This thread is tracking the journey of Bozy, the emaciated Blue Clown Goby that I picked up last weekend off FB marketplace. I was making a deal with a guy for a Seachem Tidal with a Rose BTA thrown in free. I noticed he was also trying to get rid of a Blue Damsel and Blue Clown Goby, so I said I'd take those too since I was interested in putting a Damsel in my frag tank.
Well, long story short, for $30 I ended up with the two fish, anemone, Tidal, and some more red algae (possibly red ogo, but I'm not sure it is). The Damsel turned out to be a Half Blue Damsel and I'm very happy with him. Relatively friendly and very cool looking. The anemone is small, but acclimated very well and yesterday got released from his breeder box to figure out where he wants to live in my rock. Hopefully he stays in the spot he's currently in, because it's almost perfect.
But that brings us to Boz. Boz is very emaciated. I subtly asked the guy what he's been feeding him, and he said mysis and flakes. From what I've seen so far, this fish won't eat any mysis, and obviously was not eating well.
He also won't eat small pellets, nor even Calanus. For all of them he sucks it in voraciously, and then spits it out eventually. It seems like he can't get it down. My understanding is some of these fish may just want to eat acropora polyps, but I think the fact that he's trying to eat the other stuff is a good sign.
Luckily I also have a bunch of decapsulated brine shrimp eggs frozen, and I gave that a try. He does eat those, and keeps most of them down.
So that's my current project fish. I'm not willing to put him in with acros and try and see if he'll devour those, but work from home does mean I can feed him many times a day a ton of decapsulated brine shrimp eggs. Luckily the tank he's in just has him and the damsel, and a bunch of rock, so I'm not concerned with water quality.
After a week he seems to be looking slightly better, but I'm assuming they overall chances of a full recovery are slim. I did however today get him to eat a selcon soaked mysis, which I think he kept mostly down. My going forward strategy will still be focused on getting him to eat as much decapsulated brine eggs as possible, and I'll keep testing a couple mysis.
I also considered pulling him and putting him in medication to make sure it's not an internal parasite, but I don't really have the space/equipment/time for that at that moment, and I feel stressing him more seems like a questionable idea.
I'm interested in any tips anyone has. I wouldn't normally have taken a fish in this condition, but I was willing to see what I could do given the price and given her was certainly going to die in his previous situation.
Low quality pic from a week later:
Well, long story short, for $30 I ended up with the two fish, anemone, Tidal, and some more red algae (possibly red ogo, but I'm not sure it is). The Damsel turned out to be a Half Blue Damsel and I'm very happy with him. Relatively friendly and very cool looking. The anemone is small, but acclimated very well and yesterday got released from his breeder box to figure out where he wants to live in my rock. Hopefully he stays in the spot he's currently in, because it's almost perfect.
But that brings us to Boz. Boz is very emaciated. I subtly asked the guy what he's been feeding him, and he said mysis and flakes. From what I've seen so far, this fish won't eat any mysis, and obviously was not eating well.
He also won't eat small pellets, nor even Calanus. For all of them he sucks it in voraciously, and then spits it out eventually. It seems like he can't get it down. My understanding is some of these fish may just want to eat acropora polyps, but I think the fact that he's trying to eat the other stuff is a good sign.
Luckily I also have a bunch of decapsulated brine shrimp eggs frozen, and I gave that a try. He does eat those, and keeps most of them down.
So that's my current project fish. I'm not willing to put him in with acros and try and see if he'll devour those, but work from home does mean I can feed him many times a day a ton of decapsulated brine shrimp eggs. Luckily the tank he's in just has him and the damsel, and a bunch of rock, so I'm not concerned with water quality.
After a week he seems to be looking slightly better, but I'm assuming they overall chances of a full recovery are slim. I did however today get him to eat a selcon soaked mysis, which I think he kept mostly down. My going forward strategy will still be focused on getting him to eat as much decapsulated brine eggs as possible, and I'll keep testing a couple mysis.
I also considered pulling him and putting him in medication to make sure it's not an internal parasite, but I don't really have the space/equipment/time for that at that moment, and I feel stressing him more seems like a questionable idea.
I'm interested in any tips anyone has. I wouldn't normally have taken a fish in this condition, but I was willing to see what I could do given the price and given her was certainly going to die in his previous situation.
Low quality pic from a week later: