Yes, Chief Panic Person back to ask another stupid question

[KarenLR75]

OK, some of you are familiar with my other stupid question about how to get a new pistol shrimp and Randall's Goby addition to our tank...to "find each other".

Of course, they did what they know to do..and found each other on day 2. Yes, I'm a "helicopter tank Mom" it seems...hovering over our acquisitions in a state of concern each time. :hmm2:

After spending mere weeks enjoying the Goby and Pistol shrimp addition, I then gave NO THOUGHT to adding 2 of our almost final additions this past weekend - a White Tail Bristletooth tang (est. 4.5 inches) and a Blue Throat Trigger.

The tang is meant to be our only tang...we were adding more predatory fish towards the end.

Prior to adding them, our tank had the aforementioned pistol shrimp & Goby, a mated pair of Percula clowns, a Melanurus Wrasse, 4 Fire Fish (down from original 7...these 4 have lasted months now), 2 skunk cleaner shrimp, and 1 pretty red shrimp that we never see. It's a 112 gallon mixed reef tank (6 ft long) with a 30 gallon refugium.

Well, upon adding what in terms of size is a fish (the tang) at least triple the size of anything in the tank and one that is at least double (the trigger) - my whole happy community went into a panic....

The clowns, shrimp and the Wrasse quickly recovered and came back out of hiding (don't have a lot of rock yet but enough for them to hide/feel safe). The fire fish we had not seen until yesterday and only saw 2. We did catch a glimpse of a 3rd momentarily yesterday but he came peeking out of what WAS the burrow where the Goby and his shrimp had been hiding in...NOT a good place and the lil guy took back off and dived BACK into the burrow.

We have no idea if the pistol shrimp and/or Goby is still down in that burrow..there has been no active shoveling of sand nor any sighting of the Goby or the shrimp since Saturday late at night. We shined a light in the burrow and can't see anything.

Today 3 fire fish pop out of the other side of the tank and are now swimming along with the tang...like some sort of odd escort sometimes (keep your enemy close kind of thing? lol..) and stay out when the trigger passes them by.

I'm assuming we lost the 4th fire fish to the pistol shrimp for invading his burrow? I know people have talked about not seeing their shrimp/Goby combo for a while...I'm just wondering how long someone has gone and still had their shrimp/Goby pair found ALIVE in the tank? I still sometimes hear the sound the pistol shrimp makes but I cannot tell where the sound is coming from and when I look, I don't see any of the fish around the sand bed at the precise moment I turn my head.

Is this just one of those things I should leave alone? If so, is there a time when I should do anything..if there is anything I can do?:headwallblue:

 

[KarenLR75]

Sigh...the other obvious question I had was....I think I added these last 2 fish too soon for the shrimp/Goby pair...or would there have ever been a 'good time' to add the last 2 fish?

 

[ca1ore]

Panic is an occupational hazard of the novice reefer .....

Adding new fish is always traumatic, for the newcomers certainly, for the existing fish and for you. The good news is that thing usually calm down relatively quickly, though sometimes there are casualties. At this point patience is the key.

 

[JohnnyHildo]

if you're helicoptering around today take a flight over behind your tank and i bet you come across a firefish that decided living in a box of water wasn't the life for it. mandatory screen top fish imo.

 

[sde1500]

Multiple fire fish usually whittle themselves down in number on their own. They are also pretty timid. I agree with Johnny, take a look around the tank for fire fish jerky. Adding new fish will always stir things up. What time of day did you add them? I try when lights are out, or almost out. Fish aren't that smart. If they wake up the next morning and there are more fish, decent chance they don't notice. There will still be some aggression or timidity as a pecking order is established, but it isn't outright chaos as a big fish appears suddenly in broad daylight.

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

Welcome to the hobby. :lol:

I'm with Simon, things will eventually settle down. You may have some issues you need to deal with and/or livestock that's gone or not happy, but even when things are carefully planned out, that can still happen. I don't think you really did anything wrong, and there isn't really a good default waiting period before adding new fish in order to ensure compatibility.

Triggers can be aggressive predators, especially against small or helpless inverts, so it might be expected that your shrimp (and it's goby friend) are in hiding for a while. A pistol and goby pair are usually great at defending themselves to the point where there is no actual risk or aggression, but they're also often very flighty and will hide for weeks/months at a time, and/or quickly switch habitats when things catch them by surprise.

Bristletooth tangs are usually among the least aggressive and are good algae control mechanisms so you probably won't have any long term issues with him. The trigger may be borderline in terms of long term compatibility, but blue throats are among the least aggressive triggers so it will probably be fine.

And yes, get a screen top on there if you want to keep your fish in the tank. You have a few common jumpers, and you have some big slightly aggressive fish, which is a bad combo in terms of keeping your fish in the tank versus becoming snacks on the floor for your cat or dog.

 

[KarenLR75]

Panic is an occupational hazard of the novice reefer .....

ca1ore - yeah, I'm definitely new to reef tanks. We had a saltwater, fish-only tank for 5 yrs...oh...15+ years ago. We SO did not know what we were doing....my husband reminded me we had a 50 gallon, not a 75 gallon tank and we were so uninformed with saltwater (husband had done freshwater all his life). Despite our horrid, ignorant choices...doing well for many yrs. We had a mated pair of Sea Bay Clowns, a Maroon Clown and a Tomato Clown!! We had 2 or 3 diff anemones (ok so almost fish only tank), we had a Regal Tang & a Naso Tang, some mean little damsel fish, a mandarin (thank God he ate live brine) and an Antennata Lionfish! Talk about some predator aggressive type fish.

Ironically the downfall of our tank was not aggression and you probably figured it out, it was bio-load. We had WAY too many fish in a 50 gallon tank. How we had it last for so many years is beyond me but at the final tipping point when the last fish was added, one by one they all started to die...and they died quickly.

This was back in the days of us being young, with a new baby..and watching hundreds of dollars go down the drain but more importantly, watching all of our livestock pay for a foolish mistake.

Maybe that is why I'm more tense now even when adding fish is not completely new to me but I feel more like a novice with the way technology has changed, the attempt to do a reef tank for 1st time and wow, have fish prices gone up exponentially!!

 

[KarenLR75]

if you're helicoptering around today take a flight over behind your tank and i bet you come across a firefish that decided living in a box of water wasn't the life for it. mandatory screen top fish imo.

Hey Johnny...your comment made me laugh so I did go check around the tank and no fish jerky yet. We actually have experienced fish leaping out of tanks before so we have egg-crate on the overflow and when our hood is up, we watch for jumpers and walk around the aquarium when we are done.

There are some very small openings where the lights mount into the hood that we are going to be placing screen over as well.

 

[KarenLR75]

Multiple fire fish usually whittle themselves down in number on their own. They are also pretty timid. I agree with Johnny, take a look around the tank for fire fish jerky. Adding new fish will always stir things up. What time of day did you add them? I try when lights are out, or almost out. Fish aren't that smart. If they wake up the next morning and there are more fish, decent chance they don't notice. There will still be some aggression or timidity as a pecking order is established, but it isn't outright chaos as a big fish appears suddenly in broad daylight.

sde1500 - good point about adding when lights are out. We added the 2 new fish about 2 hrs before 'lights out'. If we go to add any more in the future, I'll try it when the lights are out instead. Totally makes sense to me.