High Tide Aquatics

Help: Why did 2 new bicolor blennys die in a row while my six line wrasse is doing well?

rdriggett

rdriggett

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Hi all!

So I helped my friend purchase a bicolor blenny, skunk cleaner shrimp and 6 line last Wednesday from Harrys marine life in LA. Float and cup acclimated them. 6 line is doing well and eating and so is the shrimp. I found the bicolor dead the next day. I replaced him with another bicolor on Friday from Violet LFS and he passed the next day too. The rest of my tank is doing fine.
What’s going on? He added turbo start day last wends and doses prime daily.

Tank: 29G with Fiji cube AIO: filter floss, carbon, BioHome Ultimate.

Here's a terrible photo of my friend's setup. Yes it's in a utility closet. His egg crate and rocks haven't arrived yet so please excuse the solo cup habitats. (It's authentic to our current ocean)
 

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Well I'd say the elephant in the room could be the six-line wrasse... but unless you observe how the blenny died I wouldn't necessarily jump to conclusions. But sometimes fish die, quite often in fact, and sometimes its not due to the person who bought it but that fish was living on borrowed time. Basically what I'm saying is there isn't nearly enough information to come to a conclusion.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Well I'd say the elephant in the room could be the six-line wrasse... but unless you observe how the blenny died I wouldn't necessarily jump to conclusions. But sometimes fish die, quite often in fact, and sometimes its not due to the person who bought it but that fish was living on borrowed time. Basically what I'm saying is there isn't nearly enough information to come to a conclusion.
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replied like a pro.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Well I'd say the elephant in the room could be the six-line wrasse... but unless you observe how the blenny died I wouldn't necessarily jump to conclusions. But sometimes fish die, quite often in fact, and sometimes its not due to the person who bought it but that fish was living on borrowed time. Basically what I'm saying is there isn't nearly enough information to come to a conclusion.
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I unfortunately did not observe how he died. So he could have been double unlucky?

svreef said:
Six lines can make it very difficult to add fish. They should be the last to be added - definitely not the first
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The Blenny was added 15 minutes before the six line and they seemed to stay away from each other when observed. Although who knows...
phc567 said:
Fight club

Rule #1 Buy other peoples fish that they had for a long time.
Rule #2 your gonna pay to learn unless you don’t follow rule #1.

But honestly. The best fish are from someone else. Ask any old salt.
It’s like playing Russian roulette buying from the fish store.
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Do people sell their lower end fish to each other on BAR? I'm open to buying a Blenny from a club member.
Kensington Reefer said:
Order of entry is key
And add as many fish as you can at the same time
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They were added at nearly the same time.
 
The order of adding fish that people are referring to is the order to add to the tank where they will eventually live out their life, not the order added to the quarantine tank. Idea is to give less aggressive fish a chance to establish themselves before adding the aggressive fish months later. Sometimes when the aggressive fish is added early he just beats the crap out of the new less aggressive fish added later. So when people see a 6-line being added in the first batch of fish they worry for the long term health of the other fish being added later.

Having a blenny and a 6-line both in quarantine together definitely could result in the 6-line killing the blenny, and the next blenny too. People are trying to point out that this is a possible explanation of your experience. We don’t actually know, but it is possible.
 
So far, my livestock has fared well from aquatic collection. I like to stick to one LFS if I find that the livestock works for me. I am sure that the others are just as good. Never had to quarantine or any such thing.

The only problem I had was with my clownfish (from Aquatic collection). They probably had some parasite when i first put them in a new tank. That could have been from stress. So, hard to tell. We medicated them, and they recovered though and are doing very well.

Of course, you can buy livestock from BAR too..which I have done as well.
 
JVU said:
The order of adding fish that people are referring to is the order to add to the tank where they will eventually live out their life, not the order added to the quarantine tank. Idea is to give less aggressive fish a chance to establish themselves before adding the aggressive fish months later. Sometimes when the aggressive fish is added early he just beats the crap out of the new less aggressive fish added later. So when people see a 6-line being added in the first batch of fish they worry for the long term health of the other fish being added later.

Having a blenny and a 6-line both in quarantine together definitely could result in the 6-line killing the blenny, and the next blenny too. People are trying to point out that this is a possible explanation of your experience. We don’t actually know, but it is possible.
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Thank you for the clarification! This is the tank that they will live our their lives in, it just doesn't have any frag racks or rocks yet as they're in transit. I will go ahead and skip any fish until his cycle is complete just in case.
Can I take the six line and put him in a breeder box inside the tank when a Blenny is added in the future to reset territories?
 
Cycle not complete?
If the tank is not fully cycled, that could easily be the problem, not the six-line.
You really should look up fishless tank cycling. Not only is it nicer on the fish, it is actually easier to control and more reliable.
Consider adding bacteria to tank.
 
rygh said:
Cycle not complete?
If the tank is not fully cycled, that could easily be the problem, not the six-line.
You really should look up fishless tank cycling. Not only is it nicer on the fish, it is actually easier to control and more reliable.
Consider adding bacteria to tank.
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Fritz Turbo start 4oz was added to the 29G tank day 1 when the fish were added. Seachem Prime 2.5ML has been dosed daily to control ammonia toxicity. I plan to fishless cycle my own tank.
 
Hard to say then.
Even with the prime, there is still a huge difference between that and a fully cycled stable tank.

You really need some live rock in that tank.
Partly for the surface area, to give bacteria a place to grow.
But almost as much for the fish, to give them a good place to hide.
Of course, that rock will have nutrients in it, and cycle also.
 
rygh said:
Hard to say then.
Even with the prime, there is still a huge difference between that and a fully cycled stable tank.

You really need some live rock in that tank.
Partly for the surface area, to give bacteria a place to grow.
But almost as much for the fish, to give them a good place to hide.
Of course, that rock will have nutrients in it, and cycle also.
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I stuffed his AIO chamber full of BioHome Ultimate to compensate for less rock in the system. It's got 20lbs of Fiji pink sand also. I'll get some rock in there this weekend when ups decides to drop it off.
I'm not anti rock in any way, I just had him order it too late.
 
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