First introduction accident! Damaged Red Firefish Goby :(

[ACSB's tank]

I'd like to start off by saying: Hello! This account was made for me and my girlfriend to seek guidance as we begin the aquarium hobby. We are both really excited about it and looking forward to becoming experienced Aquarists ourselves one day. Pictures coming soon!

Today we added our first round of livestock to our 20 gallon tank that has been cycling for about 3 1/2 weeks now. Everything was going great during the acclimation process and we successfully added 3 Nerite snails, 3 Cerith snails, 1 Nassarius snail, 1 red hermit crab and 1 4-stripe Damsel fish to the tank. When we went to add the last member to the tank, the Red Firefish Goby, it spazzed out in the net during the short window of time where we were transferring it from the acclimation water bucket to the aquarium tank and appeared to have damaged it's dorsal fin. There seems to be a snap and the dorsal fin is now bent to the left about half-way up. I looked around a bit and it seems that the most similar problem to this that people have is other fish biting off sections of their firefish's dorsal and it growing back.

My question is: Since the dorsal is still intact but just bent, will it heal and become upright and move nicely again with the current tissue OR is it one of those cases where it heals better if it's forced to grow back like when other fish tear it off.

Thanks,

ACSB

PS: Any off-topic suggestions will be well-received if you have any insight on my current tank specs and how to improve it!

 

[lmforbis]

The fire fish should be fine. I have heard there are nets where this is less of an issue. I never use a net so I can't say they really work. Just a warning though, the damsel could get aggressive. Keep an eye on your ammonia levels. Usually we'd recommend adding fish one at a time especially in a small tank to allow the bacteria to catch up to the bio load. The order of addition is usually least aggressive to most aggressive,

 

[ACSB's tank]

Thanks for the reply! It's a great relief knowing the fire fish will return to normal. I really hope I didn't mess up the introduction too badly, will the Damsel be even more likely to be aggressive since the fire fish is injured? The fire fish has been hiding under rock ever since the incident while the Damsel remains active.

 

[lmforbis]

Fire fish are a bit shy. It can be a while before it comes out. If the damsel becomes a problem you may end up having to pull him out.

 

[jay0705]

Fire fish are skittish by nature, hiding is normal. The aggression tho could be an issue. Damsels can get nasty. My yellow tail is a nice fish w no issues, but its housed w a maroon clown and dwarf lion lol

 

[flower]

Thanks for the reply! It's a great relief knowing the fire fish will return to normal. I really hope I didn't mess up the introduction too badly, will the Damsel be even more likely to be aggressive since the fire fish is injured? The fire fish has been hiding under rock ever since the incident while the Damsel remains active.

Hi, Welcome to the site!!

Damsels are very evil little pretty fish. They are cheap for a reason, they kill any fish less timid than themselves, including each other... The firefish doesn't stand a chance in a tank with it...even perfectly healthy. Firefish are very shy and timid, and they are jumpers. You may want to cover your tank with mesh to keep it from committing sushi.

With saltwater, the fish you add will dictate what can be added later, so you really have to do your homework and study up on a fish before purchase to make sure it's compatible with everything else already in the tank, and anything you may want later.

Also you should have a quarantine tank set up and cycled, it will help you regulate how fast you add new fish, and keep your tank free from parasites. If the ich parasite shows up, you have to leave your tank empty of fish for 8 weeks so the parasite dies off without a host.

 

[ACSB's tank]

Hey, thank you all so much for the advice. I'm definitely going to keep an eye on the Damsel and Fire fish interactions. The fire fish finally came out of it's hole and it's very slowly checking the place out. Now that he's out, I've noticed even more damage... Not only is the dorsal fin bent, I believe a section of his tail is also missing. How long does it typically take a healthy fish to fully recover from an injury like this? The Damsel seems to be reacting no differently to the environment now that the fire fish is out and they both are eating very well.

 

[bang guy]

A healthy unstressed fish can regenerate part of a tail in only a day or two. It's going to be longer for a newly introduced fish due to the stress level. I'd say it will still be less than a week.

The bent dorsal might take longer or it might heal bent. I'm not a fan, but if it heals up bent then it is possible to snip it off and then it will grow back straight.

