Is my fish ok??

[dangerfish]

So I got a scribbled rabbitfish from my LFS today, he's relatively small. I know I took a risk because they just got their shipment in today and I took him directly from his shipped bag. But after I got him acclimated he went straight towards that corner of the tank and he is now sitting in between the overflow and the return. I tried to entice him out with food and I have some nori out to also bring him out. But he's been sitting there for two hours now. I don't really want to force him out because I feel like that's just going to add more stress. Is there anything I could do to make him less stressed and have him come out from his corner. I just don't want him to die.

 

[jay0705]

Turn lights off and wait and see tomm

 

[dangerfish]

Looks like as soon as I was done writing this post he decided to come out, now he's just battling his reflection.

 

[Jesterrace]

With rabbitfish, it's generally easy to tell since they tend to turn black when really stressed out and so I would keep a close eye on it's color.

 

[dangerfish]

So I’ve waited for almost a week now and he’s gone back to just hiding by the power heads. His spines are almost always up and I’ve only seen him a few times where’s he’s not darkly spotted, he’s also breathing very heavy. He’s still feeding fine, I always keep nori in their for him to munch on he eats everything I put in their within the day, I also feed some flake food every day when I get home from school (sometimes also pellet food) he likes both of those. And then we feed mysis shrimp soaked in selcon every other day. I’m pretty sure he came straight from the ocean because I got him straight from a shipment so maybe he’s just acclimateing to this.

 

[jay0705]

I've had 2 rabbits, one would eat out of my hand. The other would hide if i passed a few ft from the tank. There a great fish but being spooky does seem to be an issue

 

[geridoc]

So I’ve waited for almost a week now and he’s gone back to just hiding by the power heads. His spines are almost always up and I’ve only seen him a few times where’s he’s not darkly spotted, he’s also breathing very heavy. He’s still feeding fine, I always keep nori in their for him to munch on he eats everything I put in their within the day, I also feed some flake food every day when I get home from school (sometimes also pellet food) he likes both of those. And then we feed mysis shrimp soaked in selcon every other day. I’m pretty sure he came straight from the ocean because I got him straight from a shipment so maybe he’s just acclimateing to this.

Don't think that because the fish came straight from a shipment that it came straight from the ocean. The fish has been in holding tanks, possibly for weeks, then shipped to a broker's tanks, then to a wholesaler's tanks, so it has been around quite a bit and is probably stressed. time will tell.

 

[dangerfish]

Ok I’ll just give him time, he’s starting to become a little less shy when I add food, so we’ll see where that takes us

 

[beth]

It doesn't look like you did any quarantine. Take a magnifying glass and look at him very closely for signs of disease. White spots, red around the gills, missing scales, worn fins, etc. If he is always breathing heavy then there is likely some problem going on.

What about aggression? Notice other fish harassing? This can be hard to detect. You have to observe closely, but also unobtrusively.

What is the size of your tank and the size of the fish?

 

[dangerfish]

Yeah I moved my tank and completely started over so I don’t have a quarantine setup at all so I’ll look closer at him when I’m given the chance. No other fish are bothering him, he’s the top dog in the tank they seem to be all scared of him they always move when he comes around even though he never even bothers with them. He’s about 4 inches in a 90 gallon tank so he’ll eventually have to move to a 120 or larger

 

[Evelin Garcia]

What is the size of your tank and what are your water parameters? Are there any aggressive fish in there with him? I always asked to at least see the fish eat before taking them from the store.