Matt LeBaron

I have a Reef Angel that I use to control it, bit cheaper than some of the other controllers out there if you're willing to work a little bit more for it.

For me great success in the hobby is surpassing an acknowledged "norm". My one achievement in the hobby that I would term a "Great Success" was with my first saltwater fish, a Firefish named Vince. That little guy lived over 7 years, everything I read online and in print says they like 3-4 at the high end. So Vince is for me a great success, whether I can repeat that, well I'll let you know, his successor, Star Moon (my at the time 2 year old named it) is coming up to the completion of its 3rd year this summer in July, so hopefully little Star Moon still has several years left in them. Honestly though I couldn't really tell you how I did it beyond the fact that my Firefish have always eaten the same diet as my seahorses, PE Mysis with the occasional addition if Selcon, so maybe that's it but while most of my vertebrate live stock generally live good long lives nothing else has gone and lived double their expected live span like Vince did yet. Although my one remaining Pajama Cardinal fish is going on 7 years now I think, his two other buddies passed away last year at around 6, which good but not great.

Another recommendation for the BRS dosers, I've had mine for something like 6-7+ years now and they still work like champs. I check their output every 1-2 years to make sure they're still putting out the 1.1ml they are supposed to and it looks like they still are.

No signs of breathing issues, no swimming into power heads or acting like he's not able to get enough oxygen, just extreme lethargy and no appetite, which are two extremely off behaviors for wrasses. Fresh water dip is a good idea and no harm in a copper treatment so I'll try those I guess for lack of any better ideas. Going to try and get him to eat some Selco soaked food tonight also.

So I noticed yesterday that my Fairy Wrasse was hanging out at the bottom of the tank in a really lethargic fashion, which is very odd for him as he is normally the most active member of my tank and comes to nip at my fingers if I am working in the tank hoping for food. He would move if I poked at him but just enough to move to a new spot and settle down to rest on the bottom of the tank again. Got the hospital tank setup this afternoon and moved him over to it. He's definitely sick, there is no way I could have caught him otherwise. I'm not sure what is wrong with him, no fin damage, no obvious lesions, no ich spots, no bloating. Just some slight discoloration of some of his skin. I have attached a photo because I don't recognize the discoloration as any disease I am familiar with. Unless someone can point me to something it could be I think I'll just treat with a general antibiotic, feed him really well, and hope for the best. Of course it's been so long since I had a sick fish all of my medication is expired but figured I would post here first before heading out to pick something up. Hoping for some help here because I'm not sure what I'm looking at.

Is it like the stuff in this thread? Link I have some of it in my tank, it's a hold over from the live rock I got when I first entered the hobby over 10 years and 4 tanks ago. Never gotten rid of it but Turbo Snails do eat it as the thread outlines and when I got my One Spot Fox face a couple of months ago he basically eradicated any of it that was left in my DT. (Still a bunch in my fuge) It never got to plague proportions in my tank and it's fairly easy to just pull out but if you want it gone a Fox Face will take care of keeping it under control. Totally getting rid of it will require starting a brand new tank in my opinion, the stuff is impressive in its ability to survive.

While a few people have had luck keeping firefish together (large tanks or one person that has 6+ of them that all got along for some reason) they are generally very territorial towards other firefish. If you have a large tank 70g+ you may be able to have two if they setup shop at opposite ends of the tank but even that is iffy. Upside is that other than other firefish they are super unaggressive towards everything else. I would let the injured one heal up a bit and then find it a new home.

If you've ever seen the "filter" systems that the Petco's use you wouldn't say that. Seriously though not sure why there's all the no QT hate, the whole QT thing is a relatively new occurance in the hobby as far as I can tell and while I like it I also have a QT tank and a full fish medicine cabinet so for me (and many others I would imagine) the QT is just extra cost for no gain. I don't trust anyone but myself to do QT so I'm going to QT the already QT'ed fish when it gets home anyhow. Stores that QT provide us hobbyist options, which is good but it's not like stores that don't QT are bad or something like that. Understand what you are purchasing and act accordingly.

The number of reefers in Howard county slowly increases. Welcome back.

