Hi y'all. I don't know how you got into reef keeping, but I assume you had someone to help along the way. I don't know what the heck I'm doing, and I wonder if I shouldn't quit because it makes me cry when a fish dies.
Got an 8 gallon tank as an Xmas present. Please don't get me started on how that is awfully small for newbie tank, I am not in love with my LFS. Let it cycle with some live rock & sand. Even threw a deli shrimp in there. Never got a large spike in any ammonia, nitrite or nitrate. Added a tiger pistol shrimp & a wheeler's goby on Feb 14, almost 2 months later. I haven't seen nor heard hide nor hair of the **** shrimp since about Feb 18. But all my tank specs have stayed at 0, or very nearly 0, so I figure he must be alive under the live rock.
I think on about March 14, the goby committed suicide. I don't even know how it could have gotten out of the tank as the cover was on. It had to have made a perfect leap between the tank and the edge of the cover. I don't know why he was so unhappy, it makes me sad that he would do that. Like I didn't take good enough care of him. But I don't know what I did or did not do wrong. Tank specs were 0's.
This past Friday, I added a new wheeler's goby & a purple firefish. At first the goby seemed very happy, hanging out & checking out his new digs, while the firefish hid. After about a day, the firefish came out, and then it seemed the goby got shy about eating. They looked like they were hanging out chatting by the rock, but when it was feeding time, the firefish was darting about gobbling all the food, while the goby just sat there. So strange. He would usually manage to grab one big shrimp, but that's it - one gulp. (I have some kind of mix of brine, mysid and pink shrimp, and they are different sizes. So when I say he got a "big" shrimp, it is the biggest of those three.)
I was hoping the goby would get into his own routine, or maybe find his own area of the tank where he would eat, but today I came home and he was dead, just lying at the bottom in a corner of the tank. (I thought fish floated when there were dead? But he was at the bottom, not responding, not moving.) I did test the water before I added the fish (all 0's), and then again just now (ammonia & nitrite are 0, nitrate about 10), but I didn't take any measures in between. And I don't know why my gobies keep dying! (The firefish seems very happy.)
Any thoughts about the gobies? And should I rip apart the tank to find the pistol shrimp? Maybe he is dead and creating some kind of toxic ammonia bubble that is causing the gobies to either commit suicide or crawl into a corner and die? Or is this a sign that I am a terrible fishkeeper who should not be allowed to handle any more living creatures because I wreak slaughter upon them?
Everything else I can think of: salinity fairly constant at 1.235, but I don't have a refractometer, and the salinity does seem to vary just from evaporation. I manually add RO once or twice a day. I have a digital thermometer, and the temp seems to fluctuate between 77 and 80. Is that normal, or do you think I need to replace/supplement the thermometer or heater? I have one red-legged hermit crab who seems happy in his fourth shell, and an emerald crab who is not eating the green bubble algae like he was intended. So I do have a burgeoning bubble algae issue.
I have a couple of vermetid snails I can't get to, but the rest I have killed, I think. That was a little while ago, I think before I even got any fish. And I have a lot small white dots forming on the back of the tank, and a few on the live rock. I don't know what those are.
Got an 8 gallon tank as an Xmas present. Please don't get me started on how that is awfully small for newbie tank, I am not in love with my LFS. Let it cycle with some live rock & sand. Even threw a deli shrimp in there. Never got a large spike in any ammonia, nitrite or nitrate. Added a tiger pistol shrimp & a wheeler's goby on Feb 14, almost 2 months later. I haven't seen nor heard hide nor hair of the **** shrimp since about Feb 18. But all my tank specs have stayed at 0, or very nearly 0, so I figure he must be alive under the live rock.
I think on about March 14, the goby committed suicide. I don't even know how it could have gotten out of the tank as the cover was on. It had to have made a perfect leap between the tank and the edge of the cover. I don't know why he was so unhappy, it makes me sad that he would do that. Like I didn't take good enough care of him. But I don't know what I did or did not do wrong. Tank specs were 0's.
This past Friday, I added a new wheeler's goby & a purple firefish. At first the goby seemed very happy, hanging out & checking out his new digs, while the firefish hid. After about a day, the firefish came out, and then it seemed the goby got shy about eating. They looked like they were hanging out chatting by the rock, but when it was feeding time, the firefish was darting about gobbling all the food, while the goby just sat there. So strange. He would usually manage to grab one big shrimp, but that's it - one gulp. (I have some kind of mix of brine, mysid and pink shrimp, and they are different sizes. So when I say he got a "big" shrimp, it is the biggest of those three.)
I was hoping the goby would get into his own routine, or maybe find his own area of the tank where he would eat, but today I came home and he was dead, just lying at the bottom in a corner of the tank. (I thought fish floated when there were dead? But he was at the bottom, not responding, not moving.) I did test the water before I added the fish (all 0's), and then again just now (ammonia & nitrite are 0, nitrate about 10), but I didn't take any measures in between. And I don't know why my gobies keep dying! (The firefish seems very happy.)
Any thoughts about the gobies? And should I rip apart the tank to find the pistol shrimp? Maybe he is dead and creating some kind of toxic ammonia bubble that is causing the gobies to either commit suicide or crawl into a corner and die? Or is this a sign that I am a terrible fishkeeper who should not be allowed to handle any more living creatures because I wreak slaughter upon them?
Everything else I can think of: salinity fairly constant at 1.235, but I don't have a refractometer, and the salinity does seem to vary just from evaporation. I manually add RO once or twice a day. I have a digital thermometer, and the temp seems to fluctuate between 77 and 80. Is that normal, or do you think I need to replace/supplement the thermometer or heater? I have one red-legged hermit crab who seems happy in his fourth shell, and an emerald crab who is not eating the green bubble algae like he was intended. So I do have a burgeoning bubble algae issue.
I have a couple of vermetid snails I can't get to, but the rest I have killed, I think. That was a little while ago, I think before I even got any fish. And I have a lot small white dots forming on the back of the tank, and a few on the live rock. I don't know what those are.
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