Problem identification - yellow clown and hi fin red banded gobies

[helphelp]

Dear all, I would be grateful if you could help me to identify and approach a few problems I encountered with my fish. I built a DIY one-in-all pico reef tank. The tank successful cycled, CuC was introduced. After a few weeks I added basic beginner corals (GSP and mushrooms), small cleaner shrimp and sexy shrimp.

The water parameters were in check for next few weeks (undetectable ammonia, nitrate, nitrite and phosphate), so I decided to introduce yellow clown goby and hi fin red banded goby. Both fish were first drip acclimatised to tank water, and subsequently freshwater dipped (RODI) for 3 minutes prior to addition to the tank. Both fish were a bit stressed for the first day, but then started acting more confident and eat readily (frozen food).

1 Problem:
I realised that the cleaner shrimp started illiterately pestling the hi fin red banded goby to the point that the fish become really stressed and irritated by the presence of the shrimp. The second dorsal fin was partially ripped. I also observed that the shrimp tried to clean mouth and gills of the fish in a bit brutal manner. As a result, the fish looks more stressed than right after the addition to the tank, spends all the time hiding and stopped eating food readily and often spits after grabbing it. It looks a bit skinny. This is in total contrast to the yellow clown goby that eats everything happily and is not disturbed by the shrimp. I tired to spot feed the hi fin with a pipette, but it wasn't very successful.

2 Problem:
The yellow clown has been healthy, eating well and exploring the tank for the past week since the addition. Then I realised little white spots on his body and I also observed that it tried to scratch its body with the rock. Next day some sort of dimples appeared on its body, perhaps related to scratching. In addition, I noticed that the hi fin tried to shake / scratch its body in a sand. My first impression was that it could be related to the population of copepods and amphipods in the tank.

Photos:
Healthy fish after addition:

After one week:

I would be grateful for any suggestions. If this is caused by pests then removing cleaner shrimp would be counter-intuitive. However, the hi fin red banded goby seems to be very stressed.

 

[top shelf]

If the shrimp is stressing the goby you might want to choose between the two and remove one. How many gallons is it? I noticed you said it's a pico, depending the size it might not be big enough for all 3 anyways.

As for the scratching and white spots that's ich. You will have to remove the fish and treat in a seperate tank and allow the main display to go fallow for 72 days. There are a couple ways to treat the fish, copper and tank transfer are the more popular. My personal preference is the tank transfer method as it's less stressful for the fish involved and doesn't use chemicals. You can read about both and make a decision as to which one is right for you.

 

[helphelp]

Thank you top shelf for your help. I'm aware of the tank constrains as the net tank volume is 10L (~2.6 gallons). I'll observe how things are between these two, as at the moment they seem to be more settled.

established tank treatment requires the removal of ALL fish for a period of at least 60 days to be sure all the life cycles have run their course.

Source

This is something I'd prefer to avoid. Considering the size of my tank I could build a new slightly bigger pico and cycle it in less than 60 days... Anyway, lesson learn to quarantine \ tank transfer every new fish you buy.

 

[helphelp]

I would like to update on the situation, so people in similar situation could learn from my mistakes.

tl;dr

Spoiler

• Hi fin red banded goby died as it's condition was getting worst every day: wound/ulcer (bacterial infection), refused to eat, potential gill burn from RODI.
• Yellow clown goby was doing fine but died (most likely by too powerful power head) after transferring into QT.
• I have green clown goby in QT that I wanted to treat together with yellow clown goby.

As I mentioned before, hi fin red banded goby was pested by the cleaner shrimp, became lethargic and refused to eat, and developed some sort of ulcer or wound at the end. Unfortunately, it died before I got my QT tank up and running. I discussed the situation in my LFS providing photos, and I was told that the wound was most likely due to some bacterial infection and that fish gills "were burned by the fresh water dip using RO/DI water" (I used ultra-pure water, 18.2 MOhm at at 25oC). On the other hand, I dipped the yellow clown goby in the same way (3 min dip) and he was doing really well apart from ich. Personally I'm unsure how ultra-pure water could "burn" and affect so negatively gills of the gobby, but this would have to be confirmed by a specialist.

Pictures:




With respect to the yellow clown goby (YCG), the fish was doing really great, eating well, getting confident in the tank. However, white dots were disappearing and appearing periodically, which suggest that the fish was getting reinfected. I constructed a simple QT set-up, however it took me several days to catch it and transfer to the QT. In the meantime, I got green clown goby (GCG) and introduced to the QT so I could treat both of them in the same time and then transfer to the main display tank. The fish took shelter in a half plant pot, however refused to eat. The YCG was transferred to the QT where GCG has been there for 3-4 days. I expected to start copper (Cupramine) treatment as soon as both fish start eating. I have to mention that I was also recommended hyposaliniy by LFS (transfer fish strait to 1.009 SG for a month and slowly increase to desired 1.026 after) in addition to top shelf's tank transfer method. Unfortunately, 36h after transferring YCG into the QT, I found it dead, sicked to the side of small power head I have in QT. What is more, GCG most likely was infected with ich.




I think I should sterilise QT equipment and add GCG into a fresh QT setup and start the treatment. However, it will likely stress the fish that still isn't taking food, which is 5th day during writing this post. I would be grateful for any suggestions.