped at the seafood market on my way home and got a small filet of fresh salmon.

The male picked at it a few times, which is all I need to see! I believe he will be fine. At this point I am wondering if his behavioral changes are more closely linked to the ICH or the Copper. He was really covered yesterday!

Updates to come...hopefully they continue to be positive.
 
Dustin,

Hope your fish pull through, sounds like they are doing well.

I took a couple pictures recently, thought I would share.

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Well I have some really unfortunate news.

I was out of town yesterday and didn't get back home until late. When I arrived and checked the big FOWLR tank everyone was fine except the male filefish. He was completely pale, horn thing protruded completely and having a lot of trouble swimming.

I fed the tank and tried to see if that would help but he appeared too far gone.

Within 30 minutes of me being home he started losing his ability to fight the current and then he started essentially banging his head into the side of the tank using his horn in a manner similar to how he gets setup to sleep. It was pretty gut wrenching to watch that part. I couldn't do it so I just turned off the lights and hoped he would settle down and maybe pull through. I left an ambient light on and watched him in the tank and his swimming continued to decline.

He got over towards the left side of the tank and I watched him get sucked up against the side of my MP40. He would have died right there had I not been there. I turned the flow all the way down and he swam away freely. I then simply cupped my hand underneath him and pulled him out. I carried him over to the QT tank which only has some macro algaes and PVC in it. No medication and all the parameters are roughly the same...so I just dropped him in there.

Amazingly he is still alive this morning but he still has pretty awful coloration and his swimming ability is pretty poor. I am not holding out hope since he is being sucked sideways and just generally not able to control himself in the very low current.

This should be attributed to the copper treatment 100% IMO...this fish just didn't eat well enough on it and I should have isolated him sooner for a much lower treatment concentration.

The female continues to thrive and I would love to be able to give her the male back.
 
That is very sad indeed. It must have been horrible to watch. Maybe he will pull through. It ain't over till its over.

Hope all has gone well. Good luck!

Thanks guys.

Miraculously the filefish is still alive. I honestly can't believe it.

Now my bigger issue is that he has not eaten in days and refuses anything I put in the tank. I am going to be doing a big water change in the QT for him today and hopefully that will get him on the right track otherwise I'm going to have to move him back to the DT in hopes the female can help him 'remember' what he's supposed to be doing.

I do think he might have had some damage at some point internally because of his swimming patterns. Only time will tell if he makes it out alive...
 
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