Yeah sorry to hear about this but I really think Live Aquaria needs to stop selling these guys unless they are willing to release how they care for them because they can obviously do it well enough to breed a lot of them but no one seems to be able to take care of them for any length of time.

Yep same with me, I lost 3-4 that I just never found any evidence of but they're so small that my clean up crew likely "cleaned" them up.

Oh yeah for sure, seahorses are so mellow they're easy to take care of in instances like this. From tank to a bag, off to the vet, and then into the hospital tank for treatment for a week. He went through it like a champ and ended up being by far my longest lived seahorse at very close to 7 years old when he finally passed.

Glad they are doing so well! Great job, keep us updated.

Diamox is probably what you need. (I would try a pouch evacuation first to make sure it isn't a case of rotting eggs or something, you can find directions for that on seahorse.org) I had to go looking for my old post on seahorse.org back in 2010 when one of my seahorses had external gas bubble disease. I actually took him to Feathers, Scales, and Tails Veterinary Hospital in Westminster and saw Dr. Heather Bowles. She wrote up a prescription for diamox in liquid form that was even shrimp flavored. I soaked and injected the diamox (into the large PE mysis) and my seahorse Stevie was back to normal in about a week. A couple of other people in the thread I started back then made the suggestion of calling a vet, some of them said that their vet just called in a prescription for them over the phone. I had to actually take Stevie in, he was a hit in the waiting room; as I by far had the most exotic pet there.

They might just not be experienced enough yet to care for the eggs properly. Happens fairly often with younger fish, there is a bit of a learning curve for them in general. My seahorses spent almost two months messing up their egg transfers before they finally got it figured out.

They're mouth brooders like many Cardinals are but there is virtually no information about breeding them other than Live Aquaria has done it. You're best bet is to likely try and follow instructions for other type of mouth brooding cardinals.

That is something else that DD probably has a good idea on but they may be the only ones able to do a long term study on them in captivity to have an idea about their life span. So who wants to do a black ops ****** and grab on the DD offices to get all of this information?

When information about a species is so hard to find online it's usually because they are dying in our tanks. DD is obviously still breeding them if they are still offering them that often but no one is able to take care of them properly if over the past 4 years there has been virtually no further information about them. I know DD is in a tough position on this one, if they release too much information they risk other breeders cutting into their profits but I REALLY wish they would release at least a little bit of information on caring for them. I think that the Red Spot Cardinals are probably easy to get to breed, when I had them there were two times where I had one carrying eggs and since I eventually lost all of mine they were obviously not thriving. Like I said, really a shame, they're awesome fish I just think that it is a death sentence for them if you purchase them currently. Unless you plan on making a heroic attempt to keep them healthy and thriving it would be best to let DD keep them.

Let us know how it goes for you. The longest I was able to keep any of these guys alive was about a year but it was a slow decline in numbers over that time. I'd love for there to be more information about caring for these, as I really love how they look and act. If I was confident I knew how to take care of these guys I would buy more in a hot second. Is there any more information about them out there on the web than there was back in 2013? Back then the mention that Divers Den was able to breed and raise them using a very intensive feeding regime was literally about all there was information wise about these guys. Has anything new come up since then?

The few times that I have had to, freezing was always the way that I ended fish suffering. I'm with you Paul, I think it is the most humane way you can go about it. Your post also just made me realize that my Pajama Cardinals may be over 5 years old now. When I get home I'll have to sort through my old pictures to see when I got them but I lost one late last year for unknown reasons and I hadn't even considered old age. I'm going to miss the ugly little guys if they're getting near the end of their lives.

I used it years ago and ended up having to take my male seahorse to the vet to get some diamox for gas bubble disease. Having said that, if you don't have seahorses everything I have heard says that it is safe to use.

Congratulations!

It may appear that only the top is moving but odds are good it is all moving around. Observe it wit the flow on and then turn he flow off, the GFO will likely settle much lower than when you had he flow going. It is very hard to see movement other than at the top but it should all be moving.

I would love something like this. I've never had an issue with the Palys I have but better safe than sorry.

I sometimes remove the water for water changes from my DT rather than my sump and my acros that he exposed to air for 5-10 minutes never have any ill affects. They do generate the slim but I just let my power heads eventually blow it all off and nothing is worse for wear from it.