Strange fish loss.
 

In the past few weeks I have lost three barnacle blennies and a Mandarin goby. I have no idea why. All other fish are doing well. It is a forty gallon display containing forty lbs of live rock, one clown fish, one cardinal, one yellow head jawfish, two urchins, two lps, and a cuc. All water parameters are fine and tested every other day. Help please.

How old is your setup? Perhaps they ran out of things to eat?

Setup is 4 months old and I feed them Mysis daily.

your gonna have to post more info theres not much to go off of but good water and feed daily that could mean anything....mandarins arnt to kow for eating mysis so i would think that one would have starved.


as for the blennies if youve lost three its safe to say there also probably not eating.



in order to get more advice your going to need to post:

full water parameters
flow
feedings
tank history
tank occupants
where did you buy the fish
what did you see before they died



basically it comes down to diet,disease,bullying, or water quality/stress

That may have something to do with it. blennys and dragonettes need an established setup usually over 6 months of age to build up a supply of copepods. . Which they were most likely eating in liu of misis .No copepods no copepod eating critters.

It's generally accepted that a minimum 50g mature tank is required for 1 mandarin. Generally. If it has to compete for food against anything else that eats pods in a 4 month old 40g, all pod eaters are going to starve. Mysis is probably too big for a mandarin.

agreed and its so hard to tell if mandie's are eating anyways.

without a mature sandbed and a whack load of pods its hard to do.... its a sad way to go:(

OK thanks guys I think it is a lack of food for the little guys. I do watch them eat the mysis though. I will lay off stocking for a while.

I thought my Hector's goby was eating cyclop-eze ...
I watched him with a pair of magnifyer glasses on and saw him spit it all out his gills .....

mandarins are such a nice colorful fish so most new people in the hobby want one...fact is they eat mostly live food and most die from starvation.


if you see a fish in the store you like google all you can before buying, will save you some bucks and stress in the end:)

good luck:)