 

[jay0705]

I have a pseudo that after a yr started beating my fire fish up. Lots of tail damage. Put the fire in my big tank, 3 days later tail was almost perfect again

 

[ACSB's tank]

A healthy unstressed fish can regenerate part of a tail in only a day or two. It's going to be longer for a newly introduced fish due to the stress level. I'd say it will still be less than a week.

The bent dorsal might take longer or it might heal bent. I'm not a fan, but if it heals up bent then it is possible to snip it off and then it will grow back straight.

Thanks a bunch!!! We're definitely going to let the dorsal fin heal naturally, we don't mind a little quirkiness as long as it functions and twitches similarly to before.

 

[ACSB's tank]

I have a pseudo that after a yr started beating my fire fish up. Lots of tail damage. Put the fire in my big tank, 3 days later tail was almost perfect again

Thanks, That's a such a relief to hear!

 

[ACSB's tank]

Here's a small video update: http://tinypic.com/player.php?v=2mpznlx>&s=9#.VpM3TPkrLGI

We decided to take the Damsel out about a day and a half after the incident because he was just being too aggressive once he claimed a section of the tank and we really want the firefish to feel comfortable so he has a speedy recovery. We ended up getting 3 blue/green chromis to replace the Damsel. While at the store we also decided to expand on the clean-up crew a bit.

This is everything in the tank now:
-1 firefish goby
-3 blue/green chromis
-1 scarlet skunk cleaner shrimo
-3 cerith snails
-3 nerite snails
-1 nassarius snail
-3 white whelk snails
-1 bumblebee snail
-2 hermit crabs, 1 red leg, 1 blue leg
-1 mexican turbo snail
-1 astrea snail

 

[ACSB's tank]

What a roller-coaster of emotions. Shortly after the post above, I discovered a Feather Duster! that must have hitchhiked on my live rock and that was very exciting so I spent about another hour or so eyeing my tank and looking around when disaster struck! My 3 new chromis have ich! At first, sometime during the liverock inspecting, I noticed that all 3 chromis had 1 or 2 white spots on their tails or body. I immediately freaked out and tried to get these guys out but as a novice, I obviously had 0 success. During my failures I had noticed that the white spots fell off, so I figured that maybe it wasn't ich after all. But, upon further inspection I noticed that exactly where the original white spots were, there were now fainter and cloudier spots so now I'm really worried it's Ich.

I was really hoping someone could give me some advice on how to act on this. All the livestock I own in the tank is listed in the post above (+1 feather duster) and I know the very first signs of this must have happened no more than 5 hours ago. I feel like I caught it early enough to prevent any harm in my tank but only if I act appropriately and soon. I got the day off work to deal with this so please give me your insight as soon as you can because I'm heading to the store as soon as it opens.

 

[jay0705]

This unfortunately is why u must qt all new fish. Your problem now is all ich cures will also kill all your inverts. Your only real option is to set up a qt tank. Then treat your fish in that. Ich is rampant this time of yr, I believe bc fish are stressed even more from winter temps and shipping

 

[ACSB's tank]

There no longer appears to be any signs of the white spots and I really don't think that it would be the parasite already moving onto the protomont stage. Like I said, I noticed/kinda witnessed the time frame of when the original 1-2 spots appeared and when they fell off and left a cloudy mark. Now they've disappeared completely and this ALL happened within 8-10 hours. Even though the spots were gone, I went to my LFS and picked up some MEDIC by PolypLab. Once I came home I did a 25% water change and applied the MEDIC. Everyone in the tank still seems happy and I've got a QT getting setup but hopefully wont have to use it until I introduce new stuff down the road.

 

[jay0705]

Most reef safe meds just don't work. If its ich it will return. Cooper and hyposalinity are the only two ways to really treat ich. Hopefully it wasn't tho.

 

[ACSB's tank]

Most reef safe meds just don't work. If its ich it will return. Cooper and hyposalinity are the only two ways to really treat ich. Hopefully it wasn't tho.

I think the MEDIC is just for immune booster so I'm really hoping it wont harm my live rock. Either way, I'm just applying the daily dose only once a week at every water change unless I notice something more worrying. Probably will stop after about month and just use it in QT with new introductions. All the fish seem fine and the shrimp is super happy, climbed on my hand and cleaned it while I was saving a snail last night.

 

[jay0705]

Good good. Shrimp feel weird dont they